


Worth the Risk

by HeadintheCloudsForever



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, Injury Recovery, Love, Near Death Experiences, Obsession, Sex, Swearing, Threats of Violence, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 116
Words: 730,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadintheCloudsForever/pseuds/HeadintheCloudsForever
Summary: AU. Odyssey-length long fic.  Tonks/Remus. Following an Order mission gone horribly wrong that results in Tonks becoming gravely wounded, she meets Remus Lupin when he and Moody rescue her, and Dumbledore assigns Lupin as her new partner for the year, and during the painful time of healing as the young witch recovers from her injuries, she slowly begins to warm up to the man and falls in love with him. Remadora.Rated T for Teens.
Relationships: Bartemius Crouch Jr. & Alice Longbottom, Bartemius Crouch Jr./Alice Longbottom, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 150
Kudos: 68





	1. The Disagreement

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello everyone and welcome back to my 2nd Remadora HP story for the fandom, Worth the Risk. Set in an AU, and hopefully, my two favorite characters will have a happier ending this time around, as I really enjoyed writing for them the first time and wanted to do a new story.

**A/N:** **Hello everyone and welcome back to my 2nd Remadora HP story for the fandom, Worth the Risk. Set in an AU, and hopefully, my two favorite characters will have a happier ending this time around, as I really enjoyed writing for them the first time and wanted to do a new story.  
**

**Worth the Risk Summary:** **Following an Order mission gone horribly wrong that results in Tonks becoming gravely wounded, Tonks meets Lupin in St. Mungo's and Dumbledore assigns Lupin as her new partner for a year, and during the painful time of healing as the young witch recovers from her injuries, she slowly begins to warm up to the man and falls in love with him. Broken Hearts have a way of finding each other when needed the most. Rated T for Teens.**

**I hope that you enjoy it!**

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

It was raining perhaps a little harder than usual. The thunder seemed to crack the air as if the sky itself was getting ready to split apart, and a cloaked figure materialized out of thin air with a loud, resounding crack! That to the unassuming passerby, particularly the non-magical folk, the Muggles, would have assumed that someone's car had backfired, and didn't bother looking twice for the source of the noise, though if you were to look carefully enough, perhaps out your window, you would have seen a shrouded figure, under the guise of a thick black cloak, the hood pulled over the imposing man's face to conceal his features.

The cloaked man looked towards the charcoal sky, at the black and purple rolling thunderclouds that loomed over the city of London, England. Then he heard it, like a negative reflection of a pair of church bells pealing in the distance.

The thunder rolled across the malevolent sky. The untamed power reverberated and echoed across the green landscape. The person didn't even blink as another figure materialized out of thin air in the same fashion as he had just arrived.

"You're _late_ ," he barked, the edges of his flat, listless voice as equally monotone as the expression on the sallow man's face, towards the newest arrival.

He looked at the new arrival just then, the man's black eyes drilling into the second person's, and though the person still wore their hood up over their overly large hood, rendering it almost impossible for any details of their face to be made out of, he could almost imagine his companion scrunching their nose.

"Sorry," the second figure retorted hotly, in a tone that suggested the person wasn't sorry at all, her quiet tone dripping with sarcasm, a woman's voice, her voice quiet, shy, and more reserved than most he was used to dealing with, and the shorter, more petite figure quickly lowered the hood of her coat, ignoring the taller, dark-haired man's look of revulsion as he surveyed the woman in her Muggle attire. " _What_?" the woman snapped lowly, lowering the hood of her jacket, and stowing her wand in its thigh holster she wore strapped to her thigh.

"Why are you dressed like _that_? You'll stick out like a sore thumb. Clearly, you value the attention more so than the success of our current mission," the man snarled, his black eyes boring straight into the woman's inquisitive and bright gray eyes, and the woman, not older than twenty-four, couldn't help but think for a moment that, she'd never seen such dark eyes with so much light in them.

The witch with the pink pixie cut that suited the young woman's pale, heart-shaped face caught sight of her reflection in a nearby boutique Muggle shop window and blanched, shifting her little black purse to her other arm. Tonks bit down on the inside wall of her cheek hard enough that copper and iron welled on her tongue, and she knew she'd practically bitten her tongue off by this point in the evening. She was the kind of witch at the Ministry of Magic in the Auror Office that others, unfortunately, loved to hate.

Nymphadora Tonks was an adult at age twenty-four, but still possessed the exuberance of youth. The young woman was not overly tall and willowy.

She was of average height, standing around 5'5, though it felt like to her most wizards in their community, and even the Muggle men towered over her.

The witch was not just flawless in bone structure. Her pale skin was like silk over the glass, her face bone-white, like a snow queen in one of those Muggle fairytales. Her hands too were the same shade of bone-white naturally.

Tonks looked like one of those creepy porcelain dolls—like you were worried she would shatter if she fell. Even in the dark, like right now, Severus could see her. Like a shining beacon of light that he wondered if would bring this Death Eater straight to them.

The white creamy tone of the girl's skin reminded the older man of whipped milk, and her hair, cut short in a pixie cut with long bangs in the front, currently in its usual shade of pink, though Severus would have commented that, was she shooting to blend in, she should have changed the damned color of her hair, for Merlin's sake! Most women, Muggles, or witches did _not_ walk the streets sporting vibrant pink hair, and it showed….

The young Auror with the vibrant gray eyes teeming with life and curiosity glanced down at her outfit, seeing nothing wrong with it. A black and pink floral peasant top that highlighted the pink tones of her dark pink pixie cut, black skinny jeans, and black knee-high boots with a slight heel, making her a few inches taller than her actual height of 5'5, shorter than most of the Order of the Phoenix members, though, Nymphadora Tonks hadn't met all of them yet, however, it remained a mystery to the young witch why, for Merlin's sake, Professor Dumbledore had sent _him_ to assist her in their mission of capturing a relatively new Death Eater to Voldemort's ranks, though one particularly savage.

Tonks sniffed haughtily. " _You_ are the one that sticks out, _Snivellus_ ," she snapped, barely hiding her triumphant smirk as she used her cousin Sirius's nickname for Professor Snape, to which she was pleased to see had the desired effect on the man, as his face rapidly blanched and he paled in utter outrage, and there was no warmth in her tone as she picked up a fistful of Snape's robes. "This Death Eater is operating in _Muggle_ territory, Snape," she snarled through gritted teeth and locked jaw. "Blend in, that's what Mad-Eye always says. You, as usual, have chosen to _ignore_ his advice. Let's see which one of us catches this creep before the night is out. Me, since he preys on Muggles, or you, looking like…like a—a sad apothecary,"

She sniffed once and turned away from the increasingly droll wizard and forced her mind to return to their target. This kid. _Brennan, his name is Brennan_.

It was rumored this young wizard, a juvenile, little more than a kid, not older than twenty, only a few years younger than Tonks herself, had trained a pack of dogs to savagely attack young Muggle children, these animals having been enchanted with special abilities that had rendered the Muggle please men stunned.

But the viciousness and savagery did not stop there. It was rumored that this man with a sick, perverted mind, kidnapped said Muggle children and…

_Rapes them and cuts off their body parts and sends them to their parents?_

Tonks scrunched her nose in disgust as her stomach gave a painful lurch. She didn't want to think of those poor kids, the ones apt to be next on the 'missing' posters in the Muggle world, their bodies discovered horribly mutilated in a ditch or sewer somewhere with nary a clue as to how the poor sods met such a grisly end. But the Order of the Phoenix, however, knew the truth.

A wizard, one of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters, was the one behind the attacks, each one more vicious and savage than the last, and Dumbledore had ordered Tonks to put a stop to it. London's crime force had been rendered stumped and was at a loss.

 _Police_ , Tonks's conscience reminded her helpfully. _They're called policemen_. She angrily shook her head to clear it, furrowing her brows in a frown. Severus noticed the strange behavior and quirked a brow Tonks's way.

By Merlin's left saggy buttock, she needed a new partner _this_ year, or so help her, she was going to jinx Severus Snape until the man wound up in St. Mungo's. Tonight, when they arrived at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place for dinner, she was going to lodge a formal complaint with Dumbledore and demand that the old man places her with someone— _anyone_ —for the rest of the year.

 _Anything but this_ , she thought, biting the inside wall, and stifling her groan. Tonks shivered as another crack of thunder rent the air and she clutched herself as it was still fairly cold, and if she would have known it was going to rain, she'd have brought a spare jacket or her mum's cloak, but she hadn't grabbed it from her flat before she'd left.

Tonks noticed Snape glowering at her, and she returned the hardened steely gaze, a muscle in her jaw twitching without prompting. She stared at Severus Snape, Professor of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, unable to decide whether or not she felt betrayed by this sudden displacement or not. She didn't know _what_ Albus had been thinking.

Pairing _her_ , a relatively new Order member, with the likes of Snape. A complete mismatch right from the very start. Before the pink-haired witch could mull over these thoughts further in her mind, her thoughts were interrupted as the thunder above their heads tumbled over the downtown city of London through the darkened black clouds, spreading out into the night, hailing the promise of rain to the streets below. Tonks, who had a thousand and one retorts burning at the edge of her tongue, just begging to be screamed at Snape, bit it back.

 _Keep it together_ , she instructed herself, closing her eyes and emanating a tense exhale through her nose. " _Go_." Her voice was clipped, hard, and intense.

Severus made an odd little strangled noise in the back of his throat as the dark-haired sallow man turned and regarded his reluctant companion, who was admittedly, at the moment seething with hatred. He did not respond to her order.

The young Auror felt the heat creep to her cheeks as an incredible warmth spread onto her pale face, cheeks pinked with both embarrassment and the cold.

She could practically feel Severus Snape's piercing stare burning a hole in the back of her skull hotter than any Death Eater's Dark Mark could burn their skin. Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump constricting in her throat, which hollowed and felt like it was currently cutting off all the oxygen to her passages.

The young Auror did not want to look into Professor Snape's listless dark black eyes. Looking into them was like…there was nothing in there to behold.

Though finally, the suspense was too much for her to bear and, perhaps against her better judgment, Nymphadora Tonks lifted her chin and she looked.

Tonks felt her face fall, crestfallen, as she surveyed her begrudging partner's face, that…that cold look of detachment. This look he usually reserved for students he had hated, and once upon a time, when she was just a Hufflepuff going through her studies, she could only assume that Professor Snape had hated her too, just as he seemed to hate everyone. He did not seem capable of love.

 _Love_. Tonks felt like her mind was reeling, and her gray eyes widened. _Love. When is this man standing in front of you even capable of such a thing?_

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and continued keeping her eyes cast around the busy sidewalk in front of her, packed with Muggles. " _Leave_."

Her voice was firmer this time, more resolute, and when Snape almost lazily and methodically turned his head to regard her, Tonks fixed him with a glacier cold look that darkened her gray eyes, giving them the appearance that they rivaled a perfectly polished suit of armor, like the knight statutes at Hogwarts.

Tonks huffed in frustration and played with the edges of her pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm, all the while never once averting her gaze from the side alleyways. Severus Snape was impeding her mission by goading her into talking, and the man seemed especially extra irritating today, and she really did not want to spend any more time with him than she was already forced to.

" _I_ am the one who took the appropriate precautions and dressed accordingly for the said mission when we are in the company of _Muggles_ ," Tonks whisper shouted as another clipped boom of thunder almost repressed her statement towards Snape. " _Look_." She exhaled a slightly shaking breath through her nose and frowned, turning, perhaps for the first time since her arrival in the man's company, to face him. Tonks defiantly lifted her chin to meet Snape's gaze and met the man's eyes.

If the Order of the Phoenix had any prayer of nabbing this new Death Eater and learning just what the hell the man was up to, what he wanted with these innocent young kids, other than to fill some sick, perverted fantasy, then their best chance of accomplishing their task at hand that was to them by Dumbledore was for the two of them to split up.

"We know that he likes…young woman," she began, cringing and visibly wincing, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout, as she dared to look into Severus's listless eyes, which were flickering. "This guy preys on them. I am the best shot that we have at getting him off the streets of London. He _won't_ see me coming, Snape."

Perhaps a dozen or so emotions that Tonks could not quite read, and she felt her brows knit together in quandary, not really sure what to make of this.

 _Oh, look at that. The grease trap feels, how endearing_ , she thought meanly. Tonks could not help but to crinkle her nose in disgust and folded her arms across her chest. She had been feeling a little less than enthused about her life, lately.

This night had started off like so many others when paired with Snape on a mission for the Order, with Tonks barely saying more than two words to him.

She didn't really have any close friends and any men close to her age that she sought the attention of was just a way to validate her emotions and fill a void that she felt like something was lacking in her life. Tonks didn't bother to date based on the sole premises that as soon as a guy in the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks would find out about her abilities as a Metamorphmagus, that they would immediately want her to be something that she wasn't, to change her natural looks to suit their physical needs.

Well. She _refused_. _This_ was who she _was_ , this witch with the vibrant pink pixie cut and gray eyes. There was no changing this about her, Metamorphing abilities notwithstanding.

She was slightly shorter than average, and her features wouldn't necessarily turn heads, though she was content with that, she supposed. Her relationships with other witches and wizards right now were so shallow that it hurt, hence why she tended to push other people away, keep them at a distance. Safer that way.

Tonks bit the wall of her cheek, unsure if she should even divulge the details of her plan to her so-called 'partner,' who had been anything less than that over the last few weeks following her induction into the Order of the Phoenix.

He was eyeing her in a rather impassive, indifferent manner, in a look that Tonks wasn't quite sure what to make of, nor was the young Auror entirely sure that she liked. The look was reserved for the students that he supervised in detention.

A hateful disdain, mocking scorn. But she knew it was more than that. There was a tenseness Snape wasn't even trying to mask. Tonks swallowed and felt her lips part open slightly in shock as she, without even realizing she was doing so, began backing away from Snape as he continued staring at her listlessly.

Nothing about this was making any sense to her. Not the man's curling fists or the anger that seemed to radiate from Professor Snape's skin and redden it. The man's eyes were a knife in Tonks' ribcage, the sharp point digging deep.

The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate, slow breathing, like the Potions Professor was fighting back against something causing him great internal anguish and losing, though what that thing or those things were, only he knew, and Tonks decided that she did not want to know what was ailing him.

The way the Professor's soulless pits of black squinted at her when she returned his wrathful stare reminded the pink-haired Auror of a pit viper's slit-like pupils. _Fitting then that he runs Slytherin House_ , Tonks thought angrily.

 _He really IS a snake!_ She swallowed nervously past the lump in her throat. A burning animosity was developing in the former Death Eater's black eyes, and Tonks could tell that, for reasons that were unknown to her, she was the root cause of Severus Snape's problems.

"What?" she snapped, feeling her temper swell. "Why…why are you staring at me like that? What's wrong with you?"

" _You_ ," snarled Severus, his tone glacier cold. " _You_ are what's wrong with me, Nymphadora," Snape growled, his voice low and threatening as his hand curled over his wand instinctively, and Tonks felt her fingers twitch, her instincts screaming at her to pull her own and send a well-aimed Bat Bogey Hex his way, but if the two Order members started fighting amongst themselves here in the presence of Muggles, it would violate the Statute of Secrecy and bring them before the Wizengamot for a full trial. "Do you even _listen_ to yourself? The audacity of what I know you're thinking of doing…" he commented lazily, black eyes growing darker the longer he bore into her eyes, and Tonks cursed herself.

 _Damn. I completely forgot the man's a Legilimens_. Now she felt foolish.

"Good," she retorted in what she hoped was a semi-cheerful tone if only to get under the sallow-faced Professor's skin. "Then I don't have to explain it."

"Running off on your own with _no_ backup, putting your own life _at risk_ to catch this creep is relatively foolish, wouldn't you say, Nymphadora," Snape snarled menacingly.

Tonks bristled, feeling her blood ignite in her veins as she pursed her lips into a thin line. "Well, I guess we're both disappointed with each other, then."

She huffed in frustration and stomped her foot on the pavement beneath their feet, a temporary release of frustration. It didn't exactly solve this little dispute between the two of them, however, it made her feel better, and only reiterated her desire for a new and much better partner as soon as the next Order meeting commenced. One that would actually listen to and support her ideas.

Not… _this_. Tonks's frown deepened as she listened to Professor Snape argue.

"Being paired with you over the last week is perhaps the most foolish thing Professor Dumbledore has ever done in his entire career as Headmaster. You are a festering wound eating away at my soul, _witch_. Every time I think I've found a way to get you as far away from me as possible, you just come back. Looking at your face every day makes me want to—to pour acid into my eyes. Every time I'm paired with you on another mission that leads us no further to stopping the Dark Lord's reign, I _die_ a little inside. You steal years off my life like the wretched succubus I know you to be. Every time I see you or hear you, it kills me. I would _gladly_ take the Dementor's Kiss if it meant I didn't have to look at you for another second!" he snarled, locking his jaw, and grinding his teeth.

The look Severus Snape was currently giving her was more than enough for the Auror to make a quick decision on a whim, and, without so much waiting for an invitation from her partner, she reached out and shoved him backward.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown, biting down hard on her tongue until she could taste the blood that welled and lingered, filling a bitter taste in her mouth that she knew was going to linger unless she could find a drink of water.

This always happened to her whenever she was around Snape, and tonight was no different. She tried to be nice to him, to treat the man differently than the other members of the Order of the Phoenix did, but the moment Professor Snape began exhibiting his usual hostile behaviors and reactions towards the Auror, it was hard for Tonks to put aside her strong dislike for this man and to change.

Why the hell should she be nice to Professor Snape if he wasn't going to make an equal effort to be nice to her in return? It made the caged beast within the confines of her chest snarl and lunge, wanting to be mean right back to him.

"What is your problem, Snivellus?" she growled, as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You seem to be misinterpreting my intentions. We have to _nab_ this creep, and this is the fastest and best way to do this, don't you get it? It's—it's ingenious, man," she breathed, her gray eyes glistening with unshed moisture. "You should consider yourself _lucky_ , Snape, to have me as your partner. Most others would leave you out here to rot like the grease trap that you are," she snarled, crinkling her nose, and knitting her brows in disgust. "But you're lucky to be paired with me and even luckier, Snivellus, that I keep giving you so many second chances that you don't even deserve, but after tonight? I'm done. You and me, we are not partnering anymore, and we are _going_ our separate ways. Dumbledore's going to have to get me a new partner anyway since you'll be heading back to Hogwarts soon to teach," she spat, disgusted towards Snape.

He wasn't even listening to her. He should at least hear out what she had to say, and that her plan, while admittedly unorthodox and risky, would work.

But it was the only way to nab Brennan and get the Death Eater off the streets of London and behind bars in Azkaban Prison, where the kid belonged.

Snape's scowl deepened, creating lines upon his forehead and a deep groove near his mouth that twisted the edges of his thin lips down into a grotesque, a grimace that sent a shudder of fear and revulsion down her spine. "Then _go_. Do _better_ , Nymphadora," Snape frowned at her. "There are plenty of other Order members out there that I'm sure wouldn't mind being ridden with a _disease-ridden_ foolish _girl_ incapable of thinking clearly," he said.

"I'm sure there are, and _you_ aren't one of them." Tonks frowned and before Snape could so much as take a half-step forward towards her or draw his wand in an attempt to keep his reluctant partner by his side, she turned on the heel of her boot and with a loud, resonating _crack_! Disapparated into thin air.

Her last thought as she Apparated into one of the side alleyways where it was rumored from a tip that she'd received from one of her contacts here on the street, this was where Brennan was last seen, was that she hoped that her plan would work. Tonks's last thought as she quickly realized she had left behind Snape to fend for himself and had more or less abandoned him in favor of completing their mission on her own, was a simple but poignant one.

One that refused to leave.

_I hope this is not a mistake…._


	2. A Storm is Coming

**A/N: Welcome to Chapter 2! I really appreciate all my lovely readers, and I hope you're ready for one wild ride of an emotional rollercoaster! I just finished up this story's little outline last night, after being fueled by a diet of water, potato chips and Reese's (Lupin would be proud for admitting my chocolate addiction lol) and it's sitting pretty at around 40 chapters, a bit of a slow burn, but much less depressing than my previous Remadora fic for the fandom, _Before the Storm_ , with a better ending (I hope). Easily my longest fanfic yet, so I hope those of you who are enjoying continue to enjoy this AU telling the beautifully romantic story of Lupin & Tonks, and hopefully, this time, they get a HEA, since it destroyed a piece of my soul in DH when they died.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO**

The air around him was chilled as autumn leaves softly rode the bitter London breeze. The downtown, rather decrepit part of London that he and Tonks had Apparated to rested peacefully through the late night, and not a single voice or sound was heard at this late hour of the night aside from the swaying creaks of a few tall dark oak trees that bordered the outside of the city.

If he was being completely honest with himself, watching the haphazard swaying of the limbs in the wind and smelling the heady scent of rain unnerved him, and Severus Snape's mind drifted towards Albus's earlier words to him.

_A storm's coming_ , Dumbledore had told him earlier, quite a grave look in his eyes. "And we'll have to be ready when it does," Snape murmured, finishing the quote for him. The Potions Professor was beginning to think the Headmaster had not talked about the approaching thunderstorm that looked particularly nasty this evening.

Severus furrowed his thick dark brows in a heavy scowl that resembled more of a grimace as he stared down at the exact spot where his much younger partner had just Disapparated on the spot.

He would have left her to own devices to rot if she wanted to let herself get killed by this newly appointed Death Eater, who was hiding something, and he was hiding from something, Snape had been able to sense it during his last exchange when the Dark Lord had summoned him, and he had gone, on Dumbledore's orders, though what that 'thing' was, even the master Legilimens did not know.

Only the younger kid, Brennan, did. The term 'murderer' even in the Wizarding community, was now reserved for psychopaths, and this kid, Voldemort's newest recruit, was the worst case he had seen in his many years as a double agent.

_Even worse than Fenrir_ , he thought. Even Snape could not repress the slight tremor that shuddered down his rigid spine at the thought of Greyback, visions of the savage werewolf dancing through the forefront of his mind. The man shook his dark-haired head to clear his mind of such thoughts.

Thoughts of the _Beast_ would not help him here now.

The Potions Professor forced his thoughts to return to the new Death Eater. If the killing these days was done for means of survival, no one thought any less of you, and the Ministry was willing to go lenient on you. There were those that took a life, the reluctant ones, and then when it was done and over, they crumpled under the weight of the guilt, just as he knew Nymphadora Tonks would if he allowed the younger woman to go through with her _so very stupid_ plan.

There were others who killed only when absolutely necessary and never lost a wink of sleep over it. That was pretty much was Snape rested his beliefs.

He considered himself one of those, though if there was a choice, he would not kill at all. And then you had the Death Eaters. Voldemort's loyal followers, the ones who had made murdering the innocents in the name of the Dark Lord, who they put high on a pedestal and treated Tom Marvolo Riddle as their god.

The Dark Lord's followers made killing an entirely new hobby, all you had to do was just look at them the wrong way, particularly Bellatrix Lestrange, and they attacked with lethal force. The last group was the only ones considered murderers now. The term applied to Snape as much as it did a dragon or wolf.

Killing in self-defense was just a given. Killing for resources, though, was a gray area. Snape could safely say that he'd never done that, but he didn't judge.

For, how could he? He was a Death Eater once, firmly believing that he had been on the right side. Severus had believed in the Dark Lord's ideals.

The Death Eater's days, Snape knew this better than most, were numbered. _Of which YOU were one once_ , his conscience tormented him, though it was not necessarily in his voice, but rather, Lily Evan's. Snape froze, eyes widening. Her voice, her sweet, succulent voice, was sounding judgmental.

Her face. He simply could not get this ghastly image out of his mind, no matter how many times he tried to stow away the memory in his Pensieve, but nor could he bring himself to Obliviate the memory out of his conscience.

A feeble ringing, tinnitus is what the Muggle doctors and healers called it, filled his ears. Lily's face filled his vision, causing the Potions Professor's heart to give a painful little lurch, that damned _stubborn_ corded muscle within the confines of his chest that he had come to revile and hate as the years passed by.

The calm yet slowly picking up wind ruffled his lank black hair gingerly, pushing the locks of hair away from his face. Snape's thin lips held a rigid line that deepened by the second the more he allowed his mind to think of _her_. Of Lily. Her sweet face and gentle smile drenched his serene memory, and he was quite certain that no other witch in all of England had held such a smile as her.

Snape's troubled mind, though he would never let on to anyone except for Dumbledore of this next little fact, was constantly tormented day in and out by his horrid memories of what he had done. How he had betrayed his only friend.

His unrequited love. The thought that was torturing Snape today was…

" _Why_?" Snape spat the word more than spoke it, resting on the edge of his tongue like a bitter poison that had settled on his mouth, and he needed no Veritaserum to bring the truth to light. Why had Lily been so cruelly taken away?

He had, as Dumbledore was oft fond of reminding him, rather put his faith in the wrong person. He had been reassured by the Dark Lord that Lily would be safe. And he had murdered her, so cruelly ripped away her very life.

When he had found her in the ruined remnants of Godric's Hollow, Lily had been lifeless, in front of her son's crib. _Lifeless_.

Her auburn hair was scattered in multiple places, stained with dried blood; crimson. Her emerald green eyes were wide open and listless, but her jade irises held such a sadness he could not bear it. Her clothes, a black sweater, and jeans were bloodied. She had not died without putting up a fight. Snape had admittedly never experienced grief before.

Though at that moment, when he had found her, it snuck up behind him and held him with such cold caress, its icy fingers like tendrils snaking its way around his throat as it had hollowed, cutting off his passageways. He wanted to die. He deserved it, given what he had done to the only one who had ever cared.

As he'd held her lifeless form in his arms, every single memory of their friendship, and how it had deteriorated the moment Lily had begun to show an interest in _Potter_ , played like a song in his head, repeating itself for what felt like an eternity in anguish. Snape had never felt more…lost. Lost because mostly he had lost a big part of himself. And with Lily dead, he could not get that part back, and he wanted her back so bad as his own life depended on it, but it was all gone.

He had cried like his brain was being shredded from the inside out that night. Snape had remembered grabbing onto the edge of the wall so that his violent shaking would not cause him to fall, and from his eyes came a thicker flow of tears that he had previously thought himself not capable of ever feeling.

Severus had fully expected to bury his parents one day, and good riddance, but never her. Never Lily. He had cried for Lily as if the ferocity of it might bring her back. As if by the sheer force of his grief, then his betrayal would be undone.

She was his friend, his only friend, and the one woman in life he was quite sure he would never quite get over, and Lily could not— _could not_ —be dead.

But she was. And he, her murderer.

That night was perhaps the first and only time that he had ever once cried.

A heavy sigh escaped his tired form as he stifled a yawn. He was fairly certain he'd not received a full night's rest in months if judging by his too-pale features in the reflection of the abandoned shop window was anything for him to go by. Deep, purple bags clung underneath his eyes, giving his already gaunt features a hallowed, somewhat emaciated look, rendering Snape truly frightening.

Grief. At just the thought, he felt a muscle in his jaw twitch involuntarily without prompting. It felt like an emptiness in his heart if even he had one left.

A sheer nothingness that somehow had taken hold of his miserable, wretched soul and threatened to kill him entirely, bit-by-bit, and no going quick.

It gave Severus this…heavy feeling, that felt like the wight of the entire world was resting on his thin shoulders and there was nothing he could do to get out from underneath it, no matter how hard he tried.

It was like this horrible hole in his heart that was the shape of her, the one who he had lost, and that made him want to feel the need to wipe away any non-existent tears that he wanted to form, but couldn't. He had not shed a single tear since Lily's death.

Since her passing, he had never cried again. And Lily…she was just gone.

Because of _him_. Her death was _his_ fault. His throbbing head fell into his calloused hands. The Potions Professor was working himself to death on purpose, and he knew it. Albus had vehemently protested, insisting that he take a night or two off to rest, though Snape had turned a deaf ear to the old man's protests.

His troubled mind was rushed by the memory of Godric's Hollow being engulfed in a horrible explosion, the smoke swirling the darkening sky on that blood-soaked dawn. Snape grimaced, tearing his forlorn gaze away from one of the side alleys. He had no way of knowing which direction Nymphadora Tonks had disappeared, only that the young, naïve Auror was dead set on catching Brennan.

_Alone_ , his conscience reminded him, picking at his guilt like a stab wound, a rusty dagger thrust right into his back, and an overwhelming wash of cold engulfed his entire body. He should never have allowed the witch to leave.

Though thoughts of that stubborn pink-haired witch quickly vanished as he grimaced, his shaking hands found their way to the top of his throbbing head.

The Dark Lord's face, having perfected a look of impassive indifference, a creature not capable of understanding the concept of love or friendship, coldly telling him that the Potters had been taken care of, Snape assigned to the cleanup.

The man breathed heavy, scattered breaths, finding it difficult for air to return to his lungs. Visions of Lily's serene face, even in death, simply would not leave him. The Potions Master blinked, desperately trying to rid himself of the memory of that night, grinding his teeth in anger and clenching his eyes tightly shut.

He was sure this behavior alarmed certain passersby who happened to notice the sudden shift in the solemn, stoic man's attitude, but he paid the Muggles no mind. Snape slid his hands down his face, clutching at the edges of his black robes.

He breathed in…out…in…out…repeat this a couple more times, but his exasperated, winded lungs could simply not coax enough air to return to them.

Lily's death and the fact that he was the one responsible haunted him daily and nightly as dreadful flashing images of that bloodied night had only gotten worse. Dumbledore had suggested mixing a Sleeping Draught to help him sleep.

But he refused. If this was his penance to pay for playing a part in Lily's murder, then he would bear it. Snape shook his head wildly to rid his mind of the thoughts of Lily Evans for now. It was pointless to wish her back into existence.

_Lily's dead_ , his conscience reminded him so coldly. _And she won't be coming back. Anything else would be but a kindness, better than this torture you're putting yourself through because you won't let her go_ , it scolded him.

Snape stifled a low moan that threatened to escape the back of his throat and tugged at the hood of his cloak futilely, wishing she would just leave him in peace. She was gone. Dead. Vanished into thin air. At first, Severus thought grief was something bad that took you ten feet under, but that day, the Potions Master had learned it was just the price he had to pay for daring to love someone, and never again would he. This he vowed.

Snape scowled, pursing his lips into a thin line, wondering why Merlin had forsaken him so. The worn man held a forlorn expression that was only illuminated by the craggy streams of moonlight peeking out from behind a cloud. The silence around the Potions Professor was more than deafening. He coughed once, forcing his mind to return to their mission.

_Brennan, focus on Brennan. The boy's hiding something and hiding from something, and I'm going to find out what it is. He's scared of something…._

_What in Merlin's beard could the boy have to be scared of? Nothing…_ He snorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. There could not possibly be anything worse than the thought of Voldemort rising to power for the second time in life.

So, on that assumption, what on earth this kid could be afraid of was escaping his grasp, and Severus decided he did not like it. He considered himself an intelligent and (mostly) honest individual, and the simple fact remained that he could not piece together what this young Death Eater, newly appointed to the Dark Lord's ranks, wanted. And then, his thoughts rather reluctantly drifted back to thoughts of the young Auror. _Smug. Arrogant. Full of pride and vanity_.

He sneered as he let out a tired sounding sigh and rested against the cold stone wall of an abandoned building. He had, in the last fifteen minutes, only received a few occasional odd glances from Muggle passerby, though nothing a quick Memory Charm wouldn't fix, and he murmured the incantation under his breath every few minutes as an added precaution. Snape's frown deepened even further.

The Potions Professor and Order Member could have _gladly_ walked away had it not been for that damned triumphant smirk of Nymphadora Tonks's.

In her arrogant triumph, the pink-haired stubborn witch had smirked. Just a small pouting of her lips; a narrowing of those flashing gray eyes that perfectly rivaled the polished metal suits of knight's armor of the Hogwarts statues, and a slight tilting of the Auror's head. It had been so subtle, in that split second before the pink-haired witch had Disapparated.

And it was even _more_ infuriating for Severus, who caught a glimpse of it after making the foolish mistaking of allowing her to leave. Snape knew he could have walked away permanently from Nymphadora Tonks at that moment had it not been for that damned little smirk.

The little rise in the corner of her mouth she was oblivious to, combined with the cold detachment in her gray eyes sealed her fate. The young witch was doomed if he continued to allow her to seek out the Death Eater alone by herself.

Over the last few weeks of Dumbledore pairing the two of them on assignments for the Order, Severus had quite gotten used to the pink-haired witch's somewhat defeated face. She wore it every day, and Severus enjoyed it.

It meant that he was in charge, and she something of his protégé, given their age difference and the fact that Severus had years more experience than she did should have been reason enough. He felt his brows knit together in quandary.

Severus knew exactly what Nymphadora Tonks was doing—using herself as bait for this man's attentions. That smirk had silently dared Snape to come after her. The witch, whether she knew it or not, was attempting to make him _care_ about her. He almost rolled his eyes to himself in disgust at such a childish trick.

Hatred for the witch's actions burned in his heart so deep that it became ingrained in his tissue, and enmity welled up in Severus's heart, fury itself burning him up. He had no way to accurately determine which way she'd gone, but…

He and Nymphadora Tonks knew they weren't good for each other, as far as matters concerning their partnership went. The two of them hated each other.

Severus couldn't count on both hands the number of times the pink-haired Auror made him want to wrap his hands around the pale column of her throat and strangle her himself for annoying him constantly with her thoughtless commentary on what she believed his life to be like. She had _no idea_ of his life!

This kind of toxic, hostile partnership wasn't good for either one of them, and he _almost_ pitied the poor sod who would become the woman's next partner.

_Almost_. He sneered, the edges of his lips curling downwards into a twisted smirk of his own. "As long as it isn't _me_ ," he growled menacingly under his breath. Her leaving him without telling him where she was going was the last straw, and the last vestiges of his patience had broken, that fine thread snapped.

Nymphadora Tonks, the newest and youngest member to be inducted into the Order of the Phoenix at the ripe age of twenty-four, though incredibly bright and intuitive for her age, the youngest Auror in the Auror Department at the Ministry of Magic, even he had to begrudgingly admit that Tonks was a smart girl, though she was very much a pain in the neck. The pink-haired witch made him crazy, and Snape couldn't quite blame all of that on Nymphadora. Part of this mess _was_ his fault.

Perhaps he should have heard the Auror out, listened to her. Snape's frown deepened as he swiveled his head to the left and right, so many decrepit buildings in this part of London, the kid, Brennan, could be hiding in any one of them. And Tonks in a foolish fit of anger had gone after him. Alone.

Alone, unsupervised, and she had no _idea_ the kind of man Brennan was.

But Severus knew, having looked the younger man square in the eyes but not even a week ago. Watching Brennan move about the room of the Malfoy Manor, it was hard for Severus to believe the two men were even of the same species. He had the same shell alright, a normal body for a wizard, and charming.

The Potions Master might even go as far as to call the boy handsome, even.

Snape hadn't hesitated to use his skills as a Legilimens and dip into the kid's mind, find out what made the Dark Lord's newest Death Eater to his ranks _tick_.

How the boy had weighed the knife in his hand, preferring Muggle weapons to that over a simple spell with his wand. No heavier than the same style of kitchen blades Molly Weasley used back at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place whenever she cooked for the Order, but it would cut on the first contact.

Even with minimum pressure. Its serrations were like waves, but not randomly so, like on the cheaper knives. They would slide in smoothly and do maximum damage on the way out, like the barbs of a fishing hook or something.

At seven inches, Brennan could easily keep it under his jacket or cloak. Not his only weapon, of course, there was also his wand, but a useful back up in close combat, and one that, when stricken with, would render any Auror who dared to come after him incapable of so much as lifting their wand arm to subdue him if he could manage to injure his would-be-assailants at a close enough range.

Snape remembered stiffening and biting the inside wall of his cheek, though never once allowing his face to reveal his true emotions to the boy.

He knew that Tonks had been tailing him, though he had no knowledge that Severus could detect his role in the pink-haired Auror's current assignment. She had her orders. Bring Brennan to the Wizengamot to await a full hearing for his crimes, wherein he would likely be sent to Azkaban Prison.

As Severus had continued reading the younger man's mind, he was significantly appalled to learn that the boy could practically see Nymphadora Tonks bleeding already, as he had slowly and methodically turned dagger in hand.

The corners of his mouth had twitched upward into a smile, though said smile was cold, devoid of warmth, and did not reach the boy's dark brown eyes.

He tended to favor the women. Less resistant and much easier to subdue. How he hated it when they died too soon, but Brennan had to punish them all.

They were dirty, their ways filthy and wanton. If they refused his 'teachings', that would show them all the path to Merlin's Light, then he cut them. If they fought back his advances, he sliced them even deeper. He was firm, fair, the women he chose, and to a lesser extent, the younger girls, the kids, were whiny and without morals, though Brennan had never forced himself upon one younger than the age of twenty.

Not that this thought _comforted_ Severus in any way. Brennan chose the girls for their painted lips and long legs, luscious skin.

He felt drawn to their long legs and high heels, and Snape could not repress the snort as he recollected the man would be disappointed then in Nymphadora.

She who preferred combat boots and pants to high heels and skirts, though only once had he seen the vibrant Auror dress up in a similar manner to what the Death Eater liked, and that had been to go on a date that had ended horribly.

At least, according to her, which she had not hesitated to describe in _painstaking_ , _excruciating, and mindless_ detail that he'd drowned out while on surveillance mission of a known Death Eater's hideout, that lasted thirty minutes.

By the end of listening to her mope, Snape wished he could gouge his own eyes out with a rusty fork. Brennan chose the women because they made him lustful and unchaste, convinced that they were put in his path to lead him away from the Light of Merlin. By that point, Severus had learned more than enough.

The man was perverted, sick, twisted, in every sense of the meaning, and he had to be stopped. But not like this. Not like what Tonks had just done.

And the Auror had unwisely and foolishly walked right into his path.

"Damn you," he growled through gritted teeth, raking his hands through his lank raven black locks, his fingers coming away sticky as they pulled every which way as he agonized over what to do about the Order's current predicament. No matter how much he wanted to act like he didn't give a damn about what the young witch did, what she thought, or who she chose to do, he knew he could not honestly bring himself to not care. She was an Order member.

And he, her partner, like it or not. Not to mention, once Albus Dumbledore learned of the truth, what had transpired here tonight, how Snape had allowed the girl to leave him without so much as lifting a finger to stop her, there would be seven shades of holy hell to pay, and he would have earned it.

Though he had meant what he said about he would rather endure the Dementor's Kiss than suffer another night in the young witch's company.

Snape cursed himself, biting the inside wall of his cheek, wondering what thoughts were flitting through the pink-haired Auror's mind at this very second.

Even she knew it wasn't a good idea to barge headfirst into the known hideout of a sadistic Death Eater, when she knew the risks, that she might not come out of there alive, much less in one piece, when he'd finished with her.

Nymphadora Tonks's choices in life thus far were dangerous and reckless, and even more so than the simple fact that Severus, though the man himself did not know it at the time, this strange feeling of cold forming in the pit of his stomach, was, in fact, beginning to care for the young Auror's well-being, he was worried the witch's insanity was going to get her killed tonight with what she'd done.

The young woman had proven to Severus over the course of their partnership that she was certifiably _insane_ in terms of what she would do to make a point. Tonks didn't give a damn if she got herself gravely injured or worse, _killed_ if it meant this was one less Death Eater terrorizing the city of London.

Snape emanated a tense exhale through his nose and cocked his head to the side as he weighed his options, though he knew there was one correct course of action to take, and it involved telling him. "Damn," he swore angrily.

Mad-Eye Moody was going to be _pissed_ at what Snape had allowed here to happen, and rightfully so now that Severus had ample time to process this little development. Telling the grizzled old Auror who was more scar than flesh by this stage in his life caused the Hogwarts Potions Professor to feel…somewhat uneasy.

Snape furrowed his brows into a frown as he considered this thought. As much as he wanted not to care what his assigned partner did with her life, let her make her own wretched, stupid, foolish decisions. The young witch did crazy, insane things that were beyond even his ability to comprehend why she chose to do them, just to make a point. Let her get herself killed if that's what she wants, though there was no denying that small prick of doubt that pierced his conscience.

Nymphadora Tonks' choices were dangerous to her own well-being, and eventually, probably one day, the young woman's new partner once she was reassigned. She had gotten at least one thing correct. After this, they were done.

Both of them were going their separate ways, especially following the unorthodox and stupid plan that was going to get herself bloody killed tonight.

And this time, it was Lily's voice who spoke up in his mind.

_What would Dumbledore say to this if he were to learn of the truth?_ Lily taunted him still, even in death. Sighing, his frown deepened, and he craned his neck upward to look at the sky. Nymphadora was an Auror. She could take care of herself, that wretched little _succubus_. She did not need _him_ coming after her.

And he did not need to burden his mind and weigh down his already agitated thoughts with even thinking about what the pink-haired witch was up to. It didn't matter. She had made her own damn choices, and this had nothing to do with him. But still, Lily's voice tormented his mind, plagued his thoughts.

He knew he'd done something pretty awful when he had to work so hard to justify it. The more demanding the reparations his subconscious required, the worse he knew that it was, and what he had done tonight by not stopping his partner definitely topped his growing list of moments he was not particularly proud of.

The guilt sat not on his chest but inside his brain. What he had done, or rather, what he hadn't done, he could not un-do.

"Damn. _Goddamn her_ , and _damn_ her stubbornness, Merlin's beard, what was she _thinking_ ," he growled, finally having no other choice but to accept the fact that he was not going to be able to assist Tonks in her mission, given that he couldn't even find her, at least, not without bringing _him_ into their dispute.

Severus resisted the urge to roar like an enraged dragon, cursing the pink-haired witch internally as black, putrid thoughts swirled in his conscience as he turned on the heel of his black boot, hating that he had to bring the grizzled old Auror into the mess, but he needed Moody and that damned spinning eye of his that could see through walls to be able to find which one of these run-down townhouses she was likely in by this point.

And then there was the thought of what Dumbledore was going to say to him when he learned of this, though dealing with the Headmaster was another matter entirely, one that he would deal with later, once he knew that the girl was safe and out of danger, and Disapparated on the spot, not caring who—or what—heard, and he didn't hear the startled cry of a black cat as it leaped off the edge of a nearby windowsill, having seen everything with its green eyes, though the look on the creature's face suggested it could not believe what it had just witnessed, and a startling mewl escaped its lips as its ears perked up upon hearing a noise in the adjacent alleyway.

Mewling in agitation as it leaped off the sill and followed the source of said disturbing noise, it startled a young woman as she had propped herself up against the alleyway's wall. The cat was poor and emaciated, its black fur terribly matted and dirty, and it came to the witch's feet, nuzzling against her black leather knee-high boots.

The black cat barely blinked as it lifted its head to regard the she-stranger and let out a hiss as the woman turned her back away, making to move away, but the cat followed her, continuing its raspy meow that had caught her attention.

Though the she-stranger made no move to turn the cat away.

She let him follow her, thinking that perhaps this cat was going to be a very loyal little friend, perhaps the only real friend in this world she could count on.

But if only she could have known that the black cat was not the only one following her…


	3. His Nightmares

**CHAPTER THREE**

From the shadows came a wolf, yet the creature was no ordinary predator. He moved to block the human's way towards the exit. The only sound in the entire house was the monster's breathing, his flaring nostrils as he took in the woman's aroma. The beast did not know her name, this bewitching She-Stranger, but he knew her scent well. Honeysuckle and lavender. Intoxicating just like her.

The wolf curled up his gums to reveal bloodied incisors, his canines, and then lets out a low rumbling growl from deep within the confines of the monstrous creature's slender chest. The woman, judging by the fear her pheromones were giving off, already knew her fate. If she did not run, in seconds, or Disapparate on the spot where she stood, then her throat would be ripped out by him, her flesh consumed, blood staining the hardwood floor beneath his claws.

The wolf's screams as the poor man transformed was the kind of scream that made your blood run cold. It pierced the brain of the She-Stranger, he could see it, he could see it, and ignited within the woman some…primeval pathway.

Adrenaline surged through the She-Stranger's veins, fight, or flight, stand or run, and the woman's purple manicured fingers curled around the edges of her wand, the decision was made for her. One that she was going to deeply regret.

The celestial like creature whose scent was the monster's drug standing in front of him, the werewolf watched as the woman's luscious, pink lips parted slightly, no doubt to scream as the wolf's skin split like tree bark as he transformed.

In the werewolf's intense silence, he somehow screamed with his whole wretched body. His darkening, shifting eyes wide with horror, his mouth rigid and open, his chalky face and immobile, his clenched fists with blanched knuckles that were rapidly morphing into overly long claws right before the Stranger's eyes.

Wiry black hairs sprouted. His once kindly light brown eyes melted into a heavier, ruddier color, darkening to almost a black hue as he transformed right before the woman's eyes. His bones moved under his skin like mechanical snakes. Audible cracks sliced through the unfortunate werewolf, and the woman's feet cemented firmly into the ground, her gaze was drawn to his morphing body and eardrums ringing with the man's agonizing screams. He was not himself anymore.

He was a _monster_. And in the man's place, stood a savage, towering werewolf that could easily rip apart this woman who smelled of honeysuckle and lavender. To taste her honey-sweet blood on this tongue, to inhale her scent that had become something of a drug to him. His teeth, eerily incandescent when in this monstrous form, emitted a strange white glow in the dimly lit living space.

The beast's teeth were as sharp as a fine diamond sword. His skin was mostly scar tissue and the creature shivered in the early fall breeze of September.

The angel in front of him moved just a fraction of an inch, a string of curses unraveling from her tongue, like yarn unfurling, as the monster advanced on her.

Every step the werewolf took rattled her bones and struck her heart. This she-stranger, whoever she was, tried to dodge a swing from the beast's massive claws, but strike the side of her ribcage and she stumbled to the hardwood floor.

All it seemed the woman could do was feel, and all the monster could do was smell.

The thick coppery sweet tang of her blood wafted through its flaring nostrils. The creature let out a guttural warning growl as it advanced swiftly.

The young woman felt the cold ground pressed against her form, the heat from the pain, and the rhythm of the feeble corded muscle within her chest that quivered as crimson blood, thick and garish, leaked from her wounds, and it would soon signal her end as the monster advanced upon her, its hackles raised.

She closed her eyes as the creature lunged, sinking its razor-sharp teeth into the pristine, unmarked flesh of the column of her throat, feeling searing pain, her very last, and the creature had never felt such an unbridled rage before.

A drop of ravenous hunger like the wolf had never felt before consumed him, spreading throughout him like never before. The monster's feeble heart within the confines of his chest beat stubbornly, and was threatening to break free, he was feeling it. Fevering and corrupting his mind like never before. His breaths were hot and ragged, mad, and completely out of control for this creature.

Then his eardrums were filled with the screams of the young woman, and blood, sweat, warm, sticky, garish, wonderful blood skimming around the edges of his mouth as he continued to sink his incisors deep into the girl's succulent flesh. The werewolf had never considered himself particularly a savage monster, but at that very second, he raged and ravished, wishing the She-Stranger would have just _stayed away_. He bore his fangs, lapping at her neck, tearing an arm, lashing at her throat, ignoring the woman's muffled screams that rapidly died down.

There was a horrible gurgling as her crimson life force spewed in all directions. The werewolf was more like a cat than anything else. Instead of killing fast, it preferred to toy with its food when it got hungry on nights when it transformed.

The first strike was with one of its massive claws to slow the reaction time of his chosen victim, after that, it was playtime. The 'meal' would be allowed the chance to run, to feel the pounding of their own heart just a few more times. And then the monster sank his teeth into their flesh, their neck—just enough to let them bleed out slow, though that was not the case with this one.

He could not get enough of the woman's scent, devouring her blood. When he had finished, the celestial-like being lay lifeless, ashen on the crimson-stained floor, and this part was always the same, the tap on his raised haunches.

The werewolf turned around and felt the fiery plunge of a dagger deep into his chest as the weapon sailed directly into his heart by the man's well-practiced flick of his wand hand, by a man with a familiar scent.

One he had once called… _friend_. And then, in a last-ditch effort to save his own life, ignoring the dark-haired man's screams, guttural, coming from his throat, the massive wolf lunged—

* * *

Thirty-five-year-old Remus Lupin awoke before his best friend Sirius Black could kill him. But he could still feel the presence of the chilling knife deep within his chest, digging deeper into his skin. Its sharp edges running around his smooth skin, ready to pierce. The tormented man deprived of rest could hear his heavy breathing and the sweat that had gathered as beads dripped from his forehead was enough to fill an entire bottle. It was only a nightmare, but he left him with the worst memories of the mangled limbs and the sickly intoxicating scent of _her_ blood.

His stomach lurched and twisted at the thought of the woman's lifeless eyes, so bright, so full, and vibrant, the ember flames dulled until the light within the witch's bewitching eyes had permanently extinguished.

Because of… _him_.

Though Remus's light brown eyes were open, he couldn't seem to think of why. His heart was pounding, mind empty. The young wizard strained into the utter darkness of the room, breathing rate beginning to steady the longer he lay there, staring upward numbly into the ceiling as if the wall held the answers he so desperately needed. Though the second he laid his head back against the pillow, he felt swirls of black mist swim their way towards the front of his vision.

The nightmare was always the same. Always the same woman. She, so beautiful, and he, a monster. His nightmares of the mad beast within killing this celestial-like creature in his dream was always the same, constantly reminding him over the last two weeks, every night without fail, who he was. _What_ Remus was.

 _A monster_ , he thought bitterly, clenching his eyes violently shut and grinding his teeth in anger. _That's all I'll ever be. A monster. Nothing else…_

The nightmare was more of a night terror because it felt like he might die from the pain in his brain. He was always desperately trying to wake up, to beg for help, though he was never human in his dreams, at least not for very long.

But no came. No one helped. Though the woman in his dreams looked at Remus with such heartbreak, such anguish, and intensity in those glistening gray orbs of hers, he almost did not want to wake up if it meant that he could stay. If enduring his nightmares of savagely ripping this creature apart piece-by-piece, chunks flesh and bone tearing, the sound of ligaments popping, the thick tang of her sweet blood like honey resting on his wolfish tongue meant that he could be near this woman and her intoxicating scent of honeysuckle, then he would.

For the past several nights without fail over the last two weeks, he had dreamed of this mysterious woman, this strange material of beauty. Always incapable of speaking to her in his dreams, given the most he had time to do before he could scream at her and warn her to run was let out a scream of his own as his bones shifted during his transformation. Shifted, warped, changing his insides and he could feel the thrumming of his heart against his chest whenever his eyes would change color. The woman's intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and lavender would linger in his nostrils whenever he woke from his night terrors.

Her emotions were not easily hidden on her pale face. Whoever she was, this she-stranger, her pains of life were evident in the crease of her lovely brows and the downward curve of her full lips. But the Stranger's eyes, her gray eyes, they showed her soul. Her eyes reminded Remus of ashes and smoke blowing in the wind coming from a fire that burned everything to the ground.

The She-Stranger's eyes were light pools of gray, apprehensive and fearful, though he knew for certain that, apparition or not, all the beauty of the entire universe could not hope to compete with this one simple thing: passion. Passion turned the woman's gray eyes into orbs of the coldest, brightest fire, and in them, Remus Lupin knew that she would fight to the very least tear for her life.

She was not one to let the harsh, cruel world of their new reality break her or her spirit. Sure, she could cry, but she wouldn't go down without a fight, and wouldn't let them take away her true self from her. This woman, this celestial goddess, this angel, by the Light of Merlin, a figment of his embarrassingly sexually frustrated mind, considering he didn't date, yet still possessed the same urges, just as every other wizard and Muggle man did, tormented him constantly, as he could not get enough of her.

Of that passion that she clung to, a passion that made her beautiful, though Remus was drawn to the woman's eyes. They were intense, coming from that fire that burned deep within her soul. At least, until the savage beast that he knew he was, _killed_ her, and in that fraction of a second, her eyes would meet his. Once so full of life, so beautiful, teeming with curiosity.

Gone. In an instant. Because of him. This thought alone that he had killed this angel, and he wondered if this woman happened to be real, if she was Merlin's masterpiece. If he would fall for her demons first, though he would be surprised to learn the Stranger possessed any. He did not even know her name, but he vowed he would kill for this creature, bleed his own miserable wretched blood.

He was the devil of this nightmare, and she, the angel. But…even if she did happen to be a hallucination, her very presence gave him a reason to want to go to that sweet place where angels like this creature resided. That he _killed_.

This She-Stranger had Lupin in her thrall, and she was not even _real_.

Unable to bear it, he growled, yes, growled, in frustration, burying his face in his hands and woke up faster than a cat in ice-water, every sense urging him to claw his way out of the twisted entanglement of the bedsheets and get out of bed and head downstairs already. Drowsiness, especially in this line of work, got people dead fast, or so Mad-Eye Moody was quite fond of telling him.

He bolted upright on the cot in the spare upstairs bedroom of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, Sirius having graciously opened his parents home to Remus when he'd learned his last surviving best friend had fallen on hard times.

A heartbroken cry of sheer hopelessness ripped from the confines of his chest, throat, and then his lips as his hands found purchase in a twist of sheets as his scarred, slender arms braced the rest of his scarred, wretched body against the bed's mattress. He blinked rapidly, forcing his mind to stay awake, before it dawned on him that a wretched tear or two had escaped from his lids, falling in rapid sequence, drenching his pillow. Raw, broken, shard of unbridled fear tore through the still night air of his bedroom, frozen with the lateness of the fall hour.

He could feel himself trembling as he shakily sat up and carded his hands through his thick tuft of light brown hair that had long since needed a trim a week ago. Maybe if Mrs. Weasley were up, he could enlist her help in remedying that. Remus still felt shaken to his core, rattled, almost, as the dream's worst visions, her face, so beautiful, even in a grotesque death, one that was always the same, drenched his memory.

Lupin felt a hitched breath flow through him, a poor attempt to calm himself down, and the visions graphic image grew even worse as they flitted through his mind, and he could _swear_ his heart rate increased.

The distraught wizard collapsed back on the bed, feeling the last remnants of his strength leave him as he sat back upright and faced the right bedroom wall, face creased, and his fists closed so tightly he could feel the sweat trapped inside.

Lupin's stomach gave another painful lurch as he could swear, and he was sure, yes, he was sure, that he could taste the metallic tang of iron on his tongue.

 _Her_ _blood_. Nausea clawed at his throat, and he tried to force down the bile and the poor man's stomach contracted so violently that he barely made it out of the spare bedroom and down into the bathroom at the end of the hall.

His stomach kept on contracting violently as the war ragged inside his stomach, forcing everything up and out. His face was white and dripping bile, sweat, and tears. He lurched forward and sank to his knees. The pungent stench invaded his nostrils and he dry-heaved and retched again, though there was nothing left to go. His dreams of killing her were never this…this _vivid_ …

Remus's throat felt sore from the stomach acid that was layering it and his mouth tasted disgustingly of vomit. There was no one awake at this hour that would be willing to listen and offer a sympathetic ear, though he'd hoped that there was the slim chance that perhaps Molly would already be in the kitchen…

 _No. It's still late. She'd still be asleep, and even if she were awake, I can't trouble her with…this. She wouldn't want to listen_. Feeling incredibly weak, he collapsed back against the wall of the bathroom, lingering near the toilet in case the fire inside his twisting stomach returned, wiping a shaking, sweating palm across his face, as if he thought the simple gesture could rid his ailed mind of _her_.

The She-Stranger with the glistening gray eyes like smoke and full of heat and the vibrant pink short hair that set off those bewitching eyes of hers, the succubus that she was. She had ensnared him in her trap, and the visions would not leave him alone. It was fruitless. It made no damn difference at all.

Lupin emanated a tense exhale through his nose and drew in another sharp breath of frigid cold air that pained his lungs, willing the images to leave him in bloody peace for now. But stubborn as they were, just like the stubborn, corded mass within the confines of his chest that thrummed so erratically that he _swore_ everyone heard. Remus shook his thick tuft of light brown hair and growled in frustration as a particularly coarse, stubborn lock of his bangs fell over his left eye. Seething, a muscle in his jaw twitching, he growled in frustration and carded the damn lock of hair back out of his eye, only for it to fall effortlessly once again in front again.

Desperate to rid himself of the horrible sticky sensation of sweat from his face, he rose to his feet and stumbled towards the bathroom's sink, splashing cold water on his pale, ashen face, and conjuring a toothbrush with his wand to brush his teeth and rid his mouth of the disgusting acidic taste of vomit.

The effect was almost instantaneous when he had finished.

Emotions swirled with the ice-cold water circling the cold metal drain as streaks of fire burned his cheeks. Each new wave a hot trail of agony as his slim, bare shoulders shook in each rake of emotion through his slender frame. The fire of shame and anger burned just underneath his skin and a deep, sorrowful emptiness filled his heart as the sentiments brewed over and boiled past the seams that he could no longer hold together.

Remus glanced up at his reflection in the mirror and immediately flinched, wishing he hadn't looked. He froze when he saw himself in the bathroom mirror.

His knuckles had gone bone-white as he clenched the edge of the sink tightly. He stared at his reflection, his bare torso, given he'd ripped off his sodden t-shirt a moment ago when he'd first woken up, covered, and drenched in sweat.

At the dozens of angry scars, white and pink against his pale skin tones, from where he had scratched and bitten himself during many of his transformations. Though the one his gaze was continuously drawn to was his face.

Three angry, long, jagged scars snaked down the right side of his face. They were unusual looking scars, an odd mixture of bright white and light pale pink.

The skin around the scar was pulled taut and tight, and also slightly discolored, suggesting that it did not heal properly. Lupin slowly unclenched one of his hands from the edge of the porcelain sink and lightly brushed it down the scar, tracing the jagged line slowly with the tips of his fingers. Remus sighed and averted his gaze from the mirror, biting his bottom lip in anguish in a slight pout.

It had been years since Greyback had bitten him when he was just a little boy, but even now, at thirty-five-years-old, he was still unable to look at it for longer than a minute. His knuckles were white with the effort to steady his shaking frame against the white porcelain sink, and he forced himself to look into its eyes. There was no changing what he was, this—this monster, this beast…

 _"_ _Help me."_ Remus's eyes widened and the scream that tumbled unchecked from his lips was loud, high-pitched, and Merlin's beard, if Sirius were awake, no doubt he would have thought one of the women who stayed at Number 12 with him and Sirius had been screaming. Mrs. Weasley or Ginny, maybe. The sleep-deprived wizard jerked backward from the sink and in his haste to flee, accidentally tripped against the shower's curtain and fell into the tub.

Groaning, he lifted a hand to the back of his skull, not surprised when the edges of his fingertips came away slightly bloody. As the full realization, and the consequence of his earlier mistake of not taking that cup of hot herbal tea Molly had offered him as a nightcap to better help him sleep, finally sank in, the pit of Lupin's stomach stirred, and he collapsed, resting his bloodied against the wall of the shower, not wanting to remove from the tub. This…this was too much.

From out of the very depths of his wretched, miserable being, flowed all of his emotions, frustration, a strange desire for the fictional She-Stranger of his nightmares, and as the groaning passed Lupin's lips, it became a cry of confusion, a wail reaching out for redemption. He didn't even care if the noise woke up Sirius's mum's portrait. Let her hear me, Remus thought, growling in frustration.

His hands pressed against the sides of his head and he seized tufts of his light brown hair flecked with the beginnings of gray. He looked quite livid.

It wasn't _enough_ for him that his mind was plagued with visions of the She-Stranger's voice in his nightmares on a reoccurring basis, but _now_ he was hearing _her voice inside his head_ too when he was _awake_?!

"Ugh, what is _wrong_ with me?" he moaned, feeling his stomach give another twisting lurch, and for a second, he thought he might be sick again, thumping his hand to his forehead and dragging his palm down alongside his face in anguish, forcing himself to take a deep breath in and out. Was there no _end_ to his suffering?

Remus drew in a sharp breath, feeling as though his pale skin had sunken in tone to something so lifeless, it would undoubtedly scare the rest of the Order members, especially Mrs. Weasley, just to look at him if the kind-hearted auburn-haired witch could see him like this.

He closed his eyes and clambered out of the tub, feeling the heat creep to his cheeks.

" _Wh—where? H—how? Y—you're_ _real_?" he whispered, cursing himself and biting the wall of his cheek. No answer. His question hung in the silent night air, and suddenly he felt foolish, and he was met with nothing but silence, save for the sound of his own heart thrumming against his chest. Lupin waited, not realizing he was waiting for the sweet, succulent voice, those soft susurrations that had just a second ago flitted through his mind and in his ears like a gentle breeze.

When the voice did not answer, Lupin growled in frustration and clenched his free hand not clutching onto his wand and let it fall loosely at his side. He was…he was sleep deprived. Yes. That had to be it. Lupin hung his head, shame washing over him as he stood alone in the dimly light bathroom, and not wanting to look at the monster staring back at him with his own eyes, he lowered the tip of his wand and murmured," _Nox_."

The small white ball of light glowing from the tip of his wand, the only source of light in the room, quickly extinguished, shrouding him in darkness once more. Remus furrowed his brows into a frown and exited the bathroom. He popped back into the spare bedroom Sirius was graciously allowing him to use and dressed, thinking it futile to try to go back to sleep. He knew that if he were to try, he would only be haunted by _her_.

Lupin dressed quickly in an overly large sweater that seemed to hang off of his thin frame, and a pair of black trousers, shoving his wand in his front pocket.

 _Good thing Moody's not here to yell at me for stowing my wand in my jeans pocket_ , Remus thought darkly, rolling his eyes to himself as he flicked the light off in his room, making his way down the hall, trying to be as quiet as possible. Just leaving his bedroom and heading towards the kitchens of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, was having an instantaneous effect on the poor man's rattled nerves.

His shaking, clammy hands braced himself along the edge of the wall as he groped his way down the stairwell, not wanting to light his wand and wake the others. The further he made his way down the pitch-black hallway, the calmer he felt leaving that bedroom. He sighed softly, closing his exhausted lids.

Remus just wanted…tea. A nice hot cup of herbal tea and an ear to listen to his troubles. _Hopefully, Molly, if she's awake_ , he thought, biting the inside wall of his cheek in hesitation, not sure if he should divulge to the matronly redhaired witch that he was now hearing voices, and going _certifiably insane_ as a result.

And her eyes, oh, her eyes! How scared, hurt, and confused the She-Stranger in his nightmare had looked. The nightmare was still too fresh in his haunted memory, and he would have stumbled and lost his footing on the last step of the stairwell had he not shot out an arm and clung to the railing's banister.

How his mind could twist and warp his reality. This—this She-Stranger he kept seeing in his dreams wasn't even _real_ , so why, for Merlin's sake, was he now seemingly _hearing her voice inside of his mind_? He—he didn't _know_ her!

His latest nightmare's grisly images of the Stranger's mauled corpse flitted through his mind, mere flickering, flashes, but they were more than enough for the forlorn wizard to bury his head in his hands once he'd reached the headquarters' kitchens and collapsed into the nearest chair he could find, the strength in his legs still failing him, finding no other persons were up. He was the only soul in the house awake.

"Damn." The curse left his lips in barely a hushed whisper. He had been hoping Molly would be up, but that seemed to be the case.

Remus had dreams of this She-Stranger before, of ripping her apart limb-by-limb, relishing the taste of her honey-sweet blood in the Beast's mouth.

A shudder traveled down Lupin's back, just thinking about how, in his dream, the mad beast within craved it. That—that _wasn't_ him! By Merlin's beard, it wasn't him!

Letting out another groan, he kept his head buried in his heads, and his wolf-like sense of hearing perked up as the noise of shuffling footsteps came barreling towards the kitchens, and he hazily lifted his head, struggling to see who the new arrival was in his groggy, sleep-deprived, and slightly sick, stupor, an immense wave of relief washing over his shoulder's as a blinding white light temporarily flooded Grimmauld' s Place kitchen.

"Remus?" came a voice.

The figure standing in the doorway of the kitchen promptly lowered their wand, and Lupin felt unshed moisture glistening in his eyes. "Oh, thank Merlin," he murmured, letting his hands fall from his face as he weakly rose from the table. "I...I hoped that you'd...you'd be up," he whispered hoarsely, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty.

 _I woke her up_ , he thought, and angrily clenched his jaw in rage towards his own carelessness. He wondered who the bloody hell else he'd managed to disturb tonight.

A quick glance at the clock hanging on the mantle confirmed it was just past two in the morning.

Molly Weasley stood in the kitchen's doorway, her wand halfway lowered once she saw it was only Remus, her ginger shoulder-length hair tousled from sleep. Remus met Mrs. Weasley's gaze with a furtive, guilty look in his eyes as he took note of the older witch's dark circles under her eyes. She'd not slept well, either.

 _Damn_ , he thought, biting down hard on his tongue enough to bleed. _I—I woke her up_. Feeling the heat creep to his cheeks, Remus murmured a half-hearted apology and bolted from his chair, turning to leave, when the kitchen door slammed right in the face. Startled, blinking owlishly at the now-closed door, the man turned back around to face Molly Weasley, who'd shut the door in his face, a scowl crossing her lined and careworn, but still quite pretty features.

" _Sit_." Her tone was clipped and hard and coming from her, it was not a request. Molly Weasley allowed her face to relax into just the softest of a smile, though her hardened exterior, the look she usually reserved for her twins whenever Fred and George were especially getting under her skin, softened slightly as she gave Lupin's haggard-looking appearance a cautious once-over. "You are a mess, Remus," she murmured, her tone disapproving, though also sounding quite cautious.

Remus heaved a sigh as the auburn-haired witch strode towards the stovetop and with a flick of her wand, immediately began pouring water into a kettle for tea.

"Tea?" spoke up Mrs. Weasley softly, her back still turned towards Lupin. "I was just thinking of making some. You couldn't sleep either, Remus."

This too, also not a question. Remus furrowed his brows in quandary, beginning to think that perhaps Mrs. Weasley had somehow been able to sense he was troubled and was seeking her out. Lupin offered a curt, mute nod.

Mrs. Weasley did not speak again until the tea was finished, and she carefully waved her wand and gingerly, with the utmost care, soared the two teacups and saucers, where one landed in front of Lupin's place setting where he sat at the table, his mind still ruminating over the latest details of this nightmare.

Lupin could feel the beginnings of another half-choked sob rising within his throat as his mind could not seem to shake the visions of the mysterious She-Stranger's face. He could hear her cry and scream, still. The very remnant, this particular of the detail of his nightmare stung him, wounded him more deeply than any bite or cut he could have given himself during one of his 'monthly cycles,' and he inhaled sharply, struggling for composure as he became self-conscious and all-too-aware of the look of bewildered confusion Mrs. Weasley was giving him. His bones felt weak and brittle beneath his skin.

And his heart. This damned, stubborn corded muscle within the confines of his chest, weak, battered, broken, useless. Lupin just wanted a full night's rest. No nightmares, no horrible visions, and now…he swallowed nervously. _Her voice_.

Remus paused, biting the inside wall of his cheek, trying to phrase how exactly to communicate to Mrs. Weasley seated across from him clutching onto her own cup of tea with both hands exactly what was troubling him, but nothing came. And yet, he felt a small yearning for someone—anyone—to listen to him.

"Dearie," sighed Mrs. Weasley, her own tone sounding exhausted and a look of utter exasperation on her face. "Why don't you have a biscuit," she murmured, giving another curt wave of her wand and out of thin air conjured a silver tin of pre-baked cookies, probably bought from Diagon Alley and stored in another part of the house, if Lupin had to guess, shoving the tin towards him, " _drink your tea_ ," she commanded, her tone hardening slightly, "and _talk_ to me."

Lupin hesitated, though after more coaxing on Molly's part, reluctantly took a cookie from the tin and bit into it, reaching for his steaming mug of chamomile tea to wash down the bite with, and as he looked at Mrs. Weasley, into her careworn face which held no judgment that he could detect, relaxed.

Remus began to speak, launching into the details of his nightmare, not bothering to skip over the more gruesome details, wincing and becoming visibly uncomfortable as Mrs. Weasley's voice paled in shock and concern. He hoped that the woman wouldn't think any less of him once the truth-the _entire_ truth-was out.

He could only pray that she would listen…


	4. A Tense Conversation

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Molly furrowed her ginger brows into a worried frown as she regarded the thirty-five-year-old wizard and werewolf currently seated across the table from her. He'd barely touched his still steaming mug of tea as he'd launched into his gruesome description of the same reoccurring nightmare that was plaguing him.

Mrs. Weasley considered her ability to discern others' emotions, what they were thinking and feeling, quite excellent, and this moment with Remus John Lupin was no different. She could tell the man was greatly disturbed by his dream.

The fear thoughts looped around in poor Lupin's mind until there was no room for anything else. The 'loop', she imagined, continued in a vicious cycle.

These next few hours as she lay in wake with Remus would either pass as a blip in the course of the younger man's life, or they would be the final trauma that broke the fragile man. Mrs. Weasley's frown deepened as she reached across the wooden kitchen table and held her hand to Remus's forehead, no doubt checking for any signs of the warmth of sweat, any indication that he had a fever.

Mrs. Weasley flinched at the radiating heat that seemed to emanate off of Lupin's skin, like a brick right out of the oven. His cheeks burned with the flush of fever. She thought he would have asked for help, though there seemed to be no strength left in his voice, just barely a whisper whenever he did speak to her.

His breaths quivered in short, quick gasps every time he inhaled a sharp breath of air, his lungs having no choice but to take in the chilled air of the kitchen painfully and rigidly around him. The poor man couldn't seem to stop shaking, either. Sometimes it was rough, other times, Lupin could manage, but every time it seemed to Mrs. Weasley that he would begin to calm down, a violent spell of shaking would force his posture rigid and tense against his chair.

Whatever nightmares the man had suffered from, it was affecting him.

Lupin let out a sigh and gingerly removed her hand from his forehead.

"I'm _not_ sick, Molly," he explained, sounding more tired than she'd heard him in ages. He noticed her doubtful look of apprehension and the corners of his mouth turned upwards in a wry, sardonic little half-smile. "I promise. I'm not. I—I know what it sounds like, that…that I'm going _insane_ ," he growled darkly.

Mrs. Weasley knitted her brows together, and she did not seem at all convinced by Lupin's words of reassurance. "Are you _sure_ you're all right, dear? You're looking a bit peaky, dear. Flushed. You're certain you don't have the flu? Or—or maybe it was something that you ate, perhaps? I—I thought I heard you in the bathroom when I got up to come down here, it sounded like you were getting sick…you are all right?" Again, she felt his forehead for any signs of a flushed fever. "I can give you something to bring down your temperature, dear."

Remus flinched and turned his head sharply to the left to avoid her gaze.

She could tell what he was thinking. The evidence was as plain as day, that he thought she thought him insane for daring to confide in her such a concept.

But Molly didn't think that. Not for an instant, but _why_ this continuous dream kept reoccurring for the poor man, even Molly didn't know but Dumbledore might. She frowned and glared at Remus Lupin from across the dark oak table. Though the way the wizard was fidgeting with his fingers suggested to Mrs. Weasley that the man was nervous. _Skittish_.

And…if it was just a _dream_ , then Lupin had no reason to be. But the way Lupin was behaving now, acting like a scared child, his brown eyes looking to the left and right of the kitchen, as though wildly searching for a means of escape, made her question his credibility. It made a few of Molly's frustrations melt away as the tension slowly left her shoulders. She felt bad all over again—and this time, for doubting Remus.

"This… _woman_ , that you say you've dreamed of, the—the last two weeks," Mrs. Weasley began cautiously, being mindful to choose her words very carefully. "Do you…do you know her name? In the dream, does she…. She—does she _speak_ to you? Has she told you who she _is_? Where she _lives_? _Anything_ about her?" Molly questioned, twirling her wand in between her fingers. Lupin mutely shook his head, and for a moment, Molly felt the immense disappointment welling deep within the pit of her stomach. The matronly witch's brows knitted together in confusion as she tapped the rims of their tea mugs twice, a gust of heat causing the now-cold beverages to simmer once more.

"Thanks," murmured Remus gratefully, lifting the rim of his cup to his lips and drank heavily. When he'd finished, he shoved the cup on its saucer aside and folded his arms across his chest, seeming to shrink into his black turtleneck sweater as much as he could for warmth and regarded Mrs. Weasley in silence.

Remus was feeling so utterly and bloody confused by her line of questions. _No_ , he didn't know her name! If he had, he most assuredly would not be sitting here, at the table in Sirius Black's house, in the man's kitchen, confiding in Molly about his woes regarding his increasingly violent and more troublesome dreams.

"No, I—I don't know her name, or—or anything about her, Molly, b—but…I wish that I _did_ ," he growled, and he flinched at how harsh and curt his voice sounded. Lupin clenched his teeth and ground them in anger, locking his jaw, feeling ashamed. He glanced down at his hands and noticed they had started shaking. Badly. " _Damn_ ," he swore through clenched teeth, growling in anger.

"Are you all right?" Mrs. Weasley asked, praying with all her might to Merlin above that Remus Lupin wasn't officially losing his mind, though, with no details on this mysterious woman from the man's dreams, no name, no physical attributes except for her eyes that he could describe in excruciating detail, she was officially at a loss for how to help the poor man. She visibly flinched as the man's head whiplashed upwards and moved so fast to glower at her, that she could have sworn she heard a tendon in his neck pull. Remus would be feeling _that_ later.

Remus could feel the hot fire seed of anger begin to well in the pit of his stomach. He was really getting tired of the older witch asking him. It was beginning to irritate him, and it did absolutely nothing for his already distressed sense of a headache, nor did it quell the storm raging war inside in his stomach, and it felt like someone had plunged their hands deep in his insides and was twisting his intestines.

It was _not_ Molly Weasley's voice. It may have come from her lips, she may have asked the question, but that was _not_ her voice.

She…she was much too flat!

And then…the realization hit him, as though he had been doused in cold water, and he flinched and shirked against the back of his chair, brown eyes wide and round with shock as he raked his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit of his whenever he was anxious about something.

Mrs. Weasley did not believe him.

He could hear the disbelief in her voice, why it sounded so…so _listless_. Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and felt a myriad of emotions him squarely in the chest, as though someone had hit him with an Unforgiveable Curse. Hurt, anger, betrayal, confusion, sadness at her disbelief.

For if _Molly_ did not believe his claims that this being from his dreams was real, then who in the bloody hell _would_? Remus ground his teeth and locked his jaw in anger. He had never felt such a pain in his chest like this, not since it was discovered that his last surviving best friend, Sirius, was proven innocent of his crimes. Black was still confined to Number 12, Grimmauld Place for the time being, but given that Fudge was not up re-election as Minister of Magic, and Rufus Scrimgeour was rumored to be next in line, there was more than a good chance of Sirius's freedom coming back to him sooner than they all thought.

Lupin flinched instinctively at her question. Of all the things he had imagined Mrs. Weasley would say or ask, this was…not one of them. Was he all right? Was he all right?! _No_ , he bloody wasn't _all right_. What a damn question!

He had been dreaming of the same woman for days on end without fail for the last two weeks, unable to shake the scent of honeysuckle and lavender from his senses when he awoke, like some sexually frustrated teenager that had no idea what to do about his…desires, and now, to make matters worse, he could hear her voice inside his head, and he believed, if she was even _real_ , that she was hurt, or at the very least, in trouble, and if she was, he had no idea how to help.

" _Fine_ ," he snapped, his tone clipped, the edges of his normally timid and soft voice hardened. He inwardly cursed himself. _Molly's only trying to help_ , the voices in the back of his mind, that little voice of reason piped up angrily. Taking his frustrations out on Mrs. Weasley wasn't right, even if the older witch did not firmly believe the younger man's words. "I…I'm _fine_ , Molly," he sighed, holding up a hand to stop her as she waved her wand for a tea refill. "I—I'm just…so _confused_. I—I don't _understand_ _why_ this is _happening_ to me!" he cried, leaning back in his chair, and throwing up his hands in sheer exasperation. "Have I done something, said something to someone to warrant such...torment, day in and day out. By the light of Merlin, who in the hell could _hate_ me this much?" he cried, not sure if he wanted the answer.

"No one hates you, dear," Mrs. Weasley answered sadly. Molly could only watch, her heartstrings giving a painful pang and she felt a stab of pity for the poor man seated across from her, currently carding his hands through his hair, flinching as he touched what looked to be a good-sized knot at the back of his head. The older woman knitted her brows together when the tips of the man's fingers came away, tinged slightly red. "Is that…is that _blood_?"

Craning her neck forward for a better look, her frown deepened as Lupin let his hand fall in his lap and she wiped his hand on the front leg of his black pants. "Oh, don't _do_ that!" she scolded, crinkling her nose in disgust at the thought of blood drying on his pants. "Here, let me see it, love, I can fix it."

"N—no, no, you can take your hand _away_ from me, Molly, that's—that's not necessary. I—I fell in the….in the bathroom." Remus quickly blushed, his cheeks flushed high and pink with color as he looked away. He violently shirked away from the matronly witch's touch as though her very touch had burned him.

Despite her best efforts, Molly could not help the wry sardonic snort that escaped her through her nose as she allowed a dark little chuckle escape from her lips. "Hopefully not in the commode. Don't tell Sirius of this or he'll _never_ let you hear the end of it." All joking tones aside, her face fell as she watched him wince again. "Are you all right?" she prodded gingerly, lowering her voice. Mrs. Weasley nodded thoughtfully, tapping her chin as she narrowed her eyes and became lost in thought, seemingly puzzling over what to say to him. "It's quite all right, Remus," she sighed, sounding tired. "It's understandable, what you're going through. But don't shut me out," she pleaded, and she reached across the table for his hand, which he reluctantly allowed her to hold. "I consider you like one of my own _sons_ , love. I am here to _help_ you. It was just a _dream_ , Lupin, nothing more," she whispered soothingly, reaching up a hand to give his shoulder an affectionate pat, and Molly's frown deepened as she saw the antagonism flare on Lupin's ashen, clammy face, as the man bit his lower lip while glowering at the matronly witch, struggling to find his voice.

Remus parted his lips to speak, blinking at the matronly witch who was regarding him with just the slightest amount of scorn intermingled with curiosity in her normally kind eyes, and he sighed, feeling suddenly deflated.

The thirty-five-year-old wasn't at all sure what to do about his situation. He must be losing it. He was having nightmares of the same woman, hearing her voice…

Was Mrs. Weasley being completely honest with him? Did the older witch honestly expect him to be able to answer such a question in his fractured state of mind? How the bloody hell could he provide an apt response to her question when he himself could barely stop his hands from shaking so badly that he almost upended his mug of tea, much less calm down enough to talk this out.

His nightmare this morning scared the living _hell_ out of him, not once, but twice now, ever since he had heard the She-Stranger's voice for himself.

And now, here Mrs. Weasley sat across from him, expecting him to _talk_?

"I…" His voice trailed off. He didn't know what the hell to do. His mind felt like it was reeling, the muscle in the confines of his chest that was his heart thrumming so erratically that he was surprised Molly couldn't hear it. "I should have known better, to think that you would listen to me. I was a _fool_ to come to you. I just thought…if anyone in this entire damned Order would understand what I'm going through, it was you, Molly," he snapped, his quiet voice losing all semblance of warmth.

What in the _hell_ had he been thinking, coming to her with this, and disturbing her sleep and troubling her?

Molly seemed to bristle at the sudden hostility in Lupin's tone, and her chest puffed out slightly at the indignation. She curled her hand around her wand.

"You would do well, Remus, to watch your tone," she cautioned. She eyed the younger wizard with a world-weary eye, fully prepared for an outburst.

However, her warning only seemed to goad Remus's anger even further as she watched as the wizard and werewolf's expression darkened, his normally kind brown eyes became an even darker hue, like the boughs of an oak tree after a fresh rainfall as they sparked and alit with rage. "I—I don't…I don't think _you're_ the one to be making requests, Molly," Remus snarled. He leaned forward in his seat, and for the briefest moments, Molly flinched as his face came into the light.

And she saw the shadow of the wolf dance across his face. Though the cold wash of fear prickled down her spine and chilled her insides at the sudden shift in Remus John Lupin's normally quite kind personality, she had to remind herself that the man had just come off of a particularly violent and difficult full moon cycle, and he was still not quite himself. It often almost always took poor Remus a few days to heal and get better. Molly knew this, and yet, she couldn't allow it.

She did not allow her own sons or Arthur to speak to her this way, and she would not allow Remus Lupin to talk to her in such a condescending manner.

" _You_ aren't, either, Remus, don't forget, you're the one that sought me out. You asked me for my help. Well. Here it is. Let me _help_ you, dear," she answered, careful to keep her tone non-accusing. She knew that, as long as the man was coming down off of his transformation, he could be, more times often than not, rather unpredictable. Molly could practically feel the blood drain from her face, and she blanched, opening her mouth to retort but paused. She steeled herself, biting the wall of her cheek. "You say that this is no ordinary… _dream_ ," she began hesitantly.

Remus nodded silently when she looked towards him for confirmation. The matronly witch glanced down at her wand clutched tightly in a vice grip in her wand hand, and perhaps thinking that Remus would see her fingers curling in a fist over it, she heaved an exasperated sigh and stowed in the pocket of her house dress.

"Then…if it is no dream, dear, then _do_ _something_ to _fix_ it." She did not quite know what kind of reaction she had been expecting from Remus, but pure unbridled fear was not exactly it. His face became ashen, clammy, beads of sweat forming on his browbone and he looked suddenly ill. " _You have to help her_ , Remus."

Mrs. Weasley cursed herself internally for what she was about to say next, to goad the man into anger like this was not exactly her preferred method of eliciting the desired response from the former Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but she had to know how far he was willing to go for this…. _girl_.

"H— _how_?" he demanded hotly, and he hated hearing the crack and dip in his voice as it faltered. "I don't know where she is, who she is, where I'd even start to look for her. I—I cannot help her, Molly. This is… this is foolish!" he yelled, not bothering to mind his tone when it was just the two of them, even given the lateness of the hour at which both of them were up. "I… I _can't_."

The last word left him as a reluctant, half-choked sob, and Remus lowered his head, ashamed, and allowed that one stubborn lock of coarse thick light brown bang to fall into his eyes, effectively shielding himself from Mrs. Weasley's piercing gaze, not seeming to want to mee the older witch's eyes.

"If you don't…find some way to…to help this girl, then…" _By Merlin's Beard but, here it goes_ , she thought sadly, closing her eyes. "Then you're nothing but a _coward_."

Mrs. Weasley instinctively reached across the table from her wand, though before she could so much as open her mouth to speak, Lupin let out a holler.

" _Expelliarmus_!" he shouted, and he caught Molly's wand in mid-air as it whizzed right past her outstretched hand and into his left. She swallowed as she saw yet again for a second time the shadow of the wolf dart across his features.

And it was then that she realized she had made a grave mistake. When he turned to face Molly, there was no trace of the tear tracts that, despite his best attempt to wash away the evidence, the last remnants of his nightmare, still lingered, though now dried. His normally kind eyes were now narrowed, rigid, cold, hard. In that moment, Mrs. Weasley already knew Remus Lupin was far away.

For whatever reason, she had become the enemy. These swings of his, from most loved to most hated, especially when coming off of a full-moon cycle, were especially brutal. His states had no greyscale of any kind, only the polar extremes existed.

Molly drew in a deep breath; the burning hard stare of Lupin's would last as long only as it took the man to think of the most brutally cutting thing that he could tear the matronly witch down with. And after that, it was only a matter of time before the jinxes started firing, and he would storm out of the house in a rage.

A very big mistake indeed. Remus felt his blood begin to boil at the accusation. No one had _ever_ called him a coward, and he never thought he would hear such poisonous words uttered from Molly's lips, of all people.

How sweet, matronly Mrs. Weasley could suddenly shift her personality to this in the mere blink of an eye was practically unfathomable to the wizard. One moment, there had been that look of fear in the redhaired woman's orbs overseeing the shadow of the wolf cross his face, and then the next, she looked…. _ticked_ , standing so close that the tips of their noses were practically almost touching, though given Lupin was much taller than she was, standing at around a height of 6'3, whereas Molly, on one of her good days, was lucky to be 5'3. He let out a guttural growl.

What in the name of Merlin's beard had he been _thinking_ , coming to Molly with this? He _knew_ what it sounded like.

That he was touched, going crazy! His transformations had begun to affect his mind somehow, some way… How any of this was understandable, to her, much more so for him, he had no idea how to even begin to make sense of any of it all. Perhaps Molly was just asking him these questions of the witch from his dreams to make him feel better. Not that it was doing any good. If that was the case, Mrs. Weasley was doing an admittedly poor job of it.

The only thing that would set Remus's mind at ease and make him feel better at this point was if this beautiful She-Stranger were to Apparate right here and now in Number 12, Grimmauld Place's kitchen and look him square in the eye with those bewitching gray eyes of hers and tell him her name. He longed to hear her name from her lips, to know it for himself.

However, given that the celestial-like creature was just a figment of his sexually frustrated desires, it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He was chasing nothing more than a dream. Lupin slowly rose from his chair, turned to go, when another voice, this time belonging to a man's, baritone, cold and…nervous, filled the little kitchen. " _Stop_." The man's voice was like the magma chamber of a volcano, deep, but filled entirely with molten rock.

Dumbledore's voice could be powerful enough to make your very bones feel like they were vibrating. When he spoke, no matter how soft or quiet, or loud, for that matter, everyone in the room would turn, whether they knew him or not, though in this day in age, especially in Great Britain, who didn't know Albus Dumbledore?! The Hogwarts Headmaster's voice was just so deep, full.

His voice was deep, and whenever he spoke, everyone's heads would turn. He had that rich silky tone, speaking as if he controlled the entire world, his experience, and wisdom that only time and age brought, seeping through the genuflections of his voice. The Professor would remind you of a stormy day. Both Remus and Molly violently jerked their heads towards the kitchen's entryway, towards the source of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's voice.

"I believe that is _quite_ enough, wouldn't you both say," he began slowly and methodically as he clasped his weathered, jewel adorned spindly fingers together, his set of pristine gray wizard's robes swishing and billowing with his movements as he dared to enter Grimmauld Place's kitchen and intervene on behalf of the two Order members and friends. Professor Dumbledore's voice echoed throughout the small but intimate kitchen, reverberating off the walls, the edges of the man's voice hardened. A look of shock was plastered on Remus's face, and the stunning expression must have been evident upon his features, for Professor Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes darkened, almost cerulean in color, as he looked at both wands clutched in either of Remus's hand.

"You would truly duel Mrs. Weasley over this, Lupin?" he asked, just the slightest tinge of annoyance in his voice. His graying brows came together in a quandary as his blue eyes darted back and forth between Mrs. Weasley and Lupin. He snorted, something akin to what could only be perceived as amusement seeping through his baritone tone.

" _What_?" snapped Remus meanly, no longer in the mood for pleasantries. Someone had to hear him out and believe him, or he thought he would surely lose the last threads of his patience, though he never once removed his gaze from Mrs. Weasley, holding not only his wand at the ready but hers as well. " _What_?"

Only then did the much younger wizard briefly tear his gaze away to regard Dumbledore, to take in the Headmaster's appearance. He blinked, surprised at Dumbledore's arrival. He stood amid a shower of fiery, dancing sparks, clearly, he had conjured them meant to intimidate as he loitered in the kitchen's doorway.

From under his gray hooded cloak, all that could be seen by the flickering ember flames of said dancing sparks was the graying hues of his egregiously long beard. Remus did not even hear Dumbledore arrive, and he could tell by the furtive, guilty look in Mrs. Weasley's eyes that she had not heard him come in, either, but that was always the way when you were dealing with Albus Dumbledore.

The man himself always seemed to show up right when needed most. It usually had to be a serious matter, for there were many who were deathly afraid of Dumbledore, but Albus's power alone was stronger than most of the ordinary wizarding community, and that it was rumored that his connection to this world, the spirits that inhabited it, had deeper roots, and he was able to tap into the very power of the earth itself. Remus was not sure if he believed that.

Hogwarts' Headmaster often appeared of his own volition, at the bequest of no one, though it was usually when he was sincerely needed, and tonight, Molly thought was no exception. The first few times he had appeared during the middle of Order meetings, it had angered Sirius, and Black had demanded that Albus could at least show a modicum of respect and announce ahead of time when the man decided to 'drop-in' for a visit, as Albus was so fond of calling it.

Though Sirius (and the rest of the Order members, for that matter!) quickly came to learn that Albus did as he liked, appearing wherever and whenever he wished. Never mind that it was Sirius's property, never mind that it was in the middle of a dispute between Molly and Lupin, and yet…here Dumbledore stood.

Molly swallowed nervously past the lump forming in her throat. "Professor," she murmured lowly, dipping her head in acknowledgment, her gaze flitting between Remus's and Albus's. "When—when did you get here?"

Albus offered Mrs. Weasley a coy little smile, his cobalt orbs twinkling rather mischievously that only succeeded in making Remus's blood ignite hotter.

"Oh, about thirty minutes I would say. I had an errand to run in the area, and thought I would pop in for a chat," he answered airily, his voice distant.

Lupin flinched as he was quick to recognize the curtness and clipped edges of the Professor's tone were reserved not for Molly Weasley, but rather, for _him_.

 _Lies, lies_ , _he didn't just 'pop in' for a visit, and we both know it. He's here for you_ , the demons inside Remus's voice whispered. _He knows. He knows!_

But the dark voices inside the confines of the werewolf's head were not given a chance to goad him into responding further as the Headmaster coughed once to clear his throat and made a slight movement forward to enter the room without waiting.

The Headmaster's gray robes were pristine and neat, swishing and flowing as he entered into the kitchen, closing off the gap of space between Lupin and Mrs. Weasley in two swift strides, stepping in between the pair of feuding friends.

A comfortable-looking scarf that matched the color of his robes was draped loosely about his neck, and with one practiced flick of his wrist he tossed the scarf aside and gingerly folded it into a neat little pile before setting it almost affectionately on the kitchen table.

Remus bristled at the interruption but said nothing.

"Now," Professor Dumbledore began, towering over Remus, and peering over the much-younger wizard over the rim of his silver half-moon spectacles, and Lupin was certain that a hint of a smile tugged at the man's mouth. He clasped his hands together, and Lupin's gaze drifted down towards the man's rings, jeweled rings adorning his fingers. Dumbledore was very much a wizard who looked as though he intended to take what life owed him and managed to pull it off without appearing gaudy. "What _is_ the problem here?"

Neither Remus nor Molly spoke for a moment, but after being on the receiving end of a particularly stony glower that, had Albus the ability, and he was certain that he could have, would have turned Remus to stone, Lupin heaved a heavy sigh of defeat, his shoulders slumping forward, and he tossed back Molly's wand to her and took a seat in the very chair that he had just vacated and almost overturned in his fit of anger.

"I—I've been having…nightmares," he confessed, a pained look in his eyes, a pink blush speckling along his cheeks, and he refused to meet either Dumbledore or Molly's gaze. "Always the same dream, Professor. They're...it's getting worse..."

Lupin flinched and ground his teeth, hanging his head in shame, though a moment of curiosity compelled him to lift his head and regard Hogwarts' Headmaster, as the elderly man simply crossed over to the next available spare kitchen chair and made himself comfortable, tossing his gray scarf back over his neck.

No doubt, he had assumed, quite correctly, that this little dispute of Molly and Arthur's, and what to do about Lupin's grown insanity, would take time to sort through and come up with a viable solution to solving both of their problems.

Dumbledore chuckled as he reached for the discarded teacups. "Let us assume for a moment that neither of you have not forgotten proper edict and have bid me sit down. Let us share a cup of tea and converse as three honest individuals," he remarked smartly, ignoring Molly and Remus's stunned expressions. "Please," Dumbledore spoke up softly, pushing his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose, tapping Lupin's empty tea mug with a flick of his wand, and from the tip poured a fresh stream of hot, herbal tea. Without even asking Remus if he wanted another cup, the ancient wizard wordlessly pushed it towards the careworn, younger wizard, ignoring Lupin's cold, stony glance towards him. "You may begin whenever you feel that are you are ready. While _you_ appear to have forsaken your manners, please, rest assured that _I_ have not. Have some _tea_."

Once again, not a request, and the jab the Professor had just delivered, intended for him, was warranted and Lupin felt he deserved that one. Remus sighed, recognizing when he was defeated, he nodded and lifted the tea mug filled to the brim with piping hot chamomile tea that burnt his throat as it went down, though it felt wonderful. Anything but relive the constant agony of his nightmares, especially this one.

"Professor, I…" He started to say, but his voice trailed off, unsure of how to phrase an apt response to say exactly what was on his mind. _How to tell him?_ Remus felt his lips part open to start speaking, but was not given a chance to as a shrouded figure clad in black trailed into the room, wet, his boots leaving puddles of water in their wake, and looking thoroughly disgruntled, having come in from the raging thunderstorm that battled nature's elements outside.

The cloaked figure lowered the hood of his robe and Remus stiffened as Professor Severus Snape wordlessly shot Lupin and Molly a quizzical look, quirking his brow at the group seated around the kitchen table all clutching tea mugs, though he made no sardonic remark as he joined Dumbledore, for which Remus was grateful. Exhaling a slightly shaking breath through his nose, Lupin, for the second time in a single night, recounted the events of his dream.

It did not take him long to divulge the gruesome details of the nightly visions of the She-Stranger's death, each dream more violent and bloody than the last, and when he finished, Lupin fell silent. "I…think that I… _hurt her_ , a—and I can't explain it, who she is, but…she's hurting," he began softly, trying to fit his words together in a sentence that would make sense, and Lupin winced as his statement seemed to shock Molly Weasley, whereas Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape had perfected looks of impassive indifference.

Lupin launched into the more excruciating details of hearing the She-Stranger's voice upstairs in the bathroom, though not without great difficulty, as he felt the heat creep to his cheeks, wishing that a hole in the floor would open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole and not let him come out until Dumbledore and Snape had left. This had been a _terrible_ idea…

Personally, even as he continued describing the woman's voice, her appearance, what little of it he could remember, though the details of the Stranger's features were faded, like a ship struggling to see a light in a storm, Lupin found it amazing that Professor Snape hadn't made one snarky comment throughout his whole explanation, as the young wizard told of his predicament.

When he had finished, both Professors exchanged a dark glance with one another. Lupin bit down hard on his tongue and then grazed his tongue over his teeth in a fit of nervous anticipation, the suspense and silence practically killing him. He curled his hands into fists around his teacup, hardly aware the delicate china had started to crack under the ferocity of his grip until Molly shot him a reproving look and he quickly let go of the mug and shoved the cup away from him. Remus, unable to sit still any longer, bolted from his chair in a frenzy and began restlessly pacing the kitchen floor, the cold linoleum sharp against his bare feet.

If Snape and the Headmaster were so intent in their thought then he must have _really_ started losing his mind, at last long, especially if Snape was thinking as hard as he looked, the git. Remus scowled and knitted his brows together in confusion.

Finally, it was Snape who broke the silence after exchanging another look with Dumbledore that Lupin wasn't entirely sure what to make of now.

Snape swiveled his head almost lazily to regard Remus, his thin lips pursed into such a rigid line that he was quite certain they almost disappeared, and parted his lips to speak, no doubt to offer some snide remark, when yet the arrival of another presence, a low thumping sound accompanied by a scraping sound reached their eardrums. Severus's frown grew worse as he shifted in the chair.

"Damn," he swore, flinching only slightly as the grizzled old Auror Mad-Eye Moody stumbled into the kitchen, looking extremely cross and disgruntled at seeing the small company gathered around the small kitchen table without him.

Moody did not bother to offer a cordial greeting to Snape as he clumped his way forward towards the last remaining spare chair around the group, using his walking stick for support, limping, and grumbling under his breath as he did. "Damned…bloody…stairs," he growled, his tone dark and laced with anger. Snape's face flushed as Moody took a seat and regarded the Potions Master with that damned special swiveling eye of his, and Snape scowled and promptly looked away, though not before Remus could have sworn he could the briefest flickers of the fear dart through the man's steely cold eyes, something of a rarity for the sallow-faced, dark-haired Potions Master that was more grease trap than man, Remus thought meanly, as the werewolf felt himself bite the inside wall of his cheek.

 _Snape's never struck me as the type to be a coward, so why would he show apprehension around him?_ These conflicting thoughts were troublesome.

Snape was making a point of actively avoiding the grizzled Auror's gaze, and he returned his attention to Lupin and fixed the younger man with a cold stare. "This…woman in your dreams, she is…" His voice trailed off slowly, and Remus resisted the urge to growl in frustration like the savage wolf he knew he was. This tension was killing him! He felt his hands come to rest on his lap and rake down the material of his black trousers in a fit of utter rage and frustration.

But what Severus said next, not even Remus felt prepared for his answer.

When Snape finally found his voice, it was so soft, so quiet, that Lupin had to lean forward in his chair to hear the Potions Master.

"She's real. And she's in grave danger."


	5. Her Mistake

**A/N: Just a fair warning, the villain of this alternate tale of Remadora whose identity remains a secret until the end of this chapter is very much a creep and is going to behave as such.**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Tonks was _terrified_ , having been on her own now without Snape by her side for the better part of maybe forty-five minutes, possibly an hour, it was hard to tell her how much time had passed with the git not hear to throw a snide comment or two her way, and the young Auror was having trouble admitting this simple fact to herself as she lay in wait for their current target in the alleyway.

She was beginning to think the greasy-haired flea trap she'd left back there was right.

That she ought to have waited for more backup, Moody, Dumbledore, someone, but _no_. She just _had_ to play the valiant role of protector, and now…

_Now_ , she was beginning to suspect that she wasn't going to nab him. In a fit of nervous anxiety, she opened the main compartment of her little black purse she wore slung over her right shoulder, fumbling until her fingers grasped around the little flagon of water she kept in her purse for such occasions when she was thirsty.

The burning sensation in her throat grew even more as she pressed the bottle to her dry, cracked lips, from the cold.

As the water made its way to her mouth, that sweet, cold water, she savored it. As she drank, she felt the chill run down her esophagus and her head made an involuntary shake.

An eerie numbness crept into her brain the way it did whenever she was a kid and she drank too much milk way too fast.

It was the reverse of wintertime when she wanted was to feel the heat of a good tea or hot chocolate come through a thick clay mug. She finished and stowed the bottle back in her purse, grateful, at the very least, if she didn't bring a jacket, she'd thought to bring water, if nothing else tonight.

The fear traveled in her veins but never made it to her facial muscles or skin, though she could not hide the truth from herself that she was afraid.

Of course, there was a part of the witch that always would be, working cases like this, be it for the Order of the Phoenix or for the Ministry of Magic.

Putting herself into dangerous positions was sometimes necessary, though admittedly, this might be her riskiest move yet.

Disapparating without so much as a word to Snape about where she was heading, though if the man was smart, and even she would be a fool to deny that he was, the professor would figure it out, and would more than likely send backup at some point to aid in her plan.

Her _stupid_ , _foolish_ , and now that she had time to reflect on it, _naïve_ plan.

The pink-haired Auror did not want to admit this next part to herself, but Snivellus had been right, the damned, bloody, _insufferable_ git of a _fool_. Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and raked her fingers through her pink pixie cut, her other hand _not_ running her fingers through her hair in a last-ditch effort to calm her nerves, was in her jeans pocket, fingers twitching in case she needed to draw her wand.

The timing was absolutely everything in situations such as these, as Mad-Eye was always fond of reminding her at every opportunity, 'constant vigilance.'

To never let her guard down and always remain on alert. Ignoring the black cat that continued to follow her, its piercing yellow eyes seeming like they were piercing the back of her skull, sending an incredible heat throughout her body, she ignored the small creature, despite its incessant mewling and hissing.

The young Auror forced her mind to remain focused on the task at hand. She could pet the little black cat later, if there was time, who had continuously rubbed its thin body up against the back of her legs, demanding her affections.

Tonks knew she'd found the Death Eater she and the rest of the Order of the Phoenix had been looking for, who'd managed to evade their capture for the better part of at least six months.

_This one's a slippery little bastard. Snake in the night. I'll have to be careful if I find him_ , she thought angrily, biting the inside wall of her cheek.

Tonks continued walking along the rough cobbled streets that caused her feet to ache. It made her wish she'd worn more appropriate boots.

The buildings were tight together and loomed over her, like a forest of stone. As she craned her neck upward to get a better look, the roofs of said buildings were so close together that she could only make out a sliver of the dark night sky made darker by the approaching thunderstorm that was mirrored by the tiny stream of light that trickled along the cold stone ground beneath her boots.

The alleyway twisted and turned back on itself, first going to the right, then to the left. From where Tonks stood, whether she looked in front or behind, she saw nothing but stone and this unnerved her.

She felt her heart quicken a bit.

"He lives _here_?" Tonks whispered to herself, unable to keep the disgust from creeping its way into her hushed tones. She scrunched her nose and pulled a face in disgust, daring to skirt her way along the brick wall and poked her head around the corner, towards a run-down flat that looked as though one good puff of wind would blow the place down. "In this _dung heap_ part of town? Guess I should have expected as much. Mundungus Fletcher, by Merlin's left saggy buttock, if you've _lied_ to me, I'm going to kill you myself for this tip," she growled through gritted teeth. "Ugh. What a _hovel_ ," she grumbled to herself.

"Not very _nice_ , dollface. Do _I_ come to your house and insult whatever filthy place it is that _you_ live? No, I _don't_. Show a little respect, sweetheart, it's only the _polite_ thing to do, after all," a man's voice scolded, sounding thoroughly put off and offended by the young witch's comment, and sounding like the noise was coming from directly behind her, eliciting a startled scream of surprise from the Auror, though Tonks made no move at all to turn around and face the speaker.

It felt like several long, agonizing seconds passed before the stranger spoke up again, his voice curt and annoyed this time.

"Honey, I'm _talking_ to you. It's quite rude you know, not to answer back when someone says something. _Turn_. _Around_. Don't make me say it a _second_ time, sweetheart," Tonks drew in a sharp breath that felt like it pained her lungs as she turned towards the speaker.

Tonks visibly flinched and hoped that her eyes did not betray the sudden wash of fear that she felt engulf her entire body as she stared directly into the listless, lifeless brown eyes of her target. Of Voldemort's new Death Eater.

The young Auror could not stop the color from draining from her already pale face as she lifted her chin to meet the Death Eater's gaze and studied his features, her mind working hard to commit every detail of his face to memory.

In place of where the little scrawny black cat from the alleyway had once stood behind her, mewling incessantly, and putting up one hell of a verbal argument, stood a tall, somewhat lanky man.

His pallid, glistening dark eyes stared at the pink-haired witch with unshed moisture glistening within his untrustworthy orbs.

The kid, not a day older than maybe twenty-three, at best, only a year younger than her, if she had to guess, and dressed in a black leather overcoat that ran to his knees, a black shirt, pants, and high black leather boots.

_Damn. No, no, oh, Merlin's beard, he was the cat. He has to be an unregistered Animagus, th—there's no way he could have… This was a trap! He set me up, and I fell for it like a Black Tuesday Banker._

Her face paled in fear and shock.

Tonks clenched her eyes shut for a moment and turned her head sharply to the left, cursing herself for her stubborn insolence.

_I…I should have waited for more backup to arrive. Oh, hells, Moody is going to kill me. Snape was right_ , she thought angrily, before flinging her eyes wide open and turning to face her target.

The Death Eater's hair was surprisingly done very nicely, cut short and tousled, though a bit rugged and messy-looking, even Tonks had to begrudgingly admit the 'grunge' look suited the kid.

His forehead was almost square, large, and imposing, but not laughably so. A few lines were laid upon it, but they were dismissive as tricks of the moonlight, which had poked out from behind a cloud.

Brennan's eyebrows were impossibly straight, his eyes of rich mahogany. Eyes that told of several dozens of secrets, but held them locked tight in a strongbox so mysterious and alluring that you wouldn't dare open it if you had a lick of sense, for fear of whatever it was that you might find within. She sighed.

The most striking feature, however, were his eyes. For reasons she could not explain, it highlighted the furrowing frown on the Death Eater's face placed upon his mouth and somehow made the boy seem more authoritative than his aura already suggested. If one ventured close enough, as Tonks gingerly took a step forward, her conscience _screaming_ at her to turn on her heel and Disapparate right now before this creep could catch her, take her wand, and break it, his mahogany eyes seemed as if they had ensnared in some sort of trap, as if by a spell, though she could detect no hint of the Imperius Curse having been performed on her, as the man standing in front of her had barely lifted his hand against her.

Brennan's eyes hungrily enveloped Tonks's and before she even knew it, had pulled her feet towards him, and the young Auror felt her feet take one step forward, then another, her body no longer taking directions from her mind at all.

It was nothing he _did_ precisely, it just looked as if he had a secret that Tonks would enjoy hearing about. Her cheeks flushed high with color as he looked her up and down.

Her next target bound for a cell in Azkaban took in Tonks's appearance with a single sweep, his dark brown settlings on her chest and lingered there longer than the Auror would have liked. She bristled angrily.

Instinctively, she raised her wand, parted her lips and before she could even utter the Disarming Charm, the wizard standing in front of her had already taken her wand, moving so fast to flick his own wand, that her wand left her hand in a blur, and her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as Brennan snapped it in two.

"Walking all _alone_ , Auror?" Brennan's voice laughed from in front of her, and Tonks turned her head slightly to the left to better look the Death Eater in the eye. The pink-haired witch could feel herself start to shake violently. Damn.

_Son of a b… I'll—I'll kill him! I'll kill him! The bastard snapped my wand in half_!

Her mind was screaming at her to turn and Disapparate, to Diagon Alley, maybe, though she knew Ollivander's would more than likely be closed, she could demand the man sell her a wand.

Tonks itched to turn on her heel and Disapparate this very second, but if she did that, she knew Brennan would just disappear and slink back into the shadows like the snake in the night the young pink-haired Auror knew him to be. No.

She could not leave, nor would Tonks abandon the Order's mission. For better or worse, she had to stay and try to find some way to arrest this creep without her wand.

But, she knew if she so much as twitched a muscle in her arm or leg, now that she was more or less wand-less, and as a result, defenseless, considering her skills at non-verbal magic wasn't as up to par as they could have been, the Death Eater might as well have just drained her of her powers.

Without her wand, she was completely vulnerable and totally at the whims and mercy of this man.

_Damn_. She bit the inside wall of her cheek, her mind wracking a million different scenarios for a way out of this little predicament she'd gotten herself in.

The young, dark-haired Death Eater smirked; the edges of his mouth turned up in a smile that did not quite reach his eyes as a muscle in his jaw twitched.

"Didn't you _hear_ , doll, young women were going _missing_?" the kid taunted, laughing, and just that simple cold laugh chilled Tonks's insides to ice. "Not a particularly smart idea for a pretty little bird like you to wander the streets of nasty old London at night, love. Who knows the kinds of types of men you'll run into, sweetheart…"

Here, Brennan turned away from the Auror, toying with his own wand, shifting it in between his fingers, and when he turned back around to face Tonks, she winced and wished the man would have kept his trance on the brick wall fixated behind her head.

" _You_ might be the next one to go _missing_ , little dove," he crooned, and he moved to close off the gap of space and purposefully stepped on the broken fragments of Tonks's wand, and she could have sworn she heard the man growl in frustration as he kicked aside one of the shards with his leather boot, knitting his dark brows together in an utter, cold rage.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump forming in her throat, though she hoped that nothing in her face betrayed her fear. She quickly set her pale face to 'casual indifference.'

Her only way out of this that didn't involve getting out of this dank, moldy alleyway in a black body bag was for the Death Eater to overestimate her skill level, to assume the Auror's lack of fear came from mastery instead of a raw nerve.

The fear traveled in her veins, but never made it to her facial muscles or skin. Her complexion remained pale and matt, her eyes steady as if she were shopping in Diagon Alley for a new pair of shoes.

She let out an understated sigh and turned to go back the way she'd come, showing this guy she wasn't afraid to turn her back on him when she felt a strong hand grip her arm.

The young witch let out a muffled yelp of surprise as she was yanked violently backward and would have stumbled had the man not been maintaining his ironclad grip on her arm.

"What the fu… **GET OFF OF ME**!" she bellowed, though the man was stronger than the Death Eater looked and was not at all fazed by her little unexpected outburst.

He did not flinch or yell in surprise, and he seemed to have been anticipating that the Auror would make a run for it.

"Y—you keep your—your grubby, nasty, sausage fingers to _yourself_ , guy! Merlin's beard, who the _hell_ do you think you are, huh? Ngh—let go of me right now, jerk, or you'll regret it!" Tonks snarled, no longer giving a damn if this was their target.

Death Eater or not, sadist or not, this man had _no_ right to even _look_ at her, much less grab onto her and prevent her from leaving as he had just done.

Her anger threatening to implode, she gave a harsh shove against the kid's burly chest. No doubt the Death Eater followed a rigorous exercise routine to get this… _chiseled_.

Tonks scowled and her frown deepened as the guy didn't apologize. _Not that he would. Since when have Death Eaters ever had manners?_

"Brennan, you creep," she growled, whisper-hissing the boy's name through gritted teeth. It chilled her blood as the Death Eater, a kid, really, grinned at the pink-haired Auror, acting like he was relieved to have finally gotten the witch's attention. "What do you _want_?" she snarled.

This guy wanted _her_?

Well, now he had her _full_ attention. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as she felt the Death Eater's hand come up to grip her shoulder with a rough, hard, calloused hand, and he yanked her backward until she stumbled, almost tripping over a piece of discarded trash in the process, and she felt herself being slammed up violently against the brick wall of the alley she found them both in.

She winced as the gesture stung and sent swells of fiery pain up and down her spine. Tonks could have _sworn_ that she'd heard a back muscle pull and crack.

Almost immediately, Tonks regretted asking such a question as she felt the man's hand leave her shoulder and instead moved towards her face, and she repressed a shudder of revulsion and fear as a wash of cold traveled through her body, starting at the ends of her hair and working its way to the tips of her toes.

She shirked back and pressed her back as far up against the cold brick wall as this forced position would allow and flinched as Brennan's face leaned into hers.

"What _I_ want? How _kind_ of you, Auror, to be concerned over what it is that I seem to want. You asked me what I _want_ , little dove. I want…you." he murmured lowly, and she internally screamed in frustration as the back of his palm lifted and he gently caressed her cheek.

It unnerved her, this unwanted contact, and especially the startling tenderness with which he did it, though his face paled in anger as he no doubts noticed the wrathful, defiant glower she shot his way and promptly removed his hand. He furrowed his dark brows into a frown, possessed with a strange desire to continue caressing her cheek.

Clearly, she had not felt what _he_ had just then, and he growled angrily.

Was he really _that_ despicable? Brennan's dark eyes flashed indignantly as a muscle in both his jaw and behind his right eyelid twitched without prompting.

She winced as she heard the taller man growl in annoyance and he looked her form up and down, giving it a little nod of approval, and then, his listless gaze traveled towards her little black purse she wore around her shoulder.

"Whatcha got in your bag, sweetheart? What did you bring me, love? Let's take a look then, shall we?" he crooned, reaching up towards the strap of her purse draped over her shoulder. "Consider this your fees for me offering you my… _protection_ , doll."

"N—no, l—let go of it, you—you _jerk_! It's mine!" Tonks called out angrily through gritted teeth, reaching her other hand and grabbing at the black bag, refusing to let this man get his grubby fingers all over it.

Her mum had given it to her for her birthday this year, complete with an Extension Charm and everything, though she rarely had need of the charm as all she carried in her bag was her wallet, Auror ID card, and of course, her money, and her father, Ted, being Muggle-born, had taught her how Muggle credit cards and their machines worked when they wanted to buy something, and her dad had vehemently insisted she carries one of those too, just in the unlikely event she ever found herself in the presence of Muggles and needed to blend into the Muggles' surroundings.

Tonks had already dived headfirst into this _mess_ without thinking things through, she was only going to make things worse for herself if she allowed this creep to rob her.

She was _not_ going to be robbed. Not tonight, not ever in her life. Her money, and all that she carried in her bag, was _hers_ , and hers alone.

She'd _earned_ it, through so much hard, tedious, and not to mention dangerous work by putting in countless numbers of hours at the Ministry of Magic.

It wasn't until the man pressed the very tip of his wand into the pale column of her throat that Tonks felt her blood run cold and she was beginning to second-guess her choice of doing whatever it took to keep a hold of her purse.

Maybe getting robbed wouldn't be that bad, if that were all this guy wanted… she swallowed nervously and dared to meet the Death Eater's cold gaze.

"Look, buddy," she whispered, her voice cracking as she lifted her hands against her head, relinquishing her grip on her black purse's strap. "Y—you want my bag, you can just take it," she snapped, hardening her voice, and hoping it masked her fear. "I—I won't fight you anymore," she whined, biting her lip.

Tonks fell silent as the man fumbled in the pocket of his black jeans for something small and metallic. She swallowed and licked her lips to moisten them, but no moisture came, and her throat hollowed and constricted as it tightened.

In a frenzied panic, the young woman felt her leg shot out and kicked him. It had the desired effect, as the man stumbled for a moment, though his hands moved from her waist and seized her arms, trapping them to her side. "You _witch_ ," he growled through gritted teeth, his voice low, dangerously quiet.

"Do not _ever_ hit me again, little dove, or I can promise you, it'll be the _last_ thing you ever do," he snarled, pressing his wand's tip further to her throat.

Tonks let out a muffled, agonized whimper and clenched her eyes shut. If she were to die in this nasty alleyway, she prayed that it would be quick, painless.

" _Please_. I—I have nothing of value, guy," she began, but he cut her off.

"I don't want your money, sweetheart," Brennan snarled through gritted teeth. "And don't even _think_ of opening those pretty lips of yours to scream…"

She felt kind of dizzy all of a sudden, and like she wasn't able to breathe…

Her jaw dropped open and her heart gave a painful lurch, frozen with fear as she stared as the man threateningly raised his knife and too, pressed that against her throat.

Now her throat was being held hostage by this Death Eater, with both wand and knife. _Now, what do I do?_ Tonks thought wildly, in a panic.

"I-I'm sorry," she whispered. "I—I didn't mean to kick you, guy. I—it was like a reflex. Y—you grabbed me, I—I wasn't thinking. Just let me go…"

She could hear herself stammering and tripping over her words, her breaths becoming much more painful and lightheaded as a black mist swirled in her sight.

The taller, dark-haired Death Eater snorted and rolled his eyes at her pathetic attempt at an apology. "You didn't _mean_ to, little dove?" he repeated with a laugh. "What, dear, did you _mean_ to do to me then, Auror? Hmm? Why kick at me if you didn't _mean_ to hit me, sweetheart? Answer me that…"

Tonks whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut and shrank back against the brick alleyway wall as much as his firm grip on both her shoulders would allow.

The man sighed and shook his head, clucking his tongue in mock disappointment, as though he had expected better of one of the Ministry's youngest Aurors. "You know, little dove, you really _do_ look like her. The one that I _loved_ _so very much_. My precious _plaything_. My _Alice_. Sweet, succulent little _Alice_. It's the hair and your pretty little face. You have the same jawline, the same cute little slender nose…."

The way his voice lowered an octave, and the unshed moisture glistening in his eyes as it threatened to spill over scared her.

Tonks felt her blood chill in her veins. _Alice? Alice who? Who was she?_ _Maybe his partner?_ Though the thought of anybody caring for this monster standing in front of her was almost laughable, and under different circumstances, she might have, but laughing was the last thing that she felt like doing right now.

"My last little plaything didn't quite have the right nose. But yours is quite cute, dear…" Brennan sighed and reached up his hand not currently pressed in the back of her hair and bopped her nose, almost painfully, and it made her stomach lurch. "The resemblance is…almost uncanny, how much you look like her, _Auror_ ," he sighed exasperatedly, almost sounding fed up with the pink-haired witch's questions.

That remark chilled her blood and froze her insides, and she was quite certain that what little color was left in her face just then, and his words, Tonks knew, would quite possibly haunt her for the rest of her life, or at least, during her career as an Auror.

And then it hit her like a block of ice.

This man was specifically seeking out a young woman who looked like his last partner, to do unsurmountable horrors to them and have his way with them, and then nearly beat them to death and dispose of their bodies and send whatever was left of them in boxes back to the poor victims' parents?

She didn't even care that Brennan had somehow figured out she was an Auror and had been onto him.

"What's a pretty little slip of a thing like you doing walking the streets in this part of this cesspool of a city?" Brennan wondered, a wry smirk tugging at his thin lips as he reached up to his hand again to continue his infuriating behavior of stroking her cheek. " _Hmm_?" he prodded, growing agitated when she did not answer, and she could hear the taller man stifle a guttural growl of frustration.

Tonks visibly winced and smacked his hand away. She wasn't going to give this creep the satisfaction, not a damn thing of whatever it was that he wanted, as she stared up at him, though the cold listlessness in the Death Eater's eyes was giving her pause, and instinctively, the heat crept to her cheeks and she watched as the man's eyes widened in shock as she could feel her hair begin to change color.

It happened sometimes during periods of extreme stress and discomfort (moments like right now!), her short pixie would automatically change color without her even having to think about concentrating on changing it.

The man blinked owlishly in surprise, fingering a lock of her short hair, now jet black in color, and he cocked his head to the side and regarded Tonks with an incredulous look on her face.

"You're a Metamorphmagus, love," he breathed, and he did not sound angry with what had just happened. Quite the opposite in fact, which greatly unnerved Tonks. "Interesting. Curious, indeed...oh, yes, lovely, you and I are going to have such _fun_ ," he gushed.

Brennan sounded… _impressed_.

" _So_?" snapped Tonks as she defiantly lifted her chin to meet her target's eyes. Her first instinct as an Auror was to be completely shocked, considering when she looked into the man's eyes, there was nothing there to behold, just a horrible emptiness.

A pit of blank nothing, and she thought it was incredibly unnerving to be staring at the eyes of a snake on a human head. She shivered.

"What do my…abilities…have to do with _you_ , guy, huh?" she demanded angrily.

" _Everything_ , sweetheart, you'll see. You really _do_ look like her. This is…really quite enjoyable for me, darling, you've no idea how…excited I am," he breathed. "There is…something that I want to show you in my flat, I think that you will enjoy it, little dove. A _surprise_. Come," he urged, and when Tonks resisted, he scowled and glanced back over his shoulder.

Brennan sighed, pinching the bridge of his slender, straight nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Please don't make me say it a second time, dollface. I really _hate_ saying it a second time," he growled, no semblance of warmth or kindness in his voice. He rapped the blade of his knife against his knuckles. "It would be a _shame_ to ruin your cute little face."

Tonks visibly flinched as his hand not clutching onto his wand grasped her hand in his own, and she was surprised at the heat the man's palm gave off. The man's eyes as she nervously lifted her chin to meet his gaze looked… _off_.

Something about this whole situation felt off, and she froze as she could have sworn that the man's eyes shifted and changed color.

Tonks blinked owlishly at the sudden shift in the man's eyes, feeling certain she was seeing things. "What…?"

Brennan's eyes looked amused, in an incredibly cruel way, as if he were enjoying seeing Tonks squirm with uncertainty and fear at her unknown fate.

They didn't look right like she was gazing into someone else's eyes. Brennan was still eyeing her, staring at Tonks as if he were a predator.

And she, the prey. He did not move, did not back away from the disarmed young woman, nor did he loosen his grip upon her arm.

If anything, it tightened.

"Don't try anything _stupid_ like try to kick me again, dollface," the Death Eater warned, lowering his voice an octave, his words escaping him as a growl. As if to emphasize his point, he pressed the tip of his knife even further into the pale column of her throat. "Or I'll slit your throat," he answered calmly.

Tonks swallowed nervously as she felt Brennan's strong hands press her body even more securely against the wall, his hand drifting down the material of her black floral peasant top and settling on the waistband of her black jeans, his other hand drifted upward to the back of her skull, grabbing her and pulling her close.

"What do you think of me, little dove?" he asked softly. "Be honest."

His raw voice felt brutal against the shell of the young woman's ear, and Tonks flinched and stiffened as his hand found purchase in the back of her hair, toying with a lock of her now jet-black pixie cut. She swallowed nervously.

Brennan allowed his free hand to drift upward, the smooth interior of his palm grazing against her collarbones, and his hand wandered just slightly underneath her black floral peasant top. It was when the Death Eater's grip shifted on his weapons, both his wand and his knife, and she cast her gaze downward at the cobblestone street beneath their boots as her eyes settled on the broken fragments of her wand, that she realized just how exactly dire her predicament was.

She pushed her face closer towards the man's, her mind ordered her body to fall in line.

Retreat and get to a place of safety was the desired outcome of this rather unexpected encounter, borrow a wand from a fellow Order member somehow, once she could find a way to get in touch with someone, but if she so much as tried to run, this creep would probably render her immobile with a well-placed jinx, kill her by slitting her throat, and leave her body somewhere in the damned sewers of London for Mad-Eye Moody or _worse_ , her parents, to find.

The young Auror blinked owlishly in shock, clearly caught off guard by his question. She shivered at the numbness, the flat undertones of his voice as he presented his query to her, and despite herself trying to lie and keep her true feelings to herself, she just…couldn't do it.

" _Cruel_ ," she managed to gasp out at last, when she found her voice, it was weak and incredibly hoarse. Tonks was certain she saw the briefest flickers of anger intermingled with disappointment dart across the man's darkening orbs, and his face paled in anger.

" _Cruel_ ," he repeated, sounding offended. " _Cruel_ , darling," he growled. "If that is what you think of me, little dove, then maybe _I'm not cruel enough_."

"What are you doing to m—" But the young witch's sentence was cut off with a pained, surprise whimper as the Death Eater leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers, forcing his tongue past her tightly clenched shut lips and teeth. Tonks squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. This was…a first.

She had no _idea_ what to do in this situation.

_Do I—do I fight back? Bite him?_

Voldemort's newest Death Eater had already proven to the Auror his brute strength and more than willingness to play rough with his chosen female victims.

Tonks felt her entire body start to shake as she shivered as Brennan's deep, very much unwanted, and forceful, kiss continued.

The man's tongue pushed itself past hers, forceful, his strong hands coming to grip almost painfully tight on the waistband of her jeans. The man's fingers dug painfully into her soft flesh as they briefly wandered underneath her shirt, and she heard him growl in anger.

"Ngh—get _off_ —" she gasped, letting out a pained wince as she reached up her hand and shoved him, and the surprising forcefulness of the gesture was enough to send the taller, intimidating Death Eater stumbling back a few feet.

The Death Eater threw back his head and laughed, a cold sound devoid of warmth that sounded more like the harsh bark of some kind of _animal_ , and Tonks knew that's what this man was to her.

A beast. A savage animal who preyed on women.

"That's what I'm _trying_ to do, sweetheart. If you'd hold still and relax, I promise you'll enjoy it and I won't hurt you. _That_ much," the taller man growled angrily. "Don't panic, darling. It'll be fun, love, you'll see. Just…calm down. I promise, I'll be gentle…I'll move slowly. It's what you want. Don't bother lying, I can see it in your eyes." Here, he leaned forward and buried his face in her hair. "I can…smell it on you," he murmured lowly. "I know there's a big size difference here since you're so _small_ , little dove," he taunted cruelly, "but I'll be careful not to hurt you as long as you stay quiet and cooperate…."

Tonks shook her head as she had to crane her neck up to stare at Brennan through unshed tears. Feeling her face drain of color and entirely too shocked to give an immediate comeback, Tonks panted and heaved for breath, shooting out a hand to use the wall as a brace to prevent herself from falling as she could feel her strength leave her.

She had to remind herself there was still the Muggle method of dueling, that even without her wand, she was not entirely helpless.

She was going to have to resort to physical hand-to-hand combat if she held a prayer of getting out of this and away from the man who'd just shoved his eel-like tongue down her throat.

She gagged and almost vomited at that thought, tasting the burning remnants of whatever Fire Whiskey he'd consumed probably an hour before finding Tonks.

No matter how much it unnerved her to resort to this kind of fighting, she had no other choice, given the man had destroyed her wand, and the fact of the matter remained that Voldemort's newest Death Eater had just tried to assault her.

She had to do this. The alternative was way more frightening of just letting him do whatever he wanted to her in the hopes that he would just stop this, and that she could not allow, by the Light of Merlin, she couldn't let it happen.

Tonks reached up a hand and bit down hard on the top of the man's hand as his strong arm came around and wrapped around the column of her throat, clawing pitifully at his hand with her nails, wincing as she realized she'd chipped her manicure, though she shoved aside that inappropriate thought and drew back her hand as far as she could, curling her fingers into a fist and struck the man's jawline.

Tonks had never really punched another human being before, so she was incredibly surprised at the pain that blazed up her right arm as her fist connected with Brennan's jaw.

The young Auror hadn't really been thinking things through clearly when she'd let out her boiling antipathy and swung her fist tight, too quick, too potent, into Brennan's chiseled, defined jaw.

Except…except that it _wasn't_ Brennan's jaw. Tonks felt beads of sweat immediately begin to form on her brow and a terrified, pained scream left her lips before she could stop herself.

The scream tore through the Auror like a shard of glass that had gone straight to her heart. She felt her eyes widen and pulse quicken, her heart thrumming against her chest, thudding like a rock rattling in a box as the man's features became twisted and distorted right before her eyes.

Whatever nightmare, horrible…hallucination she was experiencing was getting progressively less amusing.

Brennan's form almost seemed to shimmer and wave, and as the man stumbled back from the sheer force as she shoved against the Death Eater's chest, and when he lifted his chin to meet the Auror's gaze, she felt a wave of cold wash over her entire body as the color drained from her face.

The grin spread over the man's face, wide and open, unhinged, his dark eyes wild, showing his over-whitened teeth.

At that moment, his motives were laid bare; this one was a mocker, one who enjoyed whatever torment he could inflict on others. She swallowed nervously as she looked into the listless eyes of none other than wanted Death Eater, Barty Crouch Jr., and she felt like screaming and crying.

This…this wasn't supposed to happen. Not like _this_. Not now. Not tonight.

_Alice. He—he called me Alice. Alice Longbottom?! Alice, now it all makes sense_ , Tonks thought wildly. _He's been impersonating this kid and hiding in plain sight._ _He's going to torture me just like he did to Frank and Alice Longbottom_ , she thought, growling, and taking a step backward.

Barty Crouch Jr. shook his head and raked his fingers through his wild tuft of brown hair that seemed as though it had a mind of its own and clucked his tongue as he slowly but swiftly advanced on Tonks, his wand drawn in hand.

"Where are you _going_ , sweet little dove? Little Alice," he mocked, his eyes drifting upwards to her raven-black pixie. "You only just _got_ here, darling."

Tonks, thinking fast, scrunched her nose and forced her hair to return to its usual shade of pink. She was _not_ going to give Crouch the satisfaction of pretending to be his favorite victim.

Tonks no longer cared if this man killed her for it. _Let me die here, then. Anything but this_ … she thought, anguished. _Please_. _Someone_...

She knew very little of Alice Longbottom, only that she and her husband Frank were incredibly gifted Aurors, and the two of them defied the Dark Lord's orders and had not given into the cruel torture, and as a result, lost their minds.

Poor devils. Better dead than what happened to them. Mad-Eye Moody's words of the Longbottoms as he'd showed her a photo of the Original Order of the Phoenix that he kept stowed in an inside pocket of his brown trench coat.

She was now inclined to agree with her mentor's sentiment as she looked into the cold eyes of Crouch and seeing nothing there but a cold-hearted hatred.

For her. Her stomach lurched and she thought she was going to be sick, and she opened her mouth, keeping her hands raised mid-air by her head, to show the Death Eater she meant him no harm, for how could she, when this man had destroyed her wand?

Tonks parted her lips to speak, but Crouch shot her a charmingly disarming white smile and shot the young pink-haired Auror an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, darling," he said, and he truly sounded it. "But it's better this way. I can't have you fighting me on this, love."

Without another word, he pointed his wand at Tonks's chest, and that was when she felt herself being hit with the Impedimenta Jinx, square in the chest, and she felt something hard strike the back of her head, and immediately, a wet, sticky sensation began pooling at the back of her skull, trickling slowly down her neck.

And then, her world went black.


	6. A New Arrangement

**CHAPTER SIX **

"You did **WHAT**?" Auror Mad-Eye Moody's powerful voice reverberated throughout the kitchens, causing flinched reactions from everyone as Snape finished his recounting of events that led to him returning to headquarters….and his partner didn't.

Moody's holler reverberated in Remus's ears like a clap of thunder, such was his rage.

It was a roar of pure anger, once he'd learned what Severus had done, or rather, had allowed happening without trying to prevent her from leaving. Moody let out a low guttural growl that could have put Lupin's to shame as he looked upon the Potions Professor as though the man had sprouted horns.

"Tell me you're _joking_ , Severus. _Tell me_."

Severus made no remark, which only further aggravated both Remus and Mad-Eye Moody, whose chest puffed out and he slammed his walking stick down in frustration. " _This…this isn't a joke, boy_?!" Mad-Eye snarled angrily.

"No." Just a one-word response from Snape, but it was more than enough.

The silence in it of itself was deafening, now that Moody had practically screamed himself hoarse at Hogwarts' Potions Master for the better part of at least two minutes, to which Snape had favored silence as the only apt response, which Remus supposed he should consider a good thing, given the volatile nature of how he was currently feeling.

Every time Severus Snape opened his thin, rigid mouth, Lupin got angrier.

Remus felt a burning rage hit his insides so suddenly and without warning that he virtually had no time to react as his mind felt like it stuttered for a moment, like one of those Muggle car batteries that had backfired, and his eyes took in more light from the kitchen's chandelier above their heads than he had expected.

Every part of him went on pause while his thoughts struggled to catch up to the admission that Severus Snape had just confessed to the room.

Remus's gaze flitted towards Mad-Eye Moody, who had not taken the news well that his latest protégé, a young woman by the name of Nymphadora Tonks, had been left abandoned by the very man who was supposed to be her partner.

The grizzled old Auror was practically white-knuckled from clenching his fists too hard as he stood next to Snape and Dumbledore, and gritted teeth from the vain effort to remain silent, his slightly hunched over form exuded an animosity that was like acid—burning, potent, slicing, and very, very deadly.

Mad-Eye's face was red with suppressed rage, and when Snape even so much as dared to set a finger on the older wizard's shoulder in an attempt to calm the aging Auror down from his erratic mood swings, he swung around and mentally snapped. " _You left Tonks out there alone with Brennan, Snap_ e?"

His voice was hardened, clipped, and incredibly curt with the Potions Professor, and the man was staring at Severus as though the sallow-haired man had sprouted horns out of his head, and Lupin was inclined to agree with him.

"Yes. She left without me. The _witch_ _made_ her choice, Mad-Eye, and I was left with virtually no time at all to even consider stopping her," Snape's answer was curt and honest.

The man was smart, there was no denying that about him, and he must have been able to come to the correct conclusion that in the presence of three Order members, it would do him no good to lie.

"Alastor, before you get angry," Professor Snape began, his voice calm, though there was no mistaking the flickers of uneasiness that darted through the man's cold eyes. "Allow me to elaborate fully. Your… _ward_ … was being entirely—"

But Mad-Eye Moody was not having it, and as a result of his growing ire, he slammed his walking stick down hard on Number 12, Grimmauld Place's kitchen floor, and the noise echoed, booming, reverberating off the walls, sounding like a low roll of thunder, and the entire party fell silent. _Silent_.

Remus sat back in his chair, his head throbbing and his mind reeling.

"Sh—she's _real_ ," Lupin breathed, his voice sounding rough and coarse, and yet, slightly more subdued than before. "That's…that's _not_ possible…"

This…this could _not_ be happening to him. This was a lie, somehow.

A _trick_. A cruel, malicious trick, yet another pitiful attempt by Snape to get back at him for their time when they were younger back in Hogwarts.

He shook his head to clear it and carded his fingers through his hair, to which he received a rather incredulous look from Professors Snape and Dumbledore, both men were looking rather astonished at the man's denial.

Though the Professors knew that Remus's denial was less at accepting the fact that the woman that had been haunting his vivid nightmares unceasingly over the last two weeks was very much real and in grave danger, and more so disgusted with Severus Snape's chosen course of action to help her.

Or rather, his _lack_ of action. Lupin let out a guttural growl from the back of his throat as his emotions raged uncontrollably within him, and he felt nothing but a surging, raging fire within the confines of his chest intermingled with a twinge of fear as his narrowed met the sallow-faced Potions Professor.

Snape, to his credit, remained impassive throughout the entire confession, though if Remus was not mistaken, and of these, he usually wasn't, the man seemed to be harboring an inkling of fear towards him.

_Good_ … _He should be afraid_ , the demonic dark voices, remnants of the mad beast within that always tugged and strained against its leash during this time of the month, taunted. Lupin let out a low warning growl and bolted from the chair he'd been occupying so fast that he overturned it. He saw both Mrs. Weasley and Professor Dumbledore stiffen, their hands around their wands at the ready, just in case they saw the need to subdue him, but they did not move a muscle.

Remus was sure, yes, he was sure that he could have sworn Professor Dumbledore's cobalt blue orbs twinkle mischievously, with the faintest glimmers of amusement intermingled with curiosity. _He wants to see what Snape will do_ , he thought angrily, grinding his teeth in anger as he paced.

Back and forth he went. Back and forth, feeling the cold linoleum tile beneath his bare feet, seizing tufts of his hair as he murmured under his breath to himself.

"Let me just…let me just _process_ this, Professor. You're telling me that this…the woman I've been dreaming is your _partner_ , a—and you just _left_ her out there to get _killed_ by this new Death Eater of Voldemort's?!"

Lupin spat his words venomously as though they were poison that had settled and lingered upon his tongue, and Remus stifled his groan of frustration as he felt the entire rest of the room save for Professor Dumbledore flinch at the mention of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his _true_ name. He ignored the flinches, the stares.

He was not afraid of uttering the Dark Lord's name. Remus never had been. To give fear to a meaningless name only increased the fear in the thing itself, a fact he tried to emphasize to the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, though his advice oft fell on deaf ears, save for Sirius and Dumbledore. He could only focus on the burning fire that laced throughout his veins, and the shadow of the wolf that darted across his pale features as his angered gaze remained fixated on that of Severus Snape, this man, this _betrayer_ , this demon.

Remus furrowed his brows, frowning. He felt his head whiplash sharply upwards and, unable to bear it, rapidly closed off the gap of space between himself and Hogwarts' Potions Master, seized fistfuls of Severus's robes and slammed him against the kitchen wall, ignoring the crack as the man's head collided with the wall. _Good_. Maybe the force of the blow would kill him.

" _Lupin_! _Wh—what are you doing? Let him go! This—this isn't you_!" exclaimed Molly pleadingly, one of her hands tugging gently on his black sweater, but he let out a low guttural growl from the back of his throat and he shot out an arm, preventing the auburn-haired witch from interfering with this.

Snape had just revealed to him and the entire rest of the room that this…this…She-Stranger, of his nightmares, was real, and he'd left her to _die_.

This he could _not_ allow. If this Stranger really was alive and in trouble, then she needed help, before the fiction of his nightmares became a reality.

Lupin growled in frustration and bared his teeth, wrapping his hand around the column of Snape's throat. His temper, especially in the days leading up to each month's full moon and usually a few days following the cycle, was a slow-burning fuse.

There was no problem while there was still more to burn, but then the explosion of red hot anger that was like fiery sparks would catch everyone, and especially him, by surprise, leaving all who knew him shattered.

Snape, despite the fact that the tip of Lupin's nose was practically touching his, remained calm and composed, though he made no move to attempt to pry Remus's hand off the column of his throat. "You have not been yourself, Lupin, due to your condition. Your judgment is clouded. If you will let me go, I will tell you where we can find her. This girl is in danger. _Let. Go. Of. Me. Lupin_. Th—there is still a chance to talk this over, Remus," he said.

Remus blinked, suddenly feeling too stunned for words. Talk?! _Talk_?

Merlin's beard, why on earth would he want to _talk_ with Severus?

" _Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you_ ," he snarled, whisper-hissing his words through gritted teeth and locked jaw, no semblance left in his voice for this betrayer who had left the woman of his dreams to _die_.

Severus did not answer, nor did the expression of his face changed, which only stroked Lupin's anger, that horrible, burning rage within his veins, further.

"I _could_ kill you, Severus. _If I wanted_ ," he growled, whispering it, lowering his voice so that only Snape could hear him. As to emphasize his point, Lupin's fingers curled even tighter around the Potion Master's thick, veiny throat. He could have sworn he heard a crack and Severus let out a grunt.

A snort escaped the wretched, accursed man's lips and Remus's bright brown eyes burning with anger quickly widened in shock as it took the younger man a moment to recognize that his fellow Order member was laughing at his statement, and the feeling that was coursing through his bloodstream was rage.

"Y—you would _kill_ me, Lupin? _Truly_? So could another wizard or witch. So could a dog or a dedicated duck if it tried hard enough," he snarled poisonously, his expression deadpan, and deadly stoic. "You're not special, _wolf_ ," Severus spat, ignoring the glowering look that Albus shot the pair of men, who were about to come to blows.

Remus leaned in close and closed off the gap of space between the two of them, his grip around the man's throat tightening as he resisted the urge to scrunch his nose in disgust. If he had to guess, when he finally pulled his hand away once the deed was done, he surmised even his palm would come away greasy. He furrowed his brows as Snape made an odd little strangled noise at the back of his throat, seeming like he was attempting to speak, but Lupin was _not_ going to hear any more of the miserable excuse for a man's reasonings why.

Lupin's rage burned so bad it felt like fire was lacing, coursing through his veins and creeping up his vertebrae, and he was honestly quite surprised he hadn't spontaneously combusted into flames right here in Sirius's kitchen, and all Remus could feel at this moment was the horrible desire to hate the sallow-faced, black-haired Professor in front of him.

He was intoxicated with emotion he had no intention of ever feeling. The acidity of which was residing in the pit of his stomach waiting to be spat out of his mouth in foul and vulgar words he knew he'd be stared at for saying.

Except he wasn't going to say them, oh, _no_. He was going to shout them at Severus Snape with every ounce of breath that dwelled in his lungs.

Remus felt his blood boil as he curled his hand tightly around Severus's neck and squeezed, though not hard enough to fully snap the wretched man's neck, though he was…sorely tempted. Oh, so tempted to just end this already.

"Not. Another. Word. _Snivellus_ ," Remus spat, feeling uncharacteristically violent and not at all like himself.

For the moment, he blamed his condition.

This time, Lupin did not bother to restrain himself as he grabbed yet another fistful of Snape's black robes and slammed him against the wall even harder as if to emphasize that he was rapidly approaching that point of no return.

He grabbed Snape's jaw roughly, cupping the Potions Master's chin in his unusually strong grip, his fingers feeling more like the beast's claws than that of his own human hands, and let out a wolfish, animalistic sounding growl from the back of his throat that came from deep within his chest, a threatening snarl that made Mrs. Weasley's blood freeze in her veins, and she momentarily ceased her gentle tugging on the material of his black sweater in a fruitless attempt to pull him away from the Potions Master, finding it hopeless.

Mrs. Weasley swallowed hard past the growing lump in her throat and practically launched herself in between the pair of men before the tensions in the room became even worse, though she believed if the tension in the room would have been color, the entire kitchen would have been garish crimson.

"Because then you would be no better than the Death Eaters, and I do not believe this version of yourself to be the kind of man your parents intended for you growing up, Remus John Lupin. If you kill Severus, you will only be proving my earlier point from last week's meeting, that to divide us and cause fighting amongst ourselves is _exactly_ what Lord Voldemort wants, Lupin. We can only place our trust in a handful of people. If we start fighting amongst ourselves...we are doomed."

Remus blinked as the sound of Professor Dumbledore's calm; stoic voice reached his eardrums. He flinched as he heard the Headmaster utter his full name in an attempt to break him out of his angered haze, this foggy stupor that was causing him to feel…beastly. Animalistic. Wolfish, even. This _wasn't_ him.

Recognizing the Headmaster was right (as usual!), Lupin let out another growl of frustration, somewhat reluctantly, exhaled a shaking breath through his nose and upon meeting the Potions Professor's steely, glacier gaze, relinquished his grip on the man's pale throat. Remus shot Severus a look that Professor Snape could only perceive as venom in the man's otherwise kindly light brown eyes, though he didn't necessarily fault the much younger man for behaving in such an abhorrent way.

"I think that is _quite_ enough, Remus, wouldn't you say?" Dumbledore asked, and there was no mistaking the clipped edges in the wizened man's tone.

"Pardon my rudeness, Headmaster, but _no_ , it isn't enough," he growled, Snape's shoulder brushing against his own roughly as Snape shoved his way past Lupin and moved to stand next to Dumbledore, as though he believed in some small way, some small inkling of misplaced hope, that Albus would save his life.

The one question that he demanded an answer to burned on the edge of his tongue was demanded to be released, and he fixed Snape with a cold glower. " _Where. Is. She_ ," he growled menacingly. He was _not_ in a patient mood, and so help him, Snape was going to answer him right bloody _now_ , no tricks, no deceit, no games, or by Merlin's beard, he was going to strangle—

"I believe our…our target, the boy, Brennan, his base of operations is near the Clifton Rocks Railway, in an abandoned safe house of sorts, though I don't know which one it is," Snape snapped. "Bristol. We have to go. _Now_."

" _No_ ," growled Mad-Eye Moody, thumping forward, his prosthetic leg making an audible loud noise as he dragged his leg along the linoleum floor.

The man's voice was clipped and hard, and he too was rapidly losing the last of whatever patience remained within the grizzled old Auror on this night.

Professor Dumbledore heaved an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, all the while pushing his silver half-moon spectacles back up onto his face in the process. " _Both_ of you," he began slowly, though there was no mistaking the hardened edges in the Headmaster's normally kind tone, and Mad-Eye and Remus paused, swiveling their heads to stare at the Headmaster, "will kindly still your rage. If you are going to be unreasonable, then we have a problem."

Albus turned towards Severus, his lips pursed into a thin rigid line as he regarded Hogwarts's, Potions Master.

"Severus, I believe it will be in everyone's best interests if you do not accompany us to retrieve Miss Tonks from this man's hideout. I think it best if you will…remain behind," he began after a long silence, and if he heard Lupin's barely audible sigh of relief, the wizard gave no indication of this, "assuming that Nymphadora Tonks is in a state of consciousness by the time help arrives to extract her, I have every indication to believe that….tensions will be high, and you will presumably be the last person she will wish to see in her emotionally vulnerable state." He cast a reproachful look towards Severus.

Snape snorted through his nose. " _Obviously_ ," he growled, and Remus felt a muscle in his jaw twitch at the man's utter insolence, and the indignity to speak to the Headmaster in such a condescending tone that dripped with sarcasm and hatred and something else, something that Lupin wasn't quite sure he could identify what that emotion was, and he clenched his hand into a fist.

Acting quickly, he stowed his wand into the pocket of his black trousers and shoved his hands into his pocket to prevent himself from striking out at the sallow-haired Potions Professor in anger. He had already been provoked once and had no desire to spill blood on this night.

He did not think Snape would exit this kitchen in one piece if he were to be goaded a second time into a response. Lupin swallowed and spoke up.

"Sir," he began hesitantly, unsure of how to phrase his request to Dumbledore. He was not typically a man who asked another for a favor, considering he had always felt such actions to be burdensome to the other party.

But Albus, it would seem, had been anticipating Remus would ask, for his kind, sky-blue orbs twinkled slightly mischievously, and he held up a hand to stop the younger wizard from speaking. "Say no more, Remus," he began, his tone sounding much kinder and softer than it had moments ago. "You will accompany Alastor in the retrieval of his protégé, and stay with her, I think."

Lupin blinked owlishly at the Hogwarts Headmaster, feeling quite certain that he had misheard the wizened old wizard. "Sir?" he repeated again quietly.

Professor Dumbledore allowed a small half-smile to grace his lips, and he sighed softly before turning away. "It would seem that, given the girl's unique circumstances, she is in need of a new partner, would I be correct in assuming this, Professor Snape, given your…repeated expressed desires for her to undertake a new partner, following your inevitable return to Hogwarts in September?" he asked pointedly and coldly, turning his attention to Severus.

Professor Snape mutely nodded, though Remus could have sworn he heard the Potions Master emanate a tense exhale of relief through his hooked nose, and the way his shoulders slumped suggested the man was utterly relieved.

Lupin felt the familiar hot fire spark of anger reignite in his bloodstream, boiling until he thought he might very well implode.

Was this woman from his dreams, Severus's partner, if he were to believe the sallow-faced, miserable Professor's hostile remarks filled with a poisonous venom whenever he spoke of this girl, Nymphadora Tonks, really _that_ despicable that she should just be left to rot and be killed? Violently tortured in a way that was worse than death?

Professor Dumbledore nodded, a solemn expression on his lined and careworn face, and the whiskers of his beard twitched without prompting, as he turned back towards Remus and offered the younger wizard a sad little smile.

"My decision is final, then. Remus, if you are agreeable to the conditions of the new arrangement I am about to propose, I would like to assign you as Nymphadora Tonks's new partner for a year, to be safe, I think, given her circumstances. Following the end of a year, we can…re-evaluate the young witch's needs and go from there, I think, though for the time being, given her state of mind, I do not trust her nor do I think it wise to allow the young witch to remain alone. She'll need someone at her side to help her through this. Given the…certain privileges that come with being the Order of the Phoenix's founder, I exercise the right to assign partners on an ad hoc basis, and it is my belief that Miss Tonks cannot be left on her own following her extraction. Who knows what horrors the poor thing has been subjected to, the true extent of her wounds…."

The weighted gravity of Professor Dumbledore's tones chilled Lupin's blood, and he froze in his tracks, though he was not fixating his attention on Albus, but rather of Snape. It sounded to Lupin as though the Professor already knew what had happened—or _was_ happening—to the She-Stranger, of his dreams, and he did not think he could bear it if, when they got there, when he saved her, that she was hurt.

_Tonks, Tonks, her name is Tonks_ , her conscience reminded himself. _She's real. She's suffering. Hurt_. Because of _him_.

His kind light brown eyes narrowed as he glared at Snape. Remus let out a low threatening growl from the back of his throat before he even knew it was happening and advanced on Snape until the tips of their noses were practically touching, and he snarled, and he was pleased to see Snape flinch away from him.

"You don't _deserve_ to stand in this house, Severus, you _fool_ ," Remus growled lowly through gritted teeth, his words escaping as a hissed whispering. "I should take you outside, to the _roof_ of Grimmauld Place, Snape, and throw you to the streets below so that everyone in the Order can see what happens to a _traitor_."

Though Snape's face remained neutral, Remus was not at all fooled. He could see the briefest flickers of uncertainty dart through the man's black orbs.

Remus was no Legilimens as Snape was, though it did not take a genius to understand the thought that was flitting through Severus's mind?

_Is he serious? Would he really throw me off the roof for such a mistake?_

Oh, but he _would_. For what kind of _man_ would leave an innocent woman to such a gruesome fate? Only a _coward_ , of which Snape was one.

Feeling his lips curl upward into a twisted sneer that did not feel at all like himself, Lupin moved to close off the gap of space between himself and Snape, though it was Dumbledore who shot out an arm in front of Snape, preventing Lupin from taking another step forward toward him. "There is no further need for this," advised Dumbledore, and Lupin ground his teeth and silently seethed as he recognized the clipped edges of the Headmaster's voice.

Remus let out a low warning growl though upon seeing the stony glower as the older wizard's sky-blue eyes darkened, now turning cerulean in color as his own patience was tested, he gave a reluctant nod of his head.

" _Where. Is. She_?" Lupin barked; his cold gaze reserved for Severus.

"Bristol. A safe house, but I'm not certain which one is Brennan's, but I could sense it the other…last week, when I looked inside his mind," Snape offered quietly, straightening his collar of his black robes, and turning away.

"We'll get her back, Alastor," Molly Weasley offered kindly, her voice barely audible from behind Remus. She had since ceased her incessant tugging on Lupin's black sweater in an effort to pull him away from Snape. "Tonks—"

"—is one tough nut to crack. And smart. Smarter than anybody at the Auror Office gives her credit for. I think she can manage to survive a few more minutes while the two of us make a plan, Lupin," barked Moody, his mechanical eye swiveling in all directions, though his one good eye was fixed on Snape's backside as the sallow-faced Potions Professor swiftly exited out of the kitchens. "Ruddy greasy-haired _git_. Wouldn't be surprised to learn the man has maggots festering in his hair, looks like he never washes that mane of his," he grumbled darkly under his breath. "I should jinx him where he stands for what he's done, but he isn't worth it," he snarled, his eye swiveling to Lupin.

Remus visibly flinched. He always felt unnerved whenever Mad-Eye's eye was fixated on him as if the grizzled old Auror sensed more than he let on.

Lupin's fingers of his wand hand curled around the piece of wood protectively as he emanated a tense exhale, though not before asking of Dumbledore one final question. "Sir," he called out, his voice sounding shakier than it had a moment ago. "What of _him_?" he growled, his tone hardening, as he gave a jerk of his head towards the hallway where Severus had vanished to.

Dumbledore sighed sadly and tossed his gray scarf back over his neck and glanced down and picked at his fingerless gray woolen gloves he wore to protect his hands from the bitter autumnal cold of London's witching hour.

"I do not blame you, Remus, for the way you reacted towards this rather disturbing news just now. You have every right to be incredibly angry. The thought of one of our Order members in danger is not a pleasant thought. Severus is the one who should feel shame, not you." He looked towards Lupin with worried eyes. "I think that, in time, once Miss Tonks recovers from her injuries, the two of you will become wonderful partners. Perhaps even…" His voice trailed off, and the elderly wizard got such a look of wonderment in his eyes as he gazed off into the distance, heavily concentrating about something, before he realized what had happened and he blinked, startling himself back to reality. "My apologies. I was…woolgathering, a moment. It happens every now and again. A side effect of my intellectual genius, I'm inclined to believe," he chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling merrily behind his half-rim moon spectacles.

Lupin pursed his lips into a thin line. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Dumbledore whenever he got in moods like this, as though the ancient wizard knew more of a situation than he let on.

Remus nodded. "What of Snape, sir?" he spat bitterly, unable to keep the note of newfound loathing and immense dislike for a man who, in his younger years, he and the rest of his friends, Sirius and James more so than Peter, had considered something of a nemesis, "What will happen to him, Professor?"

Professor Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak but did not manage to get so much as a word in edgewise before Mad-Eye Moody brushed against the Headmaster's shoulder roughly, perhaps rougher than the grizzled Auror intended to, for the much older wizard faltered backward a little and shot Alastor a withering look, though Moody if he noticed it at all, ignored it.

"Enough chit-chat, we'll have time for a cozy catch up _later_!" Moody barked, swiveling his magical glass eye back to regard Remus, his one good eye indicating a look of incredulity. "The longer we stand around here waiting the longer my protégé suffers under the hand of this _Death Eater_. Tonks is good, but she's not that good, boys. She still has a lot to learn, and I don't want her to suffer any more on account of Professor Snape's foolish blunder." He spat the word as if it were a bitter poison that had lingered on his tongue. "Let's _go_!"

Remus did not need to be told a second time, though his heart gave a painful lurch as Sirius stumbled into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, eyes half-lidded and still drowsy from sleep, his dark hair tousled and mussed from sleep.

" _What in the name of Merlin's beard is going on_? Someone want to tell me why we're all up at the ungodly hour of…" Here, Sirius glanced at the clock on the wall, which now read two-thirty, "two-thirty in the bloody morning?" demanded Sirius, his voice sounding rough and coarse, likely from his sleep being interrupted.

He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand and pulled up an unoccupied kitchen chair and straddled the thing backward before plopping down and taking a seat.

Sirius scowled and pulled a face, his face pale and drowsy from lack of sleep. "And what's old Snivellus doing here, the blind, bloody git? Don't you know having him here is just going to cause this place to become even more _filthy_ ," he snarled, no doubt having witnessed the Potions Master leave headquarters as Sirius had made his way downstairs, no doubt to investigate the source of the noise which had woken him up.

Sirius perked up at seeing the group gathered in the small kitchen of his parents' house, though his cheerful expression quickly faltered at seeing the look of anguish and utter confusion on his best friend's face, though Lupin had no time to explain.

Moody was right. They had to go. This woman, Nymphadora Tonks, _the woman from his dreams_ , was in grave danger, and they couldn't just stand around and wait. By this point, she might already be _dead_ , and just that thought alone was enough to send him into another full-frenzied panic as he felt his heartstrings give out a painful lurch.

"I—I'm sorry, my friend. I—I have to go, Sirius. I'll explain everything later," Remus said reluctantly before Sirius could even open his mouth to speak, shooting Sirius an apologetic look before turning towards Mad-Eye Moody, who frowned and gave a curt nod of his head, tapping his walking stick on the floor of the kitchen and Disapparating with a loud crack that made Sirius jump.

Remus shot his best friend another pitying glance before slipping on his socks and shoes and turning on his heel, clearing his mind and filling his head with visions of Bristol as he Apparated on his heel and vanished in precisely the same spot as where Mad-Eye Moody had just stood but only moments before.

Sirius scowled, knitting his dark brows together in confusion and rested his chin on his arms as he rested his arms together on the back of the chair's headrest. "I don't bloody understand this, you lot," he growled, irate. "Was it something I said? Is one of you going to tell me what the bloody hell's going on, _please_?"

The dark-haired former prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter's godfather looked towards Molly Weasley for confirmation, who nodded, a tired, exasperated look on her lined features as she wrapped her shawl tighter around her warmth and took the seat opposite Remus Lupin's best friend.

"Have a biscuit, dear," Molly murmured, pushing the tan canister of cookies towards Sirius, who took one and bit it in half with one swift bite, never taking his eyes off Mrs. Weasley. "I hope you're awake for the remainder of the morning. It's…a rather long story. One that even I'm admittedly having trouble believing, I'm ashamed to admit," she began, though she could not help but ask the one question that Remus had never received an answer to.

Professor Dumbledore, Merlin bless that man, as always, seemed to have anticipated the matronly auburn-haired witch's question and had already prepared an adequate response as his cobalt blue eyes shimmered as he regarded the pair of Order members and friends.

"You wish to know what will become of Severus," explained Albus softly, his gaze fixated on Molly, ignoring Sirius crinkling his nose in disgust at the mention of Snape. "For now, given the…volatile way Remus reacted towards him but a moment ago and very nearly would have killed my Potions teacher had I not stopped him doing it, I think it best if our Potions Master returns to his home and awaits further contact from me there. I think that he has done _enough_ for the night," he said, and there was no mistaking the darkening look of anger in the Hogwarts' Headmaster's eyes.

Even Sirius flinched, though Black knew better than to interject.

Professor Dumbledore sighed, slipping his half-moon rimless spectacles back over the bridge of his nose. "I think it best if Severus remains away from headquarters for the next several weeks following your cousin's recovery, Sirius. She will be staying here, with Lupin," he added, ignoring Sirius's stunned look.

Sirius quickly nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes, of course," he murmured, dipping his head as a sign of acknowledgment and respect towards Professor Dumbledore. "And Remus? What of him? Why is he so….so mopey, sir?"

"I think the man needs his space to deal with this little matter on his own terms. I believe that, when the time is right, Sirius, he will share with you what has...been ailing him. But now, Snape is my concern. If, when he brings your cousin back to Grimmauld Place following her extraction, and I have every belief that he will, depending on...her circumstances, then Miss Tonks seeing Severus will be a danger to them both at this point, and I think that Remus is just the one who is best suited to help the poor dear," he mumbled sadly. "And I think it safe to say Remus's mind is on _other_ things at the moment," Professor Dumbledore added, recollecting the strange glint the younger wizard and werewolf had gotten in his kind brown eyes when he spoke of _her_.

Albus could only hope, and shot a quick prayer to Merlin above, that his suspicions were correct, and that he had not made a grave mistake by assigning Remus to be Miss Tonks's new partner for the remaining duration of the year.

"Other things?" Sirius perked up at that, intrigued. "What ' _other things_?'"

But Dumbledore did not answer Black. He merely proceeded to offer Molly and Sirius an odd little half-bow before following the same manner as his companions and Disapparating from the kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

Sirius growled in frustration and looked towards Molly. "What 'other things?' Molly, what in the name of Merlin is Dumbledore talking of? What's wrong with Remus?" he demanded hotly, not hearing Mrs. Weasley's tired sigh of exasperation.

Molly groaned and sighed, clutching onto her mug of tea, knowing that she could forsake any hopes of even thinking about going back to bed for the remainder of the early morning hours.

It was going to be a long night.


	7. His Alice

**CHAPTER SEVEN **

The kidnapping of twenty-four-year-old Auror, Nymphadora Tonks, was over in a second. One minute the two had been standing unobserved in an alleyway, and then the next, the moment Crouch had lifted her unconscious form in his arms and Disapparated, they were both just gone. Vanished.

No one saw a bloody thing as Barty Disapparated with Tonks in his arms, having to carry her bridal style in his arms, the young woman's head lolling back against the crook of his elbow, and he was able to carry the girl inside his safehouse, a decrepit old abandoned house, its inhabitants long since dead, with no problems.

Barty Crouch Jr.'s expression as he regarded his newest plaything, now that they were securely holed up in the comfort of his safe house, away from prying eyes, was of one being forced to endure an unpleasant odor as he sourly glanced out the window, constantly checking for any signs of reinforcements.

He had been hoping to get this pretty little dove all on his own, and he wasn't entirely disappointed with the outcome, for it had led Miss Tonks here, hadn't it?

He'd known about _this_ one tailing him for the last few months now but had needed to wait for the exact right time to make his move.

Though, there was another part of Barty's mind that desperately felt he owed Severus Snape a solid uppercut to the jaw, that greasy-haired git.

Crouch, when he had learned of Snape's betrayal and his allegiances had changed, had bristled, and had felt the knife in his back before he saw it, really.

When he had looked into the cold, listless eyes of the wielder, he had seen his friend from so long ago. The black eyes of Severus's, ones that were once filled with so much promise and potential as a Death Eater in Voldemort's ranks, was now replaced with a wretched, accursed bitterness and hatred.

The only thing that showed any resemblance to the old friend he'd once chummed about the corridors of Hogwarts with as a young lad was gone.

Crouch could still hear Snape's voice, following their last meeting with the Dark Lord, though Crouch at the time, for his own safety, had been under the disguise of Brennan O'Keefe, a boy whom he'd kidnapped off the streets.

Ever since his breakout from Azkaban Prison, the number of people, including those in Voldemort's ranks, that he could fully trust, was limited.

As an adult, Crouch found Snape annoying, especially more so now that he was armed with the knowledge that the Hogwarts Professor reported to Dumbledore. He had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for years on end.

Telling the other Death Eaters tales of trauma and victimhood that never happened if Crouch had to hazard a guess as to if Severus was telling the truth.

The Dark Lord had been inclined to believe Severus and trusted the man completely, a fact which caused Crouch's hatred for the man to multiply tenfold.

Crouch knew that he was the only one—the _only_ _one_ —to spot the repetition of Professor Snape's themes, of the man's boring script, of his lies.

Really, he should have diversified a little bit more. But still, the man's betrayal haunted him in ways that Barty Crouch Jr. could not seem to shake off.

No one _dared_ betray the Dark Lord and live to tell about it, though, for now, he supposed this would have to do.

He could see having a little _fun_ with this one. Crouch furrowed his dark, bushy brows into a frown as a stream of moonlight cast an odd pearly glow onto his latest captive, who, in the dim light of the spare bedroom he'd so very carefully placed her in and sealed the door with a Muffliato spell to prevent any potential would-be-intruders from hearing her sweet, succulent screams, with her pixie, changed to raven-black in color really _did_ look like _her_.

His sweet little _Alice_. The one who had defied him. Rejected his advances when they were both students together in Hogwarts, and now, by the grace of Merlin's Light, he was given a second chance to do it right, the first time.

"The resemblance is uncanny, little dove," he remarked, noticing her as she awoke, and he visibly flinched.

He really _did_ feel guilty about having to violently hit her over the head, but in order to ensure Miss Tonks cooperated, it had been the only way.

"You and I…are going to have so much fun together, sweetheart. You really _are_ Alice," he breathed, sounding out of breath, though not because he was winded.

Far from it, but from excitement. This one that he had managed to ensnare in his trap was a pretty little Metamorphmagus, and the uncanny resemblance she bore when she changed her hair to black looked remarkably like none other than Alice nee Prewitt.

Crouch let out a tired little sigh and glanced down at the silver dagger he held in his hand, twirling it in between his fingers and admiring the sheen of the weapon in the light of the moon that streamed in through the dusty window.

A crude weapon, of course, much more bloody and brutal than his wand, in which if he wanted to kill the little dove seated in the corner of the said bedroom in which she was well and perfectly trapped and truly at his mercy, then all it would take was the simple utterance of the last Unforgiveable Curse.

The Killing Curse. But such a death, especially for this delightful little Auror, was a mercy, a mercy that he simply could not grant his precious girl.

No. He wanted this one to _suffer…and suffer. And suffer._

Alice _owed_ him for rejecting him. Her betrayal was perhaps the second greatest wound inflicted in his life that Crouch could think of aside from Severus Snape coldly switching allegiances. Aside from the original reasoning of capturing her and that foolish oaf of her husband, Frank Longbottom, he had intended to make her see, that, by the Light of Merlin, she had made the _wrong_ bloody choice when she chose Frank.

Because of her, he had to be this person filled with an ache, a bitterness that he could not control, that day in their fifth year when she'd announced to a passing friend, a Hufflepuff, that she harbored feelings for Frank Longbottom.

So…she had been unfaithful to him, then. Piling reproach after reproach upon herself, Crouch had added adultery to Alice Prewitt's brutalities.

And that had been the beginning of the end. He was more than maddened, even now, as the old haunting memories came back to him just now. Though with this new one, she who looked so much like his Prewitt…

He could start over. _They_ could start over. Just the two of them. "You'll see, love. I'll make you see the light, lovely," Crouch whispered tenderly, and when he smiled, the temperature in the little bedroom continued to steadily drop, and even Barty knew it had nothing to do with the frigid fall air that wafted in the window.

Crouch's frown deepened a gesture that created lines upon his otherwise smooth forehead and a deep groove near the edges of his mouth as his lips turned down into a twisted sneer. Frustrated, he collapsed onto the hard mattress that felt more like a slab of stone than a bed and let his legs dangle over the edge, and he emanated a tense exhale through his nostrils and raked his fingers through his wild tuft of short dark brown hair that had a mind of its own.

Barty scowled, his brows coming together in a quandary as he let out a sigh.

It was quiet. _Too_ quiet. There was a flash, a creaking. There was…something lurking in the shadows. An evil that no one but him could see.

A monster that tormented the people of London. Barty knew what he was. He knew all too well. It sought out the weak, people like him, like this girl huddled in the corner and made itself a home inside of their fragile heads.

Maybe that's why he liked Alice so much. At the thought of Longbottom, his frown ceased to exist, and he felt the beginnings of an unnaturally wide, almost Cheshire-like cat grin spread onto his emaciated face.

Crouch felt himself slide off the floor and rested against the mattress's frame, kneeling in a crouch (pun intended, pun always intended), as his face moved a little too closely towards this witch who so looked like his obsession.

And then…he grinned. Whenever Barty Crouch Jr. smiled, that meant that something very bad was about to happen—or very good—depending on the person's perspective. The last 'stroll' that he had convinced the last girl to go on was very bad for the woman who was left broken, battered, and dead.

His smile widened. Given that he had broken this witch's wand in two, he did not think that he would need to be so violent and persuasive with little Alice. As he did so, the temperature of the already-frigid room fell about another ten degrees, and Crouch smirked as the dark-haired Auror gave off a shudder, and her eyelids fluttered, though she did not wake. Not yet.

" _Wait_ …"

The monster inside his head was encouraging Crouch to take it slow with this one, savor the experience. Inside Barty's head, the young man could feel it. Raging inside of him. Just underneath the surface. Just loud enough for him to hear, and today, out in the alleyway with little young Alice, Crouch had caught a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby shop window and saw the demon.

Staring straight back at him. Watching him through his dark brown eyes. Seeing everything he saw. It was waiting for Barty, hoping he'd let his guard down, knowing that sooner or later, he would change irrevocably, for the greater good. And then as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes became hours as they slowly passed, this monster began to look more like him.

For the last several months, thanks to the glorious invention of Polyjuice Potion, Crouch had managed to go unnoticed throughout the streets of London. He wasn't invisible, but he might as well have been for all the attention the people paid him. His gangly frame made it easy to weave through the crowds, and given that he only chose women as his targets, or more particularly, now that he had found her, the 'one,' _this_ one, it had been too easy for him to just…pick them off, one by one, and kill the girls slowly.

"But not you, little dove," he whispered throatily, lovingly fingering his wand. Crouch heaved a heavy sigh and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall across the bedroom, and Barty stared, eyes widened.

He froze, momentarily halted by the strange look in his eyes, and his hand, which had been outstretched to tuck back a lock of 'Alice's' raven-black pixie back behind her ear where it had belonged, lowered to his right side.

For a brief second, Barty even had convinced himself that he was a genuine human being once. Or rather, whenever he'd been around Alice, though she'd barely acknowledged him during their time spent at Hogwarts, he had been. Around her, he hadn't felt this relentless urge for bloodshed, to kill.

In many ways, the young woman cowering in the corner of the bedroom was his last hope. Though right now, he was the perfect picture of misery. Dark circles under his eyes, his wild hair tended to stick up in tufts and had a mind of its own, no matter how much Barty tried to tame it back down.

His beauty was never that skin deep, he supposed—that is, if what he had could even be called such a word. _An intangible concept, really_ , he thought.

He'd heard once a Hogwarts Professor say that time could heal all things. But Barty Crouch Jr. never healed, or even became better, as a matter of fact.

There was no point in trying to deny what he was. Crouch knew, oh, he knew. He was every bit a savage. He moved in the shadows until his chosen victims were in reach and then he'd reach out and grab them and Disapparate.

For the most part, the girls didn't even have time to call out and all they could hear was the soothing shushings of Barty Crouch whispering for them to be quiet in the shell of their ear before he killed them once he realized that none of these women were as beautiful as Alice. But then there was _this_ one…

Barty Crouch Jr.'s secret and he would never confess this to _anyone_ , not even Bellatrix, who remained still in the dark about Crouch's obsession over Alice Longbottom. Not even the Dark Lord Himself knew of this little 'issue.'

His secret was that now that he had his Alice back where she belonged, _without Frank_ , the demons of his mind, which earned them a swift wave of Crouch's hand as he angrily shooed the unhelpful thoughts out of his mind, was that, in truth, now that he had her right where he wanted her, what to do with her? Crouch was feeling…conflicted, about what to do with Alice.

_Hurt her?_ _Marry her? Take her? All of the above?_ He frowned as he mulled over his options. Of course, the woman was going to have to be punished.

She had, after all, chosen Frank all those years ago, and not him, and that, he could not allow. He had to make her see that he was the right choice, the only choice….

But if she doesn't see the truth, then what? He was, after all, a killer, and the right thing would be to do if Alice rejected him yet a second time, would be to not go easy on her, to kill her where she sat huddled in the corner, though not before taking what was rightfully his, what should have been his.

Her heart. He would rip that feeble, weak corded muscle right from the confines of her chest with his own bare hands if need be. But…strangely enough, Barty found that he did not want to do such a thing to his beloved, innocent, doe-eyed, precious Alice Prewitt.

"Yet," he growled lowly, thinking over a story a patron had once told him in the Three Broomsticks, while he'd been under the guise as the kid, Brennan. How men like Voldemort's Death Eaters, men like Crouch himself, that their hearts in their chest cavity died a long time ago, right from birth, that Barty and the others just like him had putrefied and made a heavy slime about his lungs as thick as black tar.

That's how he and the other followers of the Dark Lord became killers and why. Crouch remembered the chap sitting across the table sneaking looks at Madam Rosmerta every now and again before returning to his story.

As far as killers go, emptiness was their madness. His madness, rather. That Crouch took lives over and over again as if he may possess their heart and souls to give him whatever it was he thought he lacked.

Yet, it was never so. And to be healed, someone pure of heart had to love someone like him, to reform his heart as if it was the finest of clay, then set it to beat anew. So, until Crouch could find such a woman to forgive all that he had done, to break his soul free and set him on the path for the greater good…

Then he would kill. He would butcher the entire world for her. His Alice, until she saw that by Merlin's Light, he was the one she should have married. Not _him_.

" _Frank_ ," he whisper hissed through gritted teeth.

Just the thought of the woman's husband was enough to invoke a hot, boiling rage set aflame in his veins.

Well. He sneered. "Franky's not here, is he, dollface?" he whispered, to which the elfin-like little brunette did not answer.

Not that he expected her to. Prewitt was like a painting for Barty's eyes alone.

Nighttime was the only time he could be with his love, catching a whiff of that intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and lavender, drowning her as she dreamt. One day in the not-so-distant future, Crouch knew he would not be just another mysterious guy loving Alice from the shadows. He would be hers.

And she will be his. He would be the one to marry Prewitt, now that Frank was well and truly out of the picture, make love to her, bare his children.

To ensure that the pureblood lineage of the Crouch family was kept alive. Oh, yes. Alice would be his to love, forever. And how sweet it would be.

And then— "Oh, dear me, I think I woke you up, little dove. I guess our lives together are starting sooner than expected," he whispered, though he could not quite quell the excitement growing in his chest, spreading as an incredible fiery heat that began in the pit of his stomach and spread to other places. Her eyelids fluttered open, and the barely inaudible gasp he heard his latest plaything give off was very much real. "Good," he crooned, scooting a little bit closer. "I was beginning to think, perhaps I had hit you a little too hard," he crooned, to which she glared at him, though she was favoring silence as the only response. "Glad to see you're awake."

Though again, she made no comments. Perhaps he'd hit her too hard. Crouch furrowed his brows into a frown as he regarded Alice Prewitt.

This new girl, truly, the perfect Alice, had smooth, dry skin. Her eyebrows curved in swooping arches over her piercing eyes, those eyes touched by storm clouds. He could not recall ever once seeing any other emotion in Prewitt's eyes other than contempt. But earlier, they had embraced the wind.

A brief gust, before returning to a calm sea.

"There you are," Crouch breathed, his breaths catching in his throat as the girl's eyelids fluttered wide open and she seemed to realize where she was.

Who she was with. 'Alice' opened her mouth to apparently say something to him, probably to unravel a string of curses from that pretty little tongue of hers, but all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech, though Crouch found himself drawn to her eyes.

It wasn't the color of her eyes that were so breathtaking, as it was what was inside them, rather. Smeared mascara lines and heavy eyelids. And bright.

Oh, how bright they were, shimmering with the tears that had yet to fall in trickling lines, streaking through the caked dirt on her face from when she'd hit her head when she'd fallen a little earlier. The gray-blue of stormy skies that threatened to drown him in the rains to come.

Crouch bit the inside wall of his cheek as he could have _sworn_ he could Alice whimper as she backed away as he slowly advanced towards her.

"Are you afraid, little dove?" The girl must not have anticipated the sincerity in his question, for she blinked owlishly and did not answer him.

Finally, she gave a curt little nod, to which Barty smirked. _Good_.

The briefest admission of fear. It would do.

"You should be… _Alice_."


	8. Trapped

**A/N: Sorry in advance my lovely readers for the slight brutality and graphic-ness of this chapter that wound up being way longer than I anticipated, but there was a lot to say lol. But there's a part of me that isn't* sorry. Barty Crouch Jr. is a horrible character, and I wrote it this way for a reason. It's supposed to be horrible, what Tonks is going through and it very much is, and he kind of only gets worse in future chapters but such is life, or he wouldn't be the villain of the story. Also, the disclaimer that there is a quote from William Shakespeare's** **_Macbeth_ ** **, Act 2, Scene 1, as a nod to David Tennant's acting ability as a Shakespearean actor.**

**Also, the completed outline for this project is a whopping 42 chapters, so my lovely readers, to those who are following, I hope you know you're in for an emotional rollercoaster! But I'm pleased with the outcome and hope others will be too.**

**Enjoy! :)**

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Tonks winced and let out a tired sigh as her eyelids fluttered open. Her once tranquil face now welcomed a struggle. Her head throbbed.

The pain felt like someone had taken a knife to her skull. She rested her head against the wall of whatever frigid cold room she was currently being held captive in. Squeezing her eyes shut, the young Auror silently begged and willed her pains to go away, but they refused. The rest of the little world around her, the bedroom became detached, and all Tonks could concentrate on was the pain of that moment.

She was hardly aware of Barty Crouch Jr. speaking to her, the only thing she knew was how much everything _really_ hurt, and her body could certainly attest to this. She couldn't tell whether or not she'd broken or sprained anything when she'd been struck with the Impedimenta Jinx, and but holy love of all that was Merlin, her head _hurt_! Why did it ache so bad?! What happened?

She exhaled a shaking breath through her nose, thinking that if she had a prayer of getting out of this predicament alive, then the first thing she needed to do was a test for any broken bones or sprained appendages.

Tonks tried her toes first, feeling them wiggle comfortably inside her knee-high black leather boots. _Oh, thank Merlin_ , she thought and resisted the urge to break into tears.

Next came her fingers. The digits on both her hands moved with ease, stiffly, but at least there was no pain when she wiggled and flexed her fingers. The rest of her, however, mostly her head in this case, was debatable.

It _hurt_.

What did she _do_ to it? Did she hit it on a— Then she remembered. _Damn_.

"O—oh." She stammered, as her pupils dilated in the dimly lit bedroom, and she realized that a strong hand, his hand was hovering over the pale column of her throat, his spindly fingers wound tightly around it like poison ivy crept up a pillar back at Hogwarts.

The bedroom she found herself in was bathed in shadow, but Barty Crouch Jr.'s eyes burned like midnight torches, and in them, it was like there was nothing there to behold, only a single emotion the young witch could describe as hatred and a frustrated desire…

_For me_ , she thought fearfully, and swallowed her fear, and blinked owlishly at the man as he spoke.

"Hello, little dove. Glad to see you are awake. I was beginning to think that I had already _killed_ you. I am glad to see that is not the case, little Al. You and I…we'll have so much _fun_ together. You'll see." The man's voice, which sounded hoarse, rough, rougher than before, back in the alleyway when he'd…

Tonks didn't want to think of it. Just the thought enough made her sick.

She exhaled an audible sigh of relief as her captor relinquished his grip upon her throat, and she was able to take advantage of the man's hesitation and lack of response for the moment to get a better look at her surroundings.

_Oh, Merlin_ , she thought, repressing a moan. Tonks wasn't sure if she should break down into tears and cry or beg.

The two of them, the Auror and the Death Eater, were in a bedroom, one that had clearly belonged to a Muggle child, and a loved one at that, too.

There were so many posters of the Liverpool Football Club on the walls that Tonks wasn't really sure of the paint color behind them. The queen-size bed was not pushed up against a wall as Tonks had expected, but more central, with an elaborate mahogany headboard.

On the nightstand next to the bed was a copy of William Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ , one of Tonks' personal favorite pieces of Muggle literature, and on the newspaper was a pair of cleated boots still with residues of mud on the sides.

Yet the bed itself had not looked to have been touched in ages, and all throughout the room was coated a thick layer of dust and grime that tickled Tonks' nose and threatened her allergies.

Barty Crouch Jr.'s gaze followed Tonks's eyes, and his darkened eyes landed on the copy of _Macbeth_. He smirked, sauntering over to the table, and picked it up, dusting off the cover and tracing the letters of the leather-bound copy with his thumb and forefinger.

"One of my favorites as well, it truly is a literary classic," he began casually, and Tonks bristled at the blasé tone of the Death Eater's voice, as though he hadn't just kidnapped her against her will and brought her to an undisclosed location, for a purpose that was admittedly foreign to the young Auror.

He snorted and twirled the silver dagger he held lovingly in his hand, intentionally slowing his movements to better relish the growing look of horror in his captive's gray eyes as he brought the weapon towards her face in a methodical manner.

"'Is this a dagger which I see before me. This handle toward my hand?" he quoted, rendering Tonks's blood to ice in her veins. "Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, yet I see thee still…'" His voice trailed off, though his cold, stony gaze lingered upon Tonks.

She swallowed nervously, feeling a stab of a fear prick at her heartstrings, that damned stubborn, feeble, _weak_ muscle within the confines of her chest.

Barty Crouch Jr. held the knife, twisting it in the moonlight as if it could slice up the rays of the moon themselves, his listless expression exaggerated by the dark shadows around the man's sunken-in orbs.

Though rust had set in on the handle and blade, it was strong and jagged—much more than enough to suit his intended purpose and fulfill his needs.

Alice Prewitt had rejected him for the last time. He could already see Alice laying in a pool of darkening blood and his emaciated face split into a grin that arced in a sickly way, never making it to Crouch's almost sunken in eyes.

Tonks let out a whimper and quickly averted her gaze. Not a footfall had disturbed this room in quite some time.

_This means no one will think to look here for you_ , Tonks's subconscious unhelpfully offered. _You're trapped_.

She stifled a cry of pain. Wincing, she reached up a shaking hand to touch the swelling knot at the base of her skull, where it throbbed, and her fingers came away sticky.

Either way, any sort of sudden movements, given her dire predicament, did not seem like a wise move just yet.

She emanated a tense exhale through her nose and tried to focus on regulating her breathing back to something that even resembled an inkling of normalcy, a rather difficult task.

The air in this wretched accursed bedroom was thick with moisture, and it smelled heavily of blood, mold, and death. Sweat lingering in the air.

It felt as though the walls around her were closing in. The darkness was overwhelming. It felt…suffocating. There was a horrible tightness in her throat as it hollowed and constricted, cutting off any air to her passageways and she gasped.

Her breaths seemed to stutter in her lungs before she let it go, feeling the tension drain from her body.

One glance across the room to do a fell sweeping swoop of her surroundings was more than enough for her to feel utterly lost.

_Trapped. Trapped, I'm trapped_ , she thought, biting the inside wall of her cheek and blinking back briny, salty liquid that threatened to escape her eyelids.

Tonks flinched barely half an inch to her left and could swear it felt as though her head had been cloven in two.

The young Auror winced as she reached up a trembling hand—and even _that_ hurt—and gingerly touched the back of her head.

There it was. A good knot the size of an egg, and she felt sticky moisture entangled in the back of her hair that could only be matted and congealed blood.

When she shifted her shoulders to scoot slightly to the left, they felt incredibly bruised and a quick glance downward confirmed her suspicions as to the black and blue markings covered her shoulders and her collarbones. The slightest movement sent swells of fiery pains down her arms and up towards her neck.

Tonks ground her teeth to prevent her from crying out in pain and swallowed back her scream.

She was _not_ going to give Crouch Jr. the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort. The young Auror clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to see the antagonism flare in Barty Crouch Jr.'s darkened orbs, nor did she even want to begin to think of imagining what kind of monstrosities this creep had planned.

Though her plans immediately changed when she felt light, tender stroking of her right thigh, the Death Eater's nails raking down the material of her jeans.

Against her better judgment, her eyes flung open, and at first, her vision was hazy, blurry, and very much out of focus, and she blearily lifted her chin slightly to try to better see a few feet in front of her.

Only able to make out the most basic of shapes and colors, and even that was a challenge considering there was no light in this room. No light fixtures, no candles were lighted for warmth.

But Crouch's eyes burned like pinpricks in the night, as she had finally managed to clear her vision by blinking rapidly, and the first shape and color that had solidified with that of the well-known Death Eater's dark brown, listless orbs.

A smoldering rage simmered just below their surface, and Tonks swallowed hard past the constricting in her throat. A wave of anger and fierceness, burning bright and fast, so torrent that it felt like waves crashing against cliffsides in retaliation.

Barty Crouch Jr., Tonks knew, was a man who yielded to no one. He took orders from no one but himself, as much as he liked to fool himself into thinking that he did Lord Voldemort's bidding, all it took was one look into his dark eyes.

He was a man strong-willed and very much assertive and did not look at all shy about taking what he wanted, which was, in this case, _her_.

She gulped nervously and blinked back the fresh onset of tears welling in the corner of her eyes.

She could not— _would_ not—let Crouch see her cry, though she was scared. Terrified, actually.

Tonks let out a muffled whine as the Death Eater scooted closer towards her, closing off the gap of space from where he had knelt into a crouch on the floor. She snorted, though quickly shoved aside thoughts of bad puns for later.

"Wh—what do you want with me?" she whispered, her voice escaping her as a hoarse croak.

She flinched and shirked away from his touch as his grip on her thigh deepened. Tonks clenched her eyes shut, feeling the myriad hues of pink leave her hair as it involuntarily reverted back to black, and she whimpered in fear upon hearing Crouch inhale a surprised, exhilarated gasp of lust. For her.

_Damn_. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek, cursing herself for allowing her emotions to get the better of her.

The moment she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and attempted to revert her hair color back to pink, she let out a pained gasp as she felt Barty Crouch's hand crack across her face, snapping it back with the force of his blow and causing her aching head to reel sickeningly against the wall.

The slap was as loud as a clap and stung her right cheek. It had been one hell of an open-handed smack and it had left a red welt behind in its wake.

Just below her eye was a small cut where one of the Death Eater's ruby adorned rings had caught her. Tonks clutched at her face, her eyes rapidly welling with salty tears.

" _Leave it alone_ ," Crouch barked, reaching up a surprisingly tender hand to caress her cheek, the pads of his fingertips ghosting along with the freshly forming crimson cut, and Tonks shirked away violently from his touch, though she quickly obliged and she reluctantly felt her hair change back to its raven black color, the same as before. Tonks blinked back briny tears, trying not to cry.

_Need to get away. He's going to kill me...or worse!_ She swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, and wildly looked for a way out. None that she could see.

Though she was finding that increasingly more and more difficult. Crouch's emaciated face, sunken in and hollow, looking as though he'd not eaten a good square meal in days, was now mere inches from hers, and then, there was the silver knife from earlier pressed against the pale column of her throat. She could feel the panic begin to well deep in the confines of her chest.

Tonks shot out an arm in a vain attempt to pull the crude Muggle weapon away from the delicate skin of her throat, but Crouch was even faster than she was, catching her arm in mid-air and slamming her injured, and now probably dislocated shoulder, into the wall behind her.

Pain erupted from the point of impact and she couldn't stop the cry of pain that escaped her lips, despite her best efforts to contain it.

Merlin's beard, it _hurt_!

"You _know_ what I want, Alice," Barty Crouch growled, his breath hot and ragged against her face. Tonks clenched her eyes shut and violently turned her head to the left.

Anything but to look her would-be-assailant in those eyes of his. The young Auror's mind felt like it was reeling. She _wasn't_ Alice! Not by a long shot, though she knew better than to open her mouth and spew the truth.

At this point, if she tried, he might very well kill her for her insolence against him. No. Her training kicked in, and, hate it or not, her best chance at survival and walking out of this situation still in one piece was for her to pretend to be Alice, to become the woman he needed her to be, if only until help could come.

_Help?! What 'help?' You didn't exactly tell Snape where you were going! Damn you and your stubborn pride, Dora. Look where it bloody got you, huh!_

_If_ she got out of this alive, she vowed this was the last time she was going to be going off on her own. _If_ Dumbledore granted her a new partner, wherever he or she went, so did she.

Nothing good had to come from Tonks trying to prove her independence, that she could do this on her own without any kind of help.

Tonks had cared _so_ much about proving Severus Snape wrong, about trying to plant the impossible seeds of caring, a quite common human emotion, into that two-dimensional, closed-minded brain of his, and look what had happened!

Well. That reckless decision was certainly coming back to bite her now, wasn't it? Tonks felt her lips part open to say something to him, to beg and plead with him to let her go, that this was not right, though no words were forming and coming to her.

She found herself unable to answer, only to stare up into Crouch's face, those rage-filled eyes, terror clutching onto her vice in a vice-like iron grip. She couldn't respond, all she could do was look into Crouch's eyes.

Tonks could feel the panic begin in her abdomen, churning her stomach in intense cramps, as the tension grew in her face and limbs, her mind replaying all possible scenarios of whatever Crouch wanted to do now.

Tonks decided she didn't like it, and there was no way out of this without someone, most likely _her_ , getting hurt.

Her breathing became more rapid, shallower. The horrible thoughts were accelerating inside her head as they came.

She wanted them to slow down so she could breathe, but they damned just wouldn't. Her breaths came in gasps and she felt like she was going to be sick.

Still unable to inspire the response he seemed to want, Crouch continued, lowering his voice, and Tonks flinched as she felt the pads of his fingers ghosting in the back of her hair, finding purchase in the tresses of her black pixie cut.

Crouch licked his lips to moisten them, and when no moisture came, he growled in frustration, both from that and from his precious plaything's lack of response or interest. Did she not _see_ that he could make it better for her now?

"My offer still stands, Alice." He was at last, successful in inspiring a response from her.

Her panic and fear, at the very least, he was pleased to see, hadn't turned the young witch dumb, but then Alice Prewitt was always a smart woman.

It was her best quality, though not the only quality he had ever admired. Barty Crouch Jr. fell silent and regarded his sweet, succulent temptress seated in front of him, her breaths ragged and gasping, her chest steadily rising and falling, the line of her breast catching his eye as his gaze lingered upon her breast.

Alice Prewitt had always had that shy look young women often wear, but it wasn't necessarily morose.

Always behind those slightly pursed lips of hers, was a smile just waiting to be tempted out. Well, he was going to coax it out of her, one way or another, though Crouch sincerely hoped he'd not have to use force.

Barty, during their years in Hogwarts, had never wanted to guess where Prewitt was from in case he got it wrong. He had liked her, and the _whore_ that she was, so coldly rejected his advances for _Frank Longbottom_.

Crouch seethed.

Sometimes, during Potions or Herbology, Alice would look Barty's way, and he generally pretended not to notice. Too much interest and he thought she would have run.

But when he _did_ return those rare glances, he didn't even have to try to smile, it just…came naturally to him without him even having to try.

In those moments, his Alice Prewitt would blush ever so slightly, and Crouch would imagine her being _his_. His _alone_.

Taking her to the Shrieking Shack for private trysts, where no one would dare interrupt them if they valued keeping their appendages or their tongues, for walks in the Forbidden Forest, showing her the wonders that the night had to offer, to turn that golden ray of sunlight that she was away from the garish light of the day.

For it was only when Alice could learn to fully embrace the darkness, the tranquility, and peace that the darkness that night brought, could she be _his_.

There was a vulnerability in Alice's eyes that Crouch could not resist. His darkened gaze traveled from her skittish, nervous face, to her collarbones, delicate in the semi-darkness, and then to the line of her breasts, covered by her shirt and bra, though not for long.

Barty did not let his gaze linger too long, just enough for the young dark-haired woman to see how beautiful she was to him. It was her eyes he wanted to see. Her hands could tell him the rest.

A pause in his offer was certainly nothing that Barty could have hoped for, and he exhaled a tense breath through his nose and breathed out shakily, curling his fingers into a fist and slamming one of them in the wall beside her head, not bothering to restrain himself this time, very narrowly grazing the shell of her ear.

She flinched, though she made no comment. He was getting sick of this. Alice Prewitt was a woman worth the wait, and she was one of them. The only one that he considered to be worthy of his attention and affections. Alice's porcelain skin was ashen, almost anemic, and Crouch wasn't quite sure he liked the dark bags developing under both of her eyes. A cold sweat glistened as beads on her forehead and recessed cheeks.

The smoke of her eyes had turned to ashes that was so desperately trying to cling onto that last bit of an ember flame, its life. Her raven pixie, so black against the skin so pale and white, it made a contrast that only served to make his Alice all the more ghostly, all the more haunting and ethereal, and all _his_.

Her lips that were once pink and soft, were now chapped, cracked, and bleeding from her biting down on her lip hard enough that her teeth pierced them. Alice Prewitt looked tired, sick. Crouch frowned, his brows furrowing.

Not exactly the little reunion he'd been hoping for. He scowled, pursing his lips into a thin line, and continued.

She would hear his proposal, at the least…

Crouch allowed one of his fingers to ghost over the delicate skin of her cheek. _So pale, so perfect_. "So beautiful, so full of life, so young, Alice…Just like old times, isn't it, darling," he murmured, his voice heavy with desire for Alice. She flinched, and Crouch resisted the urge to growl in utter frustration at her evident lack of interest. " _I_ could protect you, Alice," he breathed, feeling his eyes go wide and round as he stared into those gray orbs of Alice's.

So restless and teeming with life. Alice Prewitt reminded Barty of a caged bird, held prisoner, but set her free, and she would soar. And he, right alongside her.

"Provide for you, Alice. Much more than _he_ could. You are an intelligent Auror who _deserves_ the highest form of respect and Frank has never given that to you," Barty spat her former husband's name with no small amount of hatred, "and your _husband_ has failed you, Alice. I apologize. You should know," Here, he seized a fistful of her hair and tugged on it slightly, pulling her head back and exposing the pale column of her throat, "that I am…willing to compensate," he murmured. "If you want to keep the pureblood lineage alive, then there's no better time like the present…"

By Merlin's beard, she would hear him out, and if Alice wanted to prove to Crouch that she wasn't _stupid_ , then she would accept or else...

Tonks let out a pained, muffled, and barely audible whimper as, still keeping her eyes clenched shut, could feel a hot breath on her neck, then the tender brush of the Death Eater's lips.

Burning and searing her skin as they contacted her neck. One of his strong hands raked his fingers through her hair, as his kisses became harder, more urgent. Another hand slid around her waist and yanked her forward.

"Ngh— _get off of me_!" Tonks screamed, squirming in Crouch's tight grip.

She was scared of the man's tones but more terrified of what would happen to her if she didn't put up a fight and just let this creep do whatever he wanted to her.

Even as Crouch's hand came up to grip her injured, bruised shoulder, leaving more painful bruises with his calloused hands, Tonks continued to try in vain to escape, crawling on her backside on the dusty floor of the abandoned bedroom.

It wasn't until Barty Crouch Jr. balled his strong hand into a fist and barreled it into her right ribcage that she finally ceased her futile attempt to escape him.

Tonks coughed and groaned, clutching at her stomach as she doubled over in pain.

The only thing she could do was choke and gasp out a pained breath, unable to focus on anything else but the fiery swells of pain in her right ribcage.

" _Stop_. _Moving_. You're going to want to go along with this, sweetheart," Crouch threatened menacingly. "Next move you make against me, Alice, and I'll be forced to hurt you. I really _don't_ want to hurt you, darling, so if you even _think_ about screaming or biting me, this is going to get _so_ much worse, my love. I won't hurt you unless you make me. I don't _want_ to hurt you, Alice. Get me?"

_I'm_ _ **NOT**_ _Alice!_ Is what she wanted to scream at Crouch, but she knew she couldn't, for her words would fall on deaf ears and bounce off the man as good as hard rain.

Tonks whimpered as Barty grabbed a fistful of her short pixie hair in his clutches and tugged her head painfully back.

She let out a pained gasp and tried to force herself to hold still, though every single one of her instincts told her to fight back.

The man was too strong for her to overpower on brute strength alone, and without her wand, poor Tonks was pretty much at Crouch's complete whims.

Crouch moved in for a kiss and Tonks shuddered, feeling a tremor of revulsion travel like a bolt of lightning down her spine as she felt the graze of his lips against her neck that made her feel sick to her stomach.

Crouch was very obviously avoiding her lips, wanting to savor that when it finally happened.

She felt the acidic bile creep its way up her throat and settle on her tongue, as the Death Eater kept pressing lingering, unwanted kisses against pretty much everything he could reach. Tonks's jaw, her neck, her cheeks—all of it fair game.

His breath was curling against the skin just beneath her ear as his hands are skating against the smooth, pristine of his captive's stomach, his hands wandering upward, occasionally scraping down her side in long, coarse scratches, eliciting a pained gasp of surprise from Tonks.

His coarse tongue licked at her skin; fingers curled in her hair. Tonks shook and gasped for breath as he finally pulled apart.

She blinked back her tears as she glanced towards the window of the bedroom and down out into the deserted grounds. _Damn_.

No one was coming.

It was too cold for anyone outside to linger this long, and given they were in an abandoned safe house on the outskirts of Bristol, she doubted anyone would come out this way unless they belonged here, and only an unsavory type would take up residence in a disgusting hovel like this.

No one would hear her scream. No one would hear her die.

Besides, screaming wouldn't do her any good in this case, and would only result in Crouch hurting her further.

She didn't know what to _do_ in her situation.

Countless hours of rigorous Auror training could never have prepared her for… _this_.

Her body felt frozen, rooted to the spot on the bedroom's hardwood floor, and her lungs overworked, feeling as though no air was coming to them.

Tonks could feel herself shaking violently and was beginning to feel a cold numbness spread throughout her entire body like she was about to pass out at any given second, and that she couldn't let happen.

If _that_ happened, then there was no telling what Crouch would do to her while she was knocked out.

_No way_ , she thought through gritted teeth, and it was then that she sensed moisture leaking down her cheek and she froze, realizing a wretched tear or two had escaped her lids.

Panting and gasping for breaths, she squirmed away, pressing her back as far against the corner of the wall as she could. "I—I wish th—that you could hear yourself, Crouch," Tonks managed to gasp out, her voice hoarse.

Barty Crouch Jr. froze, not having anticipated his Alice would say a word.

"Y—you propose to me after kidnapping me and forcing yourself on me like some kind of ravaged _beast_ ," she spat, venom dripping from her words. "So much talk of respect," Tonks hissed, and she could feel Crouch tense in response.

Crouch laughed, and Tonks blinked owlishly, feeling her lips part slightly in both revulsion and fear.

He snorted and raked his hands through his wild tuft of dark hair. "You just need more time, Alice, darling. You'll see that I'm right."

Tonks bristled as his hand came up for a fourth time to continue his incessant behavior of stroking her cheek with the pads of his fingertips in that gentle way that sent a chill down her spine, feeling that familiar hot fire seed of anger well deep within the churning pit of her stomach and she ground her teeth and locked her jaw.

"You could slay a dozen fire breathing dragons and I _still_ won't consent to your _terms_ ," Tonks hissed, her voice hoarse and shaking as his hand came up to grip onto the pale column of her throat and squeezed, but not enough to cut off her air supply. "Not in this life, or ever!"

She emanated a tense exhale through her nose and lifted her chin, jutting it out defiantly and dared to meet the Death Eater's cold gaze. She flinched, almost wishing she hadn't thought to look.

The manner in which Barty Crouch Jr.'s eyes turned cold sent a tremor down Tonks's spine and made her chest dent.

"Then you leave me _no other choice_ , Alice…"

A surge of adrenaline propelled Tonks to her feet and away from her spot where she'd spent the duration of the last fifteen minutes kneeling in the corner, but in a split second, she felt the fervid crack of Crouch's hand against her face for a second time, the pain came immediately rushing after, her eyes watering.

The young Auror whimpered as she saw the towering form of Barty loom over her as he casually shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, his eyes glowering at her, dull but at the same time consumed with hostility.

Crouch closed a strong arm around her, and her stomach gave a laborious, twisting lurch, and she might be sick all over the man's precious leather boots.

"Hush, darling," Crouch breathed into the shell of her ear. "The less you fight, Al, the quicker this will be." His grip upon her arm tightened, and she could feel his fingers fumbling with the waistband of her jeans, grunting in frustration as he attempted to undo the zipper.

Hot tears began to sting and blur at the edges of Tonks's vision as her throat began to close up, and all that she could manage to utter was a small mewl of fear.

Was Merlin really so _cruel_ , to allow this to be her fate? To allow her to be raped and tortured, over and over again, by Crouch, until she went insane?

_Was this what he had done to Alice?_ Tonks thought wildly in a frenzied panic.

But by the Light of Merlin, and all the ancient wizard had to offer, it could not be so! When this was all over, she would be dubbed the only Auror at the Ministry of Magic who was claimed by none other than Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr. before she slit her wrists.

Though, when she clenched her eyes shut, completely at the mercy of Crouch and of time, the move did not let her see darkness.

Instead, colors of fondness, and a handsome man's face, a Stranger to her, though he was looking at her with a mixture of concern, worry, and…an emotion in light brown eyes that she could not identify what it was, Tonks didn't give a damn about that now.

Though his features were slightly blurred and it was impossible for her to make out the details of the Stranger's face in her hallucination, he turned to Tonks, offering the young Auror his hand, a gentle, kind smile spreading across a scarred face so warm, that Tonks believed it could thaw the cold ice and snow of wintertime.

It was _his_ face, this Stranger, a pure figment of her imagination, that sent a rush of adrenaline in her veins and suddenly, Tonks felt alive again.

Alive at the sudden gush of air that flooded her lungs, rejuvenating her and giving the Auror purpose again, and Tonks kicked out with her feet as hard as she could, and she barely stifled her triumphant grin as the heel of her boot grazed the man's right earlobe, and then she did it again, catching Crouch in the chest.

Barty Crouch Jr. let out a holler of anger that reverberated across the bedroom walls as the man struggled to keep hold of Tonks's bruised shoulder, but in her frenzy, she was no longer in any state of mind to be reasoned with.

_The first thing to know in a fight_ , Moody's voice piped up from the back of her mind. _You're going to be nervous. At least I was when I first learned how._ _All the training didn't do me a lick of good when backed into a corner. Well, I was pushed, just as this Death Eater is pushing you now, Tonks. Fight it_.

Tonks felt her body jolting with new vigor, an untapped rage that was boiling up from the pit of her stomach, anger not only with Crouch but at herself, for what she had almost allowed to sit back and happen to her without putting up any force of resistance. In this bedroom, it was just the two of them.

Crouch, for his part, seemed so startled that he had no time to pull his wand, and had, much to Tonks's immense relief, chosen to forsake it for the moment.

_The second thing to know in a fight_ , Moody's voice continued advising her, Merlin bless this man, and the old bat wasn't even here to see this for himself, though a small part of Tonks yearned for her mentor to be here _._

_No number of scenarios in your head will ever prepare you, and that's if you can even think_. _Stay calm, be mindful of your surroundings, and maintain constant vigilance, girlie, and you might walk out of this fight alive_.

Tonks could agree with that. Her entire body felt boiling hot. She didn't even notice her fists were clenching until blood came back on them.

From _him_.

Tonks let out a muffled cry of fear and anger as his strong hands latched onto her waist and started dragging her across the floor of the bedroom, to the bed.

_No, no, no, no!_ Terror seized at her heart and clawed at her throat, its icy fingers wrapping around her in a firm, vice grip.

If she allowed him to trap her on the bed, she was as good as taken and raped, and...she didn't like to think it.

If she allowed this, Crouch would take _everything_ from her-the one thing that she had hoped to give another man someday if he was worthy enough of her attention, and her pride and dignity would suffer.

No. She could not let him do this. She had to act! Tonks felt her left leg shoot out again, and this time, she caught Barty Crouch Jr. dead square in his gaunt face.

The Auror bit the inside wall of her cheek as she felt his nose give way under the pressure of her black leather boot's heel smashed into his face from the sheer force and she heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking, crimson leaking from both nostrils.

Out of the corner of her peripherals, Tonks saw the dagger he'd been clutching onto slip from his calloused fingers, as he reacted instinctively, roaring like an enraged lion and weakly clutching at his nose, now spurting blood. The weight on her shoulder lifted.

Thank Merlin Above, she was freed!

Tonks took the opportunity, making a mad grab for her black purse that had laid discarded by her side, and bolted for the door that he'd stupidly left open, and she could feel Crouch, who was still doubled over, in immense pain and clutching at his nose, which was twisted to the right in grotesquerie and oozing blood onto the hardwood floor, though his expression was one of pure rage, and his listless dark eyes were heavily fixated on her, and he shouted something incoherent.

Raw panic returned with a vengeance, in that grip of silent panic, her pupils dilated as her heart thrummed erratically against the confines of her chest.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins and she didn't understand fully what was happening, and Tonks did the only thing that she felt she could in this scenario.

She ran.


	9. Fight or Flight

**CHAPTER NINE**

Barty swore under his breath and murmured every curse known to both wizard and Muggle, words that, were he in the presence of the Dark Lord Himself, that he would be stared at and possibly chastised for speaking such vile, putrid language.

Still grasping at his nose, he knew immediately the clever little witch had broken his nose, which he supposed he should consider impressive, considering he'd snapped her wand in two earlier.

She'd done this herself with her bare hands. Yet another reason why Alice Prewitt still to this day remained his crush.

"Crush" was such an infantile word, one that had to have been invented by academics, the ones with an interest in belittling love. A quirk that the Dark Lord shared with those pompous old windbags.

Barty Crouch Jr. hated this little fact. He did _not_ have a 'crush' on Alice Prewitt, he loved that witch with a passion hotter than a thousand suns. She was the One.

Crouch knew this, but why couldn't she? Was she _stupid_? _Blind_? No. No, no, no. She just needed time. She was all that was on Barty's mind. She was his true North, his everything.

Soon, one day in the _very_ near future, the two of them would prove everyone wrong. They would run away together, start a family of their own to keep the pureblood lineage of the wizarding world from becoming more tainted.

But first…to make see the young witch see Merlin's Light, that he was the obvious choice in terms of a suitable choice of partner for a husband.

The only choice. Stifling a groan and biting the wall of his cheek, he pointed the tip of his wand at his nose.

" _Episkey_ ," he murmured, and he bit down hard on his tongue, tasting the metallic tang of copper and iron as blood formed and welled, lingering on his tongue as the bones in his nose reset, and it was not enough to stifle the grunt of pain that escaped his lips as the bones re-crunched back into their proper places as the incantation mended his nose.

It was crude and would have to do until perhaps one of the other Death Eaters could take a look at him for him. But then they would ask questions, his conscience offered up helpfully, and he frowned at that.

The Dark Lord would want to know _why_ he'd kidnapped her. And then the others would start asking questions. He could not risk the rest of the group learning of his little secret.

"Damn," he swore through gritted teeth and stumbled to his feet, groaning as his hazy vision swam as black mist in his sight.

Despite his best efforts, Barty still felt himself give a twitch at the lingering swells of discomfort in his newly-mended nose. He reached up a trembling hand in exhilaration and gave the appendage an experimental poke. No longer broken.

Apart from the dulling, throbbing pain that was more of an ache at this point, there did not seem to be any lasting damage, but such was an action from Alice that he could not let go unpunished. He clucked his tongue in mock disappointment. "Alice, dear, what in the seven hells have you _done_ , darling?"

The demons in Crouch's mind spoke to him. _A fine mess you've made of things now, Crouch_ , the snakelike voice from the confines of his mind whisper hissed into the shell of his ear. _Alice is running herself into hysterics. Your fault_.

Growling in frustration and carding his hands through his thick tuft of dark brown hair, he pocketed his wand and Disapparated on the heel of his boot, heading the young woman off before she could so much as bolt for the door.

Thanks to quick thinking on his part when Crouch had first found this place, in order to prevent any of his chosen victims from escaping, he'd set up a number of countermeasures on the abandoned house.

The first and most viable was that only he could Apparate and Disapparate within the walls of this place, a fact she learned for herself as he heard the young woman's scream of frustration as she tried.

But if she were to reach the threshold of the front stoop and attempt it…

Well. That he could not allow. Now that he finally had Alice within his grasp, he aimed to keep her here.

Crouch smirked as Alice strained her vocals, having finally noticed Barty sneak up behind her, and she whirled around, her back pressed tightly against the wall as she carefully inched her way to the door.

"Sorry, darling," Crouch apologized, a pained look on his face as he waved his wand, and Alice's movements became stilled.

He really did not want to use the Imperius Curse on Prewitt, but if she continued resisting the efforts that he was going to in order to please her, then he feared that he would have no choice.

Barty watched as the dark-haired woman strained her vocals to cry out for help, but nothing came out, and then a violent tremoring overtook her body, and she shook like a leaf in the wind. Fright seemed to consume every cell in her body, swelling them with the terror at her little situation.

With every second, she practically felt the rise of her blood pressure, but surely, she knew that it was the least of her worries.

"Please," he begged, murmuring it into the shell of her ear and nipping at the tender skin at the base just slightly, and as she flinched, he closed off the gap of space and maintained a firm grip on her arm. "Please do not make me use _force_ against you, Alice, sweet girl. I'd really _hate_ to ruin your beauty."

The Death Eater knew that what hides behind the lies were truths that failed to get to Merlin's Light, and Alice Prewitt's greatest lie was that she didn't love him.

What lay behind her betrayal when she had so viciously and cruelly chosen Frank Longbottom over him may have been honest in her eyes, at first sight. What concealed his pains even now, to this day, was what kept reminded Crouch of Alice every night.

He was confused, but he believed everything would come out when the time was right.

The aching and throbbing in Crouch's skull ebbed and flowed like a cold tide, yet the pain from that Fire Whiskey he'd consumed a few hours ago was still bloody there!

He knew why they called it a hangover, for it felt like the blackest of clouds had hung over his head with no intention of the clearing until tomorrow morning. How the smell of the drink earlier had been intoxicating, yet right now, it felt like it only added to Barty's nausea.

His brain felt like it would swell beyond the capacity of his skull, and earlier, his dehydration had been entirely too much to ignore.

He'd ventured down the streets of London, under his guise as an unregistered Animagus, that black cat, which was just so damned bloody _good_ at attracting the unsuspecting chosen victims to his side, where he could take them without raising any suspicions.

For some insane maddening reasoning that was beyond Crouch's ability to comprehend, he'd not been able to stop thinking of the young Auror. Of Alice.

Barty had not been expecting that she would have dared to come after him on her own, without Severus Snape at her side, but he was giddy that she had.

Surely, it was Fate. Merlin was kind to him, was He not? Truly, he was blessed. To take Alice Prewitt away from this wretched cesspool of a city was just what he needed, to taste her was the only remedy to release his tension and frustration, cease the fire burning that threatened to engulf his being completely.

Crouch had, perhaps naively, not anticipated the reaction she would have as he had brought her here, to his safe house in Bristol, not intending to let her stay confined up in that wretched bedroom that was murder on both their allergies.

The son of Bartemius Crouch looked into Alice Prewitt's gray eyes, wide and brimming with terror and unshed moisture trapped within her lid's confines.

He sneered, his thin lips curling upward in a slight, jeering smile. _Good_.

He wanted Alice to be afraid, for if she feared him, then she would never leave him.

The last vestiges of passion that lingered in her gray eyes that reminded Barty so much of smoke and heat, the last remnants, and ashes of a wildfire, burned hot and bright in those bewitching orbs of hers.

A passion that, at least in his eyes, made his Alice beautiful and that much more frustrating for the young Death Eater.

For he felt that there was a small part of his mind that believed he did not deserve such a creature. He knew all too well what he was. Father told him.

_You're a monster. You're no son of mine_. _It is beyond me to give you a compliment, Barty because then the insults would lessen us both_.

He was every bit the bastard his father claimed him to be, which made him wonder if he married Alice Prewitt and impregnated her with a son or daughter of pureblood heritage, would that then gain him acceptance and admiration in Father's eyes?

_Highly doubtful_ , he thought.

Crouch blinked, startled back to the present moment, and he could feel the soft skin of Alice Prewitt's flesh, the prominent bones of her collarbones jutting out as his palm gently grazed across her chest.

He knew her game, how she played it. Well, she _wasn't_ going to win. Though this latest chosen one was proving to be much more a spitfire than he'd been led to believe. Not that he minded, but what she had done, he could not let it go simply unpunished. She had bloody broken his nose, for Merlin's sake!

And now, it would appear that for the moment at least, his Alice had bested him, for this time, it was he who was at a complete loss for what to say to the young girl.

Crouch blinked once, twice, and stared at his future bride, not able to form any coherent words at what Alice had just done. She had bitten him, hit him, punched, and broken his damned nose.

_She_ had to be the insane one, not him…

To put it rather bluntly, Barty had never received such a response before. In fact, he doubted that, given his status as a high-ranking Death Eater in the Dark Lord's ranks, not one of his chosen females had ever rejected him before he became bored of them, not finding their physical attributes enough like Alice's to hold his interest, though that did not stop their begging, pleading, so that they might stay alive that little bit longer.

It never worked, of course, but he indulged them in the entertainment, if only for a good laugh about it much later on in life.

He was utterly shocked at the young Auror's violence and her outburst.

Tonks swallowed nervously, feeling helpless and at a complete loss for what to do. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright as she felt herself bristle.

The protective enchantments on this man's hideout were strong, stronger than she had initially been led to believe by that _sneak_ , Mundungus.

Given that the Death Eater had her literally pinned against the wall of the downstairs entryway, it was quickly clear to her that he wasn't going anywhere that he did not want to hurt her. After an eternity in silence, Tonks found her voice.

"Wh—what do you _want_?" she whispered, asking him the question yet again for a second time, which he had never properly answered her earlier.

" _You_ ," he growled in frustration, moving his lips down the pale column of her throat. _Ravaged, screaming my name until you can't. Bleeding. To be mine_.

His gaze moved down to her collarbones, thinking that her skin was so soft, supple, white, and cut from the finest of pearls. Unblemished, and just the thought of future bruises to impart had his mind screaming at him, and the aching and burning fire was spreading to his chest and… _other_ places were begging Crouch to do something about it.

He shifted and let out a groan as her thigh accidentally brushed against his leg as she squirmed beneath his hold. He growled.

_Her skin bruises so easily_ , Crouch thought, and she let out a pained wince.

It seemed that his new little captive knew this too. Tonks let out a noise of panic.

" _Please_ ," she begged in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "if you've any decency for Al…for _me_ ," she quickly corrected, remembering that this one was delusional, thinking her to be Alice Longbottom, "then don't do this to me."

Crouch's grip on the young woman's wrist only tightened, and the soft gasp of pain she emitted as Barty's fingers curled into a tight grip on his wand, which he pointed squarely at Alice's chest only further stroked his already agitated wrath.

"I—I know you are—are _not_ …like your father, Crouch. I—if you truly…care for me, then let me _go_ ," Tonks whispered hoarsely, wishing that he would just let her go. She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout and bit down on it.

Crouch reeled, staring at Alice with wide shock and horror. Who in the name of Merlin and His Light did this witch think she was, bringing up _his_ father?

He did not know what prompted him to let out such an insult, but the words tumbled unchecked out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

"It's so nice to have you back where you belong, little Alice, the place where now angels reside," he commented, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he regarded Alice. "How does it feel to be in the presence of your very own personal god, Alice Prewitt?"

After a second, Barty expected the young woman to nod, maybe even, dare he think it, smile at his quip, his little attempt at a joke to ease her discomfort.

But she did neither of those things. Alice furrowed her delicately arched eyebrows into a frown and scowled, turning her heated gaze towards Barty.

The young woman had seemingly forgotten her fear. When she opened her mouth to speak to Crouch, she spoke slowly and clearly, as if she were addressing a twelve-year-old boy instead of a thirty-three-year-old man, a grown adult.

"This place is no place of joy, Crouch," she growled through gritted teeth, her nails digging into the skin of her palm as Alice seemed to find her resolve. "And you are no angel or god, Death Eater. You are so far from that, Barty. You are nothing but a snake in the night, you miserable horrible little earwig snitch …."

Barty heard himself let out a growl of frustration and slammed his fist into the wall behind her head, dangerously close to her ear, smirking as the raven-haired young woman flinched and clenched her eyes shut and let out a whimper.

Crouch stood at a standstill, completely flabbergasted by the girl's response. He felt his smug grin slide off his gaunt features, to be replaced by a look of disgust.

And as his Alice gingerly opened her eyes and stared defiantly back, he saw in those bewitching gray orbs of hers a flicker of defiance and satisfaction. Victory...

This…she had taken it _too_ far.

This he could not allow his. At _all_.

" **HOW DARE YOU**?" he bellowed, violently grabbing her jaw. "You might think this is over, little dove, that you have won, _Prewitt_ ," he snarled, whisper hissing it into the shell of her ear, and digging the tip of his wand further into her chest, "but it's far from resolved, darling. You will obey me, Alice. Now you give me no other choice…This—this is _on you_ , little dove. _Your_ fault, not mine," He exhaled a slightly shaking breath through his nose. " _Crucio_!" he bellowed angrily.

Almost immediately, before the Unforgiveable Curse had even left Crouch's lips, Tonks was hit by immense pain, unlike anything she'd ever felt in her life.

The pain was like a knife being twisted in her spine. It shot up fast, erasing every thought from her head and paralyzing her body, and she would have fallen, feeling her knees buckle beneath her had Crouch not shot out an arm to catch her. Apparently, she screamed, but she couldn't recall that part, just the fiery pain.

The pain commanded all her attention, it didn't sit quietly, it cowed her brain into meek submission demanding a salutation she could not provide now.

The young Auror let out a strangled scream and felt blood welling her throat from the tongue she had just bitten straight through in a vain attempt to stay quiet.

"I'm just not getting through to you, anymore, am I, little Alice?" Crouch said, nudging her hard in her side, and Tonks whimpered a broken small sound.

It couldn't have lasted long though, because, by the time she had hit the floor, her speech could only come in whimpering, pitiful pleas for him to show her an ounce of mercy, which she knew she would not get unless she went with him.

Tonks struggled to make her brain listen to Crouch's voice, to hear what came next, to listen to the creep's voice, and respond with an appropriate insult.

Crouch was kneeling beside her—that much she remembered, and she shoved him away feebly by pushing against his chest, she was sure, yes, she was sure, she saw his face through blurry and distorted vision—stroking her hair, saying it would be all right, with a voice that betrayed the man's true emotions.

Tonks let out a pained gasp and rolled over to her side. She didn't know which of them threw the first punch, but suddenly, she had seized the end of the man's wand and jabbed the end of it into his right eye socket, relishing in his scream of pain as he staggered backward, wildly clawing at his now-stabbed eye.

Seizing her opportunity, Tonks, with excruciating pains, staggered to her feet, whimpering, and bolted for the door without daring to look behind her to ensure she wasn't being followed, her breaths coming in short spurts, hot and nervous.

She could hear Crouch's screams behind her, and heavy, pounding footfalls gaining traction as he advanced upon her. The adrenaline surging through her veins demanded the Auror get out of this damned bloody house and outside, where there were no protective enchantments preventing her from Disapparating to safety.

Her heart thrummed wildly in her chest as she ran down the hallway, wrenched open the door and out into the open, and she exhaled a shaking breath of cold, crisp autumnal air and felt like crying, though first, she had to shake Crouch off her trail and to do that and Disapparate safely, she had to put distance between herself and him to prevent accidental Side-Along Apparition.

Tonks punched into the darkness, heading for the yellow light of the streetlamp in the distance.

Her feet slipped and she almost tumbled over, more time that she simply could not afford, not when her life and virtue were at stake.

Then she heard the catcalls and the whistles. Crouch was behind her now and something long, sharp, and metallic was headed straight for her ribcage.

Before Tonks knew she'd decided to scream, her voice rent the air, and though it was hoarse and weak, the desperation in it scared the young Auror.

She kept facing that sweet, precious light, that Merlin-blessed streetlamp, flickering in the dimly lit night air, every step closer towards it was vital in ensuring her survival.

Tonks let out a holler as she felt his strong hand grasp at the back of her black floral peasant shirt, though this time, he failed to latch onto it as she Disapparated…

She did not hear the holler of utter rage and anguish that Barty Crouch Jr. gave off as she closed her eyes and lost herself to the sensation of vanishing right before the Death Eater's eyes, and nor did she see the arrival of the figures of Mad-Eye Moody, and if she would have opened her eyes and looked to Moody's left, she would have seen the very same man from her vision earlier upstairs in the house, with the smile that was so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness to it.

The young woman clenched her eyes shut, needing to think of a place to Disapparate to, a place where she would be safe for now, and decided to shoot for the woods behind Barty's house. It wasn't much in terms of an escape plan, but it would buy her a little time, and the woods would provide cover in case she needed to hide.

As a result, Tonks did not see the arrival of Mad-Eye Moody and Remus John Lupin as they Apparated in the very same spot that she vanished on her heel.

They were too late and missed her by a fraction of a second.


	10. Interrogation

**A/N:** **I really love protective Remus is and he hasn't even _met_ Tonks yet and is already sticking up for his woman.**

**Enjoy! :)**

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN**

A derelict house stood in front of Alastor and Remus, repugnant and moldy, and Lupin's face drained of color as he glanced up at the old home. Only fear anchored Lupin's feet in the darkness now that they had arrived here.

The beginnings of yet another immense thunderstorm could be heard in the distance, echoing through the otherwise silent night. Lightning ripped the inky sky.

The silver hues of the clouds became as molten silver, swirling, rippling. Remus stood completely still for a moment, in front of the crumbling house, soaking up the ghosts that screamed, drawing them into his already feverish blood.

He could swear that he felt this house's victims circulate right through his heart and become even quieter whispers, but only one that he desperately needed to see for himself. To hear _her_. To hear her sweet voice from her lips. To touch her, to make sure she was real.

He bit his lip as a shiver ran through his body like an electric current and the spritzing of rain blurred his vision.

Mad-Eye's harsh, grating voice cut through his swirling of dark thoughts as his temper threatened to implode, and he knew if he didn't find this woman soon, there was no telling what would become of the Death Eater that had kidnapped her.

When Remus had finished with him, there might not be anything left of him to bury.

"Constant vigilance, Remus," barked Mad-Eye gruffly, his magical eye wildly swiveling this way and that, no doubt searching the interior walls of the house. "Stay on your toes. Whoever brought her out here is smart. We're not alone. I can sense it. But I don't see her," she isn't in the house," he remarked after a second, and Remus growled angrily.

Was Merlin really _this_ cruel to him?! Where the hell _was_ she?! Dark swirls of horrible thoughts, each one worse than the last, were swirling around in his tired, sleep-deprived head.

He wanted them to slow the hell down so he could breathe, but they wouldn't.

His breaths came in gasps at hearing Moody's words and he felt like he was going to be horribly sick. _We're too late…_

His heart felt like it was hammering inside the confines of his chest as it belonged to a jackrabbit running for its skin.

The atmosphere around Remus felt like it was spinning, and he knelt on the ground to better get his bearings a second. He tried desperately to make everything slow to something his frantic mind and body could cope with.

He felt so _sick_. He wanted to send another Patronus to call for reinforcements, but given the late hour of the night, it was uncalled for, and Dumbledore had already told him and Alastor he would meet them at St. Mungo's once they found Miss Tonks.

But where the bloody hell _was_ she?!

_She's dead. Gone. She has to be. This man killed her, stashed her corpse somewhere, tossed it in the river. Or she's hurt. She's bleeding. She needs us and we aren't there for her. I want to…to hold her hand. She can't die alone in an old house like that. I need to call someone. Send a Patronus for help. Send a message to Dumbledore. To St. Mungo's, tell them to prepare for an emergency patient. She's bleeding out somewhere and no one knows where this girl is_.

The thoughts came in rapid succession, each one worse than the last. Remus could feel his ribs heaving as if bound by invisible ropes, straining to inflate his lungs for air that simply would not come to him, though he breathed in and out shaking, slow breaths of cold.

He couldn't breathe. Everything around him was spinning and it felt as if the very earthen floor beneath his shoes was melting.

He collapsed on the ground, his back resting against the bark of an old oak, his breathing shallow and quick.

Remus could hear Alastor saying something, but he sounded different and muffled, garbled, as though he were underwater, almost.

Lupin's stomach flipped as he thought about Moody's words and he thought he would vomit.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Tonks is fine. Wherever she is."

Lupin gagged at that thought, feeling bile creep up his stomach and into his throat. Moody's calloused, grizzled and slightly gnarled and scarred hand tugged on his chin.

He thought he would be so horribly _sick_! Remus could feel his body shaking uncontrollably, and he knew it had nothing to do with the freezing cold Bristol night air.

He could feel Moody's hands rest gently on his shoulders as the old Auror tugged him to his feet, but he shrugged him off violently and glanced wildly around himself, to better get any sign of his and Alastor's surroundings.

His hearing was the first to return, and then Remus's eyesight followed suit. He was still shaking violently as he pushed back onto his knees and got to his feet.

Moody was quietly standing next to him, his breaths forming white clouds in the frigid air. The young woman's attacker and their target had bolted from the minute Mad-Eye Moody and Remus Apparated on the spot.

The Death Eater had fled across the grounds, not giving a damn that there were apparently Muggle cars present parked on the street.

_Listen_ , _Rem_ , Lily's sweet voice advised him, her soft, twinkling tones speaking to him from the corner of his mind. _Close your eyes..._

Then James spoke to him. _Concentrate_. _Don't think about anything else. Think of her. Find her_

Remus exhaled slowly, following his friends' advice. The man's direction after that was almost impossible to tell, but Remus could smell the suspect's fear.

His sense of smell and hearing became heightened, more wolfish in the days leading up to the full moon and the four or five days following his transformation, and in moments like right now, when it was desperately needed, he used it to his advantage.

It was the fifth day of his latest cycle's end, and he'd have a limited window of time before the ability fled him until the next cycle began.

He had a hunch their suspect was hiding out in the woods that lay at the edge of the abandoned house. The bushes and trees were almost silhouettes, the blackest of greens.

The path was the only pale thing stretching into the wooded gloom. Remus quickly scanned for any movement. None.

Then the wind died, the leaves ceased to rustle, even the rumble of the traffic behind him and Moody was practically absent. Everything became silent. Still.

In those frozen seconds, Lupin could hear the crunch of dried twigs under someone's boot, the pressure of the footfall too light to belong to Moody, and Remus was standing stock still, so it had to be _him_ , just enough to give him the location of his quarry.

It was in that moment of absolute stillness that Merlin tipped the balance to Lupin.

"He's here…" Lupin let out a low warning growl to this Stranger, the intruder, the one who'd kidnapped the mysterious woman from his dreams, to offer one last chance to surrender in peace, before this dawn ended in bloodshed, given his current mood.

He swung around, wand clutched in hand, and yelled, " _Expelliarmus_!" before the young woman's would-be-assailant barely had any time to react and raise his own wand as a means to defend himself against Remus.

Lord Voldemort's Death Eater's wand flung out of his hand, and Mad-Eye gave a single rap of his walking stick, and without the grizzled old Auror needing to utter a verbal incantation, tree branches erupted from the earthen forest floor of an old oak tree among the giants of root and leaf behind their suspect and snaked their tendrils around his torso, and both his arms, preventing him from making a run for it by vanishing.

Moody let out a guttural grunt of frustration, murmuring a curse under his breath as he reached for a silver flagon from one of the pockets of his brown trench coat and tipped it open, cupping the man's chin violently in his hand, forcing his mouth open and pouring a few droplets of the liquid into his mouth before clamping his jaw shut and forcing their target to swallow it all the way.

"Veritaserum, that'll get the bloody git to talk to us, tell us what happened to Nymphadora, and—oh, bloody _hell_! Not _him_! Merlin's beard, I thought this one was back in Azkaban Prison! How did he get out and when?!" Moody barked, and Remus crept forward, wand raised at the ready, and he felt his blood ignite and then freeze his insides.

He was staring directly into the face of none other than Barty Crouch Jr., Frank, and Alice Longbottom's torturer.

If _this_ was the man who'd held Nymphadora Tonks captive and prisoner here, then it wasn't looking good at all.

Remus snarled, feeling an incredible heat spread throughout his chest and crept its way up to his throat as bitter acidic stomach bile.

For a moment, he thought he might be sick again. He swallowed down hard past the constricting lump in his throat and balled the hand not clutching onto his wand into a fist and seized a fistful of Crouch's shirt and shook it, closing off the gap of space between them.

He felt his eyes narrow in utter hatred and disgust for Crouch, who was now regarding both him and Mad-Eye Moody with an apprehensive and fearful look in his dark orbs that his eyes practically threatened to escape their lids.

A deep, yet low, animalistic, almost wolfish growl left Lupin's throat as he inched his way in closer towards Barty Crouch Jr., who immediately shrank away from the taller man's intimidating form.

Remus curled his fingers into a fist over the man's black leather jacket and pulled him up slightly to his level, admittedly a difficult task considering the roots of the tree currently binding him to the trunk of the tree, but he managed as he thrust his pale, ashen face to Crouch Jr.'s emaciated one.

The dark voices raged war within, drowning out the protesting of James and Lily.

_Kill...rip...tear him apart..._ Lupin bared his teeth, whisper hissing his words to Crouch so that only _he_ heard. "You go anywhere in this city again, Crouch, in fact, you go anywhere _near_ Miss Tonks again, I will _find_ you and _rip you apart_ limb from limb, _slowly_ , until you are this armless, legless _thing_ wandering the slums of London, won't you?"

Remus furrowed his brows in a frown as Miss Tonks' attacker did not answer, seeming to favor silence as the only apt response, and he felt his temper implode.

His damned temper was already on a hair-trigger as it was, and this man's lack of response as to where Miss Tonks was, was _not_ helping improve his mood.

He _needed_ her, and he needed her _right. now_. Five minutes ago. " **TALK**."

The command escaped him as a hoarse holler, and Lupin felt a sudden shift within himself when, yet again, Barty Crouch Jr. did not answer Remus's query.

Lupin's growl that began as a low rumble deep from his chest quickly erupted into a yell, so loud and hair-raising that even Mad-Eye Moody flinched at it.

There was something in that shout of Remus's, a pain behind it.

Moody pursed his lips into a thin line and watched, saying nothing. He watched Lupin's eyes. Then he knew.

The anger was nothing but a shield for the man's pains, like a cornered Auror randomly throwing out jinxes left and right without really aiming, scared for his life, lonely, desperate, and Moody knew that the only solution to bringing Remus Lupin down off of this incredible wave of painful rage and anguish was for the two of them to find Nymphadora Tonks and get her medical attention.

If Lupin's shouts were visible, they would be reaching over the very air itself, strangling the life force from Barty Crouch Jr.

As his words became more bitter and poisonous, it would be possible to see why the Death Eater gasped for breath.

" **WHERE. IS. SHE**." It was not a question posed to the Death Eater's and it was not about to be denied.

Especially not with the copious amount of Veritaserum that Moody had just poured down Barty Crouch Jr.'s throat. Lupin growled.

" _Talk_." Remus did not come all the way out to Bristol at going on three o'clock in the bloody morning to save the very real woman, this She-Stranger of his nightmares, from a fate that was admittedly worse than death, and he was _not_ going to tolerate Crouch's tricks or roundabout ways of skirting his questions.

Remus snarled, feeling the Mad Beast within the confines of his chest growl and foam at the mouth, tugging at its iron-wrought chains, and he leaned in so the tip of his nose was practically touching Crouch's.

He pressed the tip of his wand into the pale column of Crouch's throat, where a blue vein stretched and throbbed against the tree branch holding him hostage.

" _Talk_ ," he growled. "Or I'll slit your throat."

Lupin's threat worked, and Crouch must have seen the shadow of the wolf dart across his features, for Crouch's face, paled a shade lighter.

"W—woods," came the Death Eater's voice, hoarse and raspy as he coughed for air. Barty Crouch Jr.'s voice was coarse like a fragmented rock in a hessian sack, moving and grinding against each other.

Somehow, it complemented the man's grungy appearance and raised veins, though the man had this nervous tic of licking his lips in agitation. It unnerved Lupin to no end.

"You _lie_ ," Remus snarled, baring his teeth, and allowing a low, guttural growl to escape from the confines of his chest. "I _know_ you're _lying_. Don't _make_ me ask it again, Crouch, or I'll rip your tongue out from your throat and shove it down your throat and watch you choke on it. Do I need to ask you a _second_ time? I really _hate_ saying it a second time. _Where_. Is. _She_."

He did not know where this sudden hostility and fierce protectiveness and for this She-Stranger of his dreams was coming from, but given he was still coming down off the full moon, having tried to in times past to quell this aspect of his personality and it ended disastrously each time, he knew better by now than to fight himself when he got in these moods.

"He doesn't lie, Remus," snapped Moody. "Veritaserum forces the truth, you know this. If she fled for the woods, there's a very strong chance Tonks is truly hurt and we only have a limited window of opportunity to find her."

It sent a chill of revulsion down Lupin's spine as he watched Crouch without turning his head. His heart was hammering but he kept his facial expression set to 'neutral' with no hint of hesitation.

This man could _not_ know of his feelings.

Remus knew how to keep a poker face. All those lonely late nights recently spent in Number 12, Grimmauld Place's kitchen with Sirius spent gambling Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs over cards and wizard's chess had paid off in the end.

So long as he appeared nonchalant, no pinkness in his cheeks to betray him, everything would be fine. And he was going to find out where Miss Tonks was.

He _wanted_ this woman, Tonks, and this shell of a man was going to lead them to her, or so help him, he would feed Crouch to the Dementors himself and—

" _Remus_." Lupin bit down on his tongue and felt his head whiplash sharply up the right, so very close to his breaking point, the final thread of the last vestiges of his patience about to snap, and he was ready to warn whoever it was that had bloody dared to call his name that he was _not_ about to be kind to _anyone_ who would deter him from finding the young, pink-haired witch from his dreams when he quickly realized that was none other than Mad-Eye who had spoken.

" _What_?" Remus barked sharply, his tone shifting to something harder around the edges and his normally kind light brown eyes alight with rage.

He was _not_ in a patient mood tonight, therefore the old Auror had better speak _fast_ , and Moody winced, and the grizzled old Auror considered himself a man who did not display any emotion other than contempt, paranoia, and sarcasm easily, but he could not help it this time.

Alastor had never seen Remus John Lupin look this way before. His brown eyes held a deadness, a stillness.

The man who laughed often, the one who was everybody's friend and confidante, had developed a stone-cold hardness.

It was as if Moody could read everything that Remus blamed the Death Eater for in one extended hard glower and forgiveness was no longer an option. Perhaps if the two of them had gotten here faster, saved Tonks, things might have been different, but they—

Mad-Eye Moody's thoughts were quickly interrupted as a horrible scream coming from deep in the woods tore through the pair of Order members like a great shard of glass.

Remus felt his eyes widen and pulse quicken. He knew that scream all too well.

_Her_ voice. He swallowed hard down past the lump in his throat despite his throat constricting, and it felt as though he could no longer breathe properly.

The scream came again, desperate, terrified…human. _Hers_. The blood drained from his face, and, ignoring Moody's shouts to wait for him until Crouch was properly subdued before Remus was even aware of making a conscious decision, he bolted deeper into the woods, his legs pounding furiously on the uneven muddy path ahead of him, his ears straining for more sounds, more clues as to where her voice had come from.

He had no clue as to what he would do or what he would find when he got there, just that he had to get there and fast…

_Find_ _her_ , James and Lily advised. _Save_ _her_.

His friends did not need to tell him twice. By now, Lupin's heart felt as though it was close to bursting from the confines of his chest. It protested, screaming with him to slow down and to stop, to catch his breath.

But he pushed aside those thoughts.

She was in trouble, and in that scream was the desperate pleading sound he had heard so many times before in his dreams.

To hear in his nightmares was one thing, but to hear it tear from her lips…

He could never truly feel another's pain, but that scream of hers came close. It was the kind of scream that put every other one of his thoughts on hold and rooted him close in the exact same agony. It echoed throughout the woods, making its origin hard to pin-point.

The first cries were undoubtedly terror and disbelief, but the next was heart-wrenching ones of pain, garbling, and pitiful.

Her scream, helpless and desperate, propelled Remus forward even faster, running like he was the winter breeze colliding into inanimate objects and crashing waves hitting the shoreline.

His light brown bangs were pushed off his forehead by the night chill's wind whipped his hair as he flung himself over sharp rocks and gnarled, heavy tree trunks. Lupin did not know where in the woods he was, nor did he know where her sweet voice was leading him.

He had no idea of the time or what was happening with Moody and Crouch back there, not a damn thing.

All Remus John Lupin knew was that he had to keep running forward. Following her voice. Not stopping for anything.

Lupin closed his eyes and allowed the sound of the Stranger's voice from his dreams to guide him forward. _Hang on_ , he pleaded, shooting a desperate prayer to Merlin above that whenever he found Nymphadora Tonks, he would not be too late to save her.

_I'm coming…_

* * *

The young witch opened her eyes in shock once she'd managed to break away from Bristol, and she was falling.

Her perception of time distorted, everything slowed down until there was nothing, only her and the night sky above, and the blackness seemed to swallow Tonks whole.

Her hand reached out, kissing the sky, grasping the endless crevasse of darkness. Everything was a blur, a massive blur that swirled out of existence.

Suspending in the air, she closed her eyes and braced herself for the painful impact that she knew was to come. The world rushed by in a haze stupor, and Tonks knew that the pain was coming. It went by fast, yet slow, almost suspended. Then impact.

She felt the bones of her right ankle move in a way that they shouldn't, jangled.

Without even having to look, she knew there was blood seeping from the skin that was seconds ago quite smooth.

Tonks let out a pained gasp, clenching her eyes shut, feeling a wretched tear or two escape her lids and sprawled out on the forest floor so she rested on her back.

Tonks didn't dare move. Anything to delay the part where she took in what she looked like now. Torn and dirty skin, reddened, weeping. Though tears escaped her eyes, running away upon her cheeks before she could stop it herself.

In the end, it wasn't necessarily dying that scared her but the pain.

Slowly, she tried to get up, but quickly realized how futile it was when she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out in pain.

Sharp pains lanced through her ribcage, her arm, white-hot fire and colorful spots flashed in front of her eyes, it felt like her whole body had been beaten and every movement caused some other muscle or bone to ache.

Her mangled lip and obviously bruised face were caked in dried blood, congealed, and cracked.

The now browning blood drizzled down her face like so much rain down a windowpane. Panting and gasping heavily, tears streaming down her pale cheeks in a steady constant stream, she glanced to the right, wondering why the bloody hell her shoulder ached so bad, and she felt her stomach give a painful lurch, and acidic bile crept up her throat, and she thought she was going to vomit and be terribly, horribly _sick_!

Her right arm had been Splinched.

"Oh, _God_. Oh, _shit_." Tonks did not curse lightly, but the curses escaped her gritted teeth before she could stop herself. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before.

There was the white jagged end of a broken bone cutting through the skin and blood ran freely in thick scarlet rivers amongst her arm, matting them together before it soaked into the fabric of her shirt, and crimson blood leaked onto the forest floor, where she lay.

Wincing, biting the inside wall of her cheek, Tonks clenched her eyes shut and lifted a trembling hand to clutch at her shoulder, unable to stop the scream of pain as it escaped her lips. A horrible, piercing scream.

The blood flowed thickly over her fingers, garish, thick, crimson, and incredibly fiery.

The violent red stained her shaking hands. The color burned in her mind along with what she had just escaped.

A sickness crawled within her as she futilely clutched onto a nearby outstretched tree branch with her one good arm and she screamed, unable to help it. Searing, fiery bursts pulsated around the wound, intensifying with each dragging step, jarring and brutal.

With each step the pain amplified, the bloody muscle quivered, her consciousness ebbed. Black mists swirled at the edges of her mind, drawing her into sweet oblivion.

"Holy love of Merlin Almighty, this _really_ _hurts_..." she groaned, whisper-hissing it through gritted teeth. "Damn…"

She'd accidentally Disapparated into the woods behind Crouch's house, with the hopes of hiding and losing him, but as a result, she'd fallen into a steep ravine.

And, given her wand was snapped into fragments, her wand arm was Splinched, and she could barely walk, but the only way out was up.

She had to _climb_. The old-fashioned way. No magic. Not that she could. "No wand..."

Tonks moaned in pain, grinding her teeth, and locking her jaw, her knuckles white as she balled them into a fist. And then…

She saw _him_ at the topmost edge of the ravine. His face, the very Stranger's face from her hallucination earlier, when Crouch had tried to force himself on—

_No. Don't go there_. Her mind ordered the rest of her to fall in line. It was truly amazing to the pink-haired young Auror how every time she felt this horrible pain, she couldn't deal with it very well, but it was not her bruised, broken, and battered body, nor her Splinched arm, or broken ankle that hurt her the worst.

Not a chance. No. What hurt her the _worst_ was seeing this Stranger at the top of the ravine, hallucination or not, that was killing her slowly inside and didn't hurt Tonks the same way that a simple cut or a stab wound would hurt.

It was just this heavy, aching feeling.

Tonks's head felt like it was spinning, and it was as if her tongue was too big for her mouth as her throat closed up.

She felt the need to wipe away non-existent tears that he almost wanted them to form as the Stranger's shimmering and wavering form appeared at the very top of the ravine's ledge but couldn't.

Tonks blinked once or twice, clenching her eyes shut and when she flung them open, there that Stranger was, lying in wait.

_To kill me? To hurt me? Is this another of Crouch's disguises?_ Her mind felt like it was racing, and a sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through her veins.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as another painful spasm wracked her body and her Splinched arm accidentally brushed against a twig.

She bit down hard on her tongue but it was not enough to contain the scream that poured from her lips in a heartbreaking scream of agony that would have brought anyone who happened to be nearby in the vicinity to tears.

Wincing, tears silently streaming down her face as she choked back a pained sob, she clenched her eyes tightly shut, her face contorted in a grimace, her skin pale, clammy, and feverish as waves of heat seemed to emanate off her forehead.

She had to keep climbing, or she would die. Alone in a ravine. Groaning and grunting with the effort, she slowly turned her body back around to resume her grueling, bloody climb.

Searing fiery bursts pulsated around the wound, intensifying with each dragging step, jarring and brutal.

With each step the pain amplified, the bloody muscle quivered, her consciousness ebbed. Black mists swirled at the edges of her mind drawing her into sweet oblivion.

Her breaths quivered in short, quick gasps every time she dared to draw in cold frigid air to inhale, her lungs having no choice but to painfully and rigidly take in the cold air around her, as the young, injured Auror struggled to pull herself up over the steep ravine's edge.

Tonks couldn't seem to stop her incessant shaking, either. Sometimes it was kind of rough, other times she thought she could manage it, but every time she'd get to close her eyes now that she had managed the fiery, grueling climb to the top of the raven with wounds and a Splinched arm, no less, a new spell of violent shaking would force the Auror awake.

"J—just leave me," she moaned, clenching her eyes tightly shut as she fought back another scream, silent tears pouring down her pale cheeks in graceful tracts. "Just… lay here and let me bleed. Yeah. It'll be good for me."

The cold chill that wracked her weak and shivering form threatened to engulf her. It ran down her spine in fiery pulsating bursts and made Tonks's skin crawl.

Tonks let out a pained moan that was more like a whimper as she turned her head, spitting out a mouthful of blood and dirt as she did so. And then…she saw _him_.

At the tree line at the top of the ravine, a tall, towering figure appeared and vanished like a coin in one of those Muggle tricks that Arthur Weasley was so obsessed with perfecting.

Tonks could not help herself as a half-choked sob, this one willfully set free from its confines, escaped her lips as the Stranger, the very man from her hallucination earlier knelt down to her level and looked her in the eyes.

"Oh, thank _God_. _You're real_."

His first words to her. Tonks blinked, her eyelids heavy and it felt more of an effort.

It...it _talked_. Oh, God, she'd _died_. This was...this was Hell, it had to be. And what kind of question was that?! Of course, she was _real_!

What she was seeing could not _possibly_ be real. This was another trick of Crouch's, it _had_ to be. What she was seeing was another figment of her imagination, a hallucination conjured by her mind to help her deal with the immense pain she was experiencing.

When her vision had quit swimming with black dots in the front of her line of sight, she turned her head.

The Stranger was still there, his eyes wrought with worry and glimmering with something in his eyes, an emotion that she could not quite discern what, and the man looked close to tears, though what for, she didn't know why.

He had no reason to cry. She was the one in excruciating pain, not him. She was the one who had just climbed a ravine, no magic, with a Splinched arm and a vicious stab wound in her side. _Not_ him. He had no _right_ to cry for her.

The trees from the woods behind the strange man's face were just a blur. In that instant, her ashen, pale skin had become greyed, her mouth hung with lips slightly parted and her eyes were as wide as they could stretch, full to the brim with apprehension.

The apparition in front of her eyes was no more than a distortion of the light, a human cut out of colors that weren't right.

Where it moved the things behind it appeared bowed, as if looked at through a mild fish-eye lens. Then as quickly as it came, it left, without leaving so much as a foot impression in the fall mud.

Tonks whimpered, feeling a surge of panic and tension course through her bloodstream and prick at her heartstrings as the Stranger she was _so_ clearly _hallucinating_ in her last final moments of lucidity before Death would come to greet her like an old friend reached out his hand.

For _her_ …


	11. Her Voice

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

These damned woods were the most annoying thing Remus had ever experienced in his life, just short of his transformations, though those were more excruciating than anything else.

Going through them alone would have been frustrating enough, but as Moody's uneven footfalls behind him caught up to his grueling pace, he felt an obligation to protect both the young woman, when he found her, and then Moody, though what Mad-Eye had done with Barty Crouch, he couldn't say and Remus decided that he didn't _want_ to know what.

The only thing that mattered was _her_. Right now, he needed to see _her_ …

Remus Lupin considered himself an apprehensive creature by nature and was horribly plagued by this lingering thought of the Stranger: Where was she?! Is she alive?

The frustrated young wizard closed his eyes for a moment to better gain his bearings, and that was when the voices in his head started to take over for him.

They spoke to him during times of stress, his friends' voices. James. Lily. His friends, both the deceased and the ones that still lived, were Remus's foundations, his escape in the lonely, desolate hours of his miserable existence.

" _Find her,"_ James and Lily said. _"Save her,"_ they said.

"Easier said than done."

Remus sighed and silently shot a pleading prayer to Merlin above (and to his friends) that he wasn't too late to save her.

It was becoming harder and harder for the young wizard to account for everything. Moody tended to have a habit of wandering off beyond his line of sight, his magical eye swiveling in all directions to comb the forest for any more signs of trouble.

It irked Lupin to no end whenever he did this, thinking that they needed to stick _together_. What if Crouch hadn't been working alone and there were more of them?

Remus let out a growl of frustration and shifted his wand to his other hand, thinking that these woods probably stretched on for miles and the sweet susurrations of her voice, haunting scream or not, had long since faded, and the fear of what might have happened to this She-Stranger resurfaced in his heart with a vengeance.

_Miss Tonks, her name is Nymphadora Tonks, not a Stranger anymore_ , his conscience reminded him yet again of her name, though he had to hear it for himself from her lips before he'd start calling her _anything_.

Remus frowned, craning his neck upwards to the forest canopy, rolling his neck to crack it as he did so, frowning.

He furrowed his dark brows into a heavy scowl as he glanced to the left and right, struggling to keep a watchful eye on Moody, in addition to other Death Eaters, all the while searching for this injured young woman. _What if she's dead?_

The pang that his chest gave at even the conjuring of such a wicked thought caused his heart to lurch and his stomach to twist in horrible knots. He could never have guessed that a woman from his nightmares would invoke such a foreign feeling that welled as the fire in the confines of his chest, though what that feeling was, Lupin didn't know.

But something deep within the recesses of his mind fought this strange feeling that crept like a spider down his spine leaving a careful trail of silk.

This feeling was light and breathless, but underneath it, something dark festered and rotted at the back of his mind, the 'wrong' feeling.

Not only did he feel _wrong_ thinking of this woman, of Miss Tonks, but the snake-like voice that sounded entirely too much like Severus for Lupin's comfort sat in the back of his mind and taunted his troubled mind.

_The girl is already dead. You and Moody were too late to save her life_.

These intrusive thoughts left the distraught young wizard and werewolf at a loss for words, which in it itself was something of a rarity, as he always knew what to say.

_"No_ ," Remus growled in frustration, hissing, shoving away the dark thoughts with a curt wave of his hand, a gesture which earned a quirked brow his way from Moody, though he ignored the Auror's staring at him.

He wouldn't think like that. He _couldn't_. She could not— _would_ not—be dead.

"You're going to be all right," he whispered, though he knew that wherever she was, she couldn't hear him, but he liked to hope that she did, somehow.

Lupin snarled, shaking his head softly to himself, wondering what exactly it was about this damned bloody forest that had he and Moody lost and going in complete circles, that was causing the pair of Order members such confusion?

The two of them prided themselves on their ability to keep a level head under stressful situations, such as combat when fighting Voldemort's army. In a way, he supposed they were fighters, soldiers. But this was new.

Lupin thought the air in this bloody forest felt…strange. _Off_. Suffocating, almost heavy, and not to mention in the thick of pre-fall, almost…hot. So damned bloody _hot_.

Of course, that could have been the adrenaline that surged through his veins, feeling as though his blood was on fire. His limbs felt as though they were moving on his own.

Remus was disconnected from everything going on around him, but thoughts of finding her, and the ever-present sound of his drumming heartbeat.

The adrenaline flooded his entire system. He thought his heart would explode and his light brown eyes were wide, letting in every ounce of the moonlight that streamed in through the forest canopy, and the fact that his sharp hearing had not been able to detect her voice again—not her scream, a shout, a cry of pain, _anything_ , troubled him, and once again, Lupin's fear found him in a panic.

It spoke to him in its cackling voice. It told his legs to go weak, his stomach to lurch, and his heart to ache and scream whenever they found the girl's lifeless body soon.

His father, Lyall, had once told him as a young boy that there was nothing to fear but fear itself, but still, Remus could not silence its damned toxic whispers.

_I wonder what Dad would say if he knew of my nightmares, that I'm chasing a literal fictional woman of my dreams_ , he thought bitterly, biting the wall of his cheek as he paused for a second to get his bearings.

_Oh, but if you could hear yourself, Rem_ , Lily's soft voice chimed in, like a soft, tinkling bell at the back of his mind. _Hasn't the events of tonight proven to you she's real? You have to save her!_

Lupin did not respond to Lily. He couldn't. He could not help but think of his father, wondering what he would say to all of this if he could see it for himself. Making a mental note to ask his father later this week, he stopped to catch his breath, and then, he heard it.

A small mewling of fear, the faintest whimper of pain. A female's voice. _Hers_.

Or thought he had. The woodlands around him and Moody seemed ominously quiet.

Remus paused, his wand clutched tightly in hand, now that even the sound of his own footfalls was silent, and when a twig snapped behind him, Lupin whirled around, narrowed eyes, and emanated a tense exhale through his nose when he realized it was just Moody, his prosthetic leg had broken a stick.

"Anything? What do you hear?" Mad-Eye grunted, clutching onto his walking stick with great effort as he hobbled forward, his gait slightly lumbering and wobbling. "Lupin?"

Remus shook his head vehemently, resisting the urge to roar like an enraged dragon.

The air was completely still. Even the wind was still. Nothing but silence.

"I thought that I heard her," he confessed, a pained look crossing his features as he turned his head away in shame.

Every few days, his heightened sense of smell and hearing, courtesy of the Wolf within him, that Mad Beast, would linger, but his condition was failing him at the moment.

He ground his teeth in anger, seething.

_Figures_ , he thought bitterly. _The one time I NEED it to work, it shuts me out_.

"But it's gone now…I—I guess I must have imagined hearing her voice…"

Remus was getting used to the dryness of his mouth and the constant swallowing of nothing, hoping the gesture would be enough to bring moisture to him again, but now there was the slime of something thick and disgusting, and the taste of metallic iron between his tongue and palate, a taste that he recognized as blood.

Lupin growled and turned his head to the side and spat the blood that completely filled his taste buds and his body shivered at the idea of what they'd find soon.

It hurt like hell, but he ignored it, pressing on, needing to find this woman. He needed it like he needed air to breathe.

Mad-Eye nodded, though his one good eye narrowed, and this time, it was the grizzled old Auror's turn to growl in frustration, and in a fit of agonized rage, he shot out with his boot and kicked aside a fallen branch that was in their way.

"I'm going to _murder_ Crouch when we get back there, by Merlin's left saggy buttock, I'll kill him for what the kid's done to her," he growled.

Noticing Lupin's quizzical look at how Mad-Eye could have left their target back near the house unsupervised, Moody's lips pursed into a thin line as he scowled heavily.

"Oh, don't worry about him escaping. The kid's not going _anywhere_ , not after what he did to Tonks." The man's gruff tone sounded rougher, coarser, really.

For a moment, Remus felt the chilling tendrils of dread creep its way up to his spine and wrap its way around his throat.

"What did you _do_ to him, Alastor?"

Mad-Eye Moody shrugged his shoulders, right as a gust of cold wind blasted through the forest clearing.

When he spoke, the Auror's voice sounded distant. "Chains. He's… _subdued_ for the moment," was all the older man said, and Remus furrowed his brows into a frown and shook his head, deciding not to press the issue any further.

Though there was a small part of him that he supposed wouldn't be surprised if, when they made it back to the background of the abandoned house to find Crouch's corpse, lifeless on the ground, and mangled and unrecognizable.

The more savage side of Lupin's wolfish personality hoped that he had.

Moody shot him a rather knowing little smirk and mumbled something inaudible under his breath, though Remus could make out the words, 'constant vigilance,' as Alastor dug in the pockets of his trench coat for his favorite silver flask, opening it and throwing his head back and taking a huge long swig of Fire Whiskey, shuddering as the burning alcohol traveled down his thick esophagus.

Remus resisted the urge to roll his eyes and shook his head in minor disbelief at the older man's antics, turning away from the grizzled old Auror and back towards the forest.

Lupin swallowed the lump forming in his throat as he stared angrily out into the swirling white mist that had begun to creep its way at a petty pace, going deeper into the woods and creeping towards both Remus and Alastor at a crawl.

The woods made hazy by this sudden mist, and for a moment, Lupin raised a hand in front of him to ensure that the two of them were, still in fact, here. He was.

Remus emanated a tense exhale and felt his shoulders slump in relief. This de-focused world in front of him and Moody was incredibly frigid.

Billions of icy, vaporized drops blew down Lupin's neck, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end, and he shuddered, unable to help himself.

It did not just slowly drain his body heat; it stole it the second it made contact. It swooped in and skirted around the tree boughs.

Remus stood in a pocket of it, but it only seemed like a pocket to the distraught thirty-five-year-old wizard. He knew that they too were swallowed, eradicated by the whiteness.

It hurt his eyes just to look at it, it was so… _white_. Staring at it made Lupin feel like he was staring at himself, staring at nothing. His mind fought hard to drum up a thousand different descriptions to plaster across it.

But the former Hogwarts teacher knew that there was nothing that could truly describe nothing.

Each horrible thought he had seemed loud and exposed, just like every movement that Lupin made in the eerie encroaching silence that wrapped like the damned bloody fog around him and Moody. Moody growled in irritation.

" _Lumos_!" he barked, and a blinding white light flooded from the tip of his wand, though not that the utterance of the incantation did either of them good.

Remus followed suit, though after a minute of defeat, not able to see any better than Alastor was, let out a tired sigh of frustration and murmured, " _Nox_!" and stowed his wand back in his pocket. Maybe the fog was somehow in him, just as he was in. That could be the only explanation for why he felt… _strange_.

The early morning fog loomed as far as the last remnants of his wolfish eyes would allow him to see. It was almost tangible, shrouding the damned forest in a thick white veil, the light barely managing to penetrate the thick haze of mist.

The sounds of birds and crickets and other insects and animals in this forest that should have been filling the air around him and Moody all seemed to have disappeared. Even their footsteps had been swallowed by the greedy white beast.

Just as Lupin was about to kick something in anger and have a complete and utter meltdown at not being able to find the woman as his mind had wandered to thoughts if they would ever find this girl and get out of these woods alive, a strange, muffled noise, incredibly faint, rent the otherwise silent chilled night air.

Remus's ears perked up at the noise and he became still, closing his eyes and allowing the last remnants of the wolfish side of his condition to take over fully.

There it was _again_. It was a small sound, coming from Moody's left, so faint at first, Remus wasn't even sure if he had heard that strange noise to begin with.

A tiny sob. A woman's voice. He felt his heart soar in a mixture of intermingled fear at wondering what condition she was in, and relief at finally having found Miss Tonks.

Trepidation like nothing he'd ever felt before in his life wound its icy tendrils around his chest, and he felt he could not speak at all.

Another sob rent the air around the two Order members, and Remus found himself walking towards it as the barely audible noise beckoned him even closer.

Moody opened his mouth to speak, but at the urging of Lupin, as he shot out an arm and grabbed onto Alastor's arm, seeing Remus quietly raise a finger to his lips, silently communicating with the veteran Auror to stay silent, he nodded and relented, giving Remus a curt nod, though he took a half step back.

Lupin was barely aware he was almost leaning forward, one of his hands resting on the bark of a gnarled old oak tree, his fingernails scraping down the bark in anticipation and a fit of nervous anxiety, and wasn't even aware he was doing it until he felt the sharp sting of Mad-Eye's hand across his arm to stop him doing it. Remus frowned. "Thanks," he murmured as quietly as he could speak.

Remus immediately fell silent and strained his ears to listen again, closing his eyes and allowing the Mad Beast within to take over, to listen for _her_ sweet voice.

If there was ever a time to let the Wolf within him out, it was right now.

He kept his eyes closed. And let It take over. There was certainly a little activity going on in these damned woods, however small, but it sounded much to faint to belong to a fox or to a wolf. A squirrel, perhaps, for he could hear the rustling of leaves. Remus heard it again. It sounded like a strange sort of whimpering or crying.

Lupin narrowed his kind, light brown eyes and stared off into the distance, towards Moody's right now, trying to see any indication that she might be nearby, but the fog made it almost impossible. And then, his nostrils flared as he smelled the metallic iron.

_Her blood_ , he thought and felt his heart give a painful lurch, and then a faded silhouette appeared, dark against the blinding white mist.

It was _her_.

Remus wasn't even aware he'd drawn in-breath and held it as the young witch, the Auror, the Stranger from his dreams, Nymphadora Tonks came into view, but the moment she stumbled from the fog, the spark of hope that ignited as a small flame within the confines of his chest quickly became extinguished as he took one look at the young witch's face.

At the prominent dark bags underneath both of her eyes, dozens of scratches and cuts and bruises all over. And the way she was walking, it was all _wrong_!

So terribly, horribly _wrong_! She walked like a scarecrow more than a woman and all lopsided, and Remus could tell one of her ankles was broken. How she was walking was a miracle, much less able to stand up.

As she neared him and Moody, Lupin felt his heart fall right to the pit of his stomach.

The skin underneath her left eye was swollen. She couldn't be seeing a thing out of that and she wouldn't for a while yet. Her pretty face still bore signs of congealed blood, and her clothes were an utter mess.

Her cracked, bleeding lips parted slightly to say Moody's name, her gaze remained fixated on Alastor, but she failed at the first syllable, but she doesn't need to.

Lupin was already running.

A cold sweat glistened in the young woman's gaunt features, dark bags, circles, prominent underneath both of her eyes. Her gray eyes sunken in and her pale skin gray and sallow, everything ached, everything sagged, and the young woman looked like a walking corpse, a perfect candidate for Voldemort's Inferi.

Her right arm had been grotesquely Splinched, and at first, the blood oozing from her arm and a horrible looking gash near her right ribcage that stained her shirt and black jeans, it came thick and strong, flowing through her shaking fingers as they weakly clasped at the ripped flesh.

Tonks felt the blood move over her hand, she just had to, the thick fluid no warmer or cooler than her own skin.

After a few moments more, the blood was still leaving her rapidly paling flesh, but the pulses were slower, weaker. The young woman held her hand to the wound as best as she could, but no matter the pressure the witch applied, the blood still gushed crimson and thick in between her fingers and oozed underneath her hand and onto the forest floor beneath her black leather heeled boots.

It had spread onto her shirt and jeans, the bright red quickly darkening, taking on a brownish hue as it dried, and the stench was an assault to their senses.

Lupin almost swallowed his tongue as he took in the young witch's appearance, throttling the urge to roar like an enraged dragon.

_By Merlin, I'm going to kill Crouch for what he's done. Moody's going to have to get in line. I'll—I'll cut him up into little pieces and give them to Hagrid to feed to Fluffy_. _Save his head for last_.

A few hot tears escaped his eyes as he cautiously approached the witch. His mind blazed with curses, foul language as if it were the only language that he knew.

For what _man_ could treat a young woman like _this_? Only a coward would.

But the worst part wasn't the stinging of his knuckles was not nearly enough to swap the anguish and heartbreak that stabbed him square in the chest as a knife.

Lupin swallowed, feeling it hallow and threatened a half-choked sob, but he wouldn't let it release.

The young woman's eyes lifted upwards to meet his, and she bared her teeth and snarled, fumbling, and taking several weak steps backward. She growled, like a rabid and savage She-Wolf, as Moody rapidly approached Tonks.

And then, the young Auror looked towards Remus weakly, and he inhaled a breath of cold night air that pained his lungs as the woman's gray eyes met his, and he very nearly dropped his wand to the forest floor as he fumbled his wand.

Two youthful, almond-shaped eyes were staring at him, widened in utter shock as he stared right back. Remus blinked and could feel his throat tighten.

For which this creature which he had envisioned several times in his nightmares over the span of the last two weeks was not at all what he had envisioned her to be. No. She was…she was _beautiful_. And her gray eyes….

_Just like my dream…But my god, they're even more spellbinding up close_.

It was as though the young woman's eyes had bewitched him, as if by witch's curse, and had rendered him mute and he had lost the ability to speak words. Lupin lost himself rather inappropriately for a split second in her eyes.

They glistened brightly, cold, and metallic, those gray orbs of the Auror's, rivaling the most excellently polished suit of armor, like the knight statues back at Hogwarts.

The sclerae that surrounded them were red-rimmed and watery from her tears.

She'd been crying. Remus blinked as he heard a crash hollering from nearby and was quickly thrust back into the unpleasant reality of his situation. _She's hurt._

Her short pink pixie was a myriad of colors, flecked with bits of mud and blood, small particles of the woods put together, though it was the coals on her eyes were added with fuel that he was drawn to as she bared her lips and snarled.

" **YOU**!" The young Auror pointed a shaking finger at Remus, her gray eyes clouded over with a mist and a look of utter horror and shock on her pale face.

Remus froze, his heart giving a painful lurch in his chest and his throat hallowed. What had he done?!

_She must think that I'm Barty Crouch, that Moody and I are just hallucinations in her delirium_ , he thought wildly, wondering if it was the slight resemblance in hair color that was causing her confusion, and he looked towards Mad-Eye for confirmation.

_Easy, Moony_ , came James's voice at the back of his mind. James was sounding uncharacteristically somber, not at all his usual cheerful, mischievous self. _You don't know what she's been through, what Crouch might have done to her tonight. Easy now. Nice and slow, that's it... Don't want to scare her any more than she already is. Just look at her!_

The young Auror with the vibrant pink hair gasped short bursts of tired breaths and wildly glanced around as Lupin cautiously approached her, looking around the forest floor for something— _anything_ —to use as a weapon to defend herself, seeing as how the young witch was wandless.

She spotted a rather overly large stick that lay near her boots that she would have tripped over had she not glanced down at the last possible minute and hastily knelt with her one good arm to pick it up, her fingers clutching tightly onto it and held it out defensively in front of her like her very lifeline depended on it.

The bark was going to leave brown flecks on her hands, this specimen fell from a tree some time ago and had been rained on for some time, Lupin could tell the damned stick was fragile.

Nymphadora Tonks's nearly cracked, and bleeding lips were parted with confusion, and that piercing gray stare of hers penetrated right through his eyes without even knowing the type of effect it had on the distraught, tired wizard.

Emanated a tense and shaking exhale through his nose, Remus slowly pocketed his wand and raised his hands to his head, showing her he meant no harm, as he dared to take another half-step forward, to which the young witch immediately responded to in kind by taking three steps away from him, a wild, unhinged look in her eyes.

"Easy," he cautioned soothingly, hoping that his voice remained calm, though he flinched at the internal brokenness as his voice cracked and faltered. "I—I won't hurt you. I'm here to help you. You're _hurt_. You need medical attention, Miss Tonks."

He swallowed hard past his hallowed throat and tried not to stare at the blood seeping through her clothing, nor at her Splinched arm, but it was proving practically impossible not to. He steeled himself and blinked back tears.

This…this was _not_ supposed to happen.

Not like _this_. He hadn't saved her…

Remus jumped, startled out of his swirl of dark thoughts, as Alastor's voice reached his eardrums, forcing him back to reality.

"He will not hurt you, Nymphadora," Mad-Eye Moody offered, and Lupin blinked, surprised at hearing the sudden shift in the veteran Auror's harsh voice. "I give you _my_ _word_ , Tonks."

The Auror's voice was usually dripping with paranoia and sarcasm, but not at the moment. Moody's tone had shifted to something softer, quieter, almost indistinguishable.

Remus blinked owlishly at the older Auror, at a total loss for what to say to her, or to Moody. Moody either did not notice Remus staring at him or chose to ignore it, seemingly only having eyes for Tonks and trying to talk her down from her panic.

"He's here to _help_ , just as I am. This man is Remus Lupin, Tonks. Your new partner."

Tonks merely growled in response, like a savage wolf, her gray eyes flashing angrily. Remus struggled to find his words.

Finally, he found his voice after several minutes.

"Tonks…" The sheer horror and heartbreak in his voice as the woman's name rolled off his tongue splintered, shattered, cracked the very air around, sending pieces of his heart in her general direction. Lupin exhaled a shaking breath through his nose and blinked back his damned wretched tears. " _I will not hurt you_. I promise."

Lupin felt his blood boil at the thought of anyone hurting the celestial creature currently just barely standing next to him.

Moody nodded curtly his agreement. "Lupin's in the Order, Tonks. He's your new partner. You...you won't have to work alongside Professor Snape anymore, Tonks, but right now...I need you…to calm down…and you need to _trust_ us, Tonks. If you don't trust Remus, then trust _me_ , my friend. Trust me _now_."

Tonks did not avert her gaze from Lupin, her gray eyes narrowed in mistrust and suspicion, nor did she make any move whatsoever to lower the stick in hand.

Remus's gaze drifted downward towards her ribcage as a rich, bright hue, garish and crimson, stained her side, the blood pouring from a wound on her right side, great, wide, and was practically ripping apart the witch at the seams.

He exhaled a shaking sigh of relief as the young woman dropped her stick, though he quickly realized it was not because she had chosen to trust him, but because her arm no longer held the strength to hold the stick upright as a defense.

Lupin watched, in dawning horror, as the young woman turned her back on both him and Alastor and stumbled, her gait slightly lumbering, past them.

"Tonks," barked Moody, his usual gruffness returning to him in a moment of irritation. _He's beginning to sound like his old self_ , Remus thought wildly. "You need to _sit_ _down_ ," he commanded, fear and worry laced in his harsh tone.

" _No_." The word escaped Nymphadora Tonks as curt and dismissive. She cast her gaze downward at the forest floor beneath her boots, refusing to look at either Moody and _especially_ not Remus. "You need to go get ready, Moody."

"For what?" Moody sighed, sounding like he was just entertaining her at this point if listening to her meant that the young woman would sit down.

"T—to fight him. Crouch...he...he tried to...he'll do it again. Alice, Alice, he called me Alice...my...my Metamorphing, he...he made me look like Alice Longbottom, Mad-Eye, obsessed with her," she gasped out through pained, shaking breaths as she choked back fresh sobs of pain and exhaustion. "He's dangerous. Go back. Go _home_. T—take everybody with you. I don't _need_ another partner. I can—I can get there by myself."

In the young witch's sobbing was the sound of a heart breaking. Hearts don't snap like brittle caramel or burst like an overfilled balloon.

A heart breaks in the heaving waves of a new disturbing reality that has arrived uninvited, just as Tonks's world had changed drastically for her in the single span of one evening.

It is the one in which their child no longer lives, or their partner is terminally sick, as Tonks was in this moment. It was entering a life they can't bear and so they break. They aren't the same again, there's just a part of them that had to die so that the rest of them could carry on their duties to the other people they love.

So as Remus watched Tonks shake with grief, tears flowing unchecked, there was part of him breaking too.

If she wasn't the same, then neither would he be. He was her partner now, and he shared in her pain, just as she would share in his.

Lupin felt his temper swell and he reached out an arm and placed it on the young woman's shoulder.

"You can _barely_ stand up!" Remus protested violently, and he was surprised when the girl violently shirked away from his touch, as though the feeling of his hand on her shoulder had burned and pierced her skin horribly.

He internally screamed in protest at her knee-jerk reaction, though Remus could not fault her for her violent way of reacting.

_It's only natural, Rem_ , Lily spoke up, warning him to be gentle and to mind his temper around the pink-haired young witch. _After what's she's been through, for her to be skittish. Go easy on her. This isn't her fault, Rem. It's going to take time for Miss Tonks to trust you. You have to show her you care. Little gestures. Go slow with her, Rem.  
_

"Ngh—get _away_ from me. Please… _don't_ …come near me," she begged, letting out a hiss and baring her teeth, an arm shot out in front of her and her gaze cast down at the ground as she refused to look Lupin in the eyes.

She felt more like a wild dog than a human as adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, setting it aflame. Tonks had always been so self-conscious whenever she would cry in times past, but now she just gave way to the enormity of her grief as a heart-wrenching cry of agony escaped the confines of her chest and poured out of her lips.

Remus blinked back salty, briny tears that threatened to escape.

This, to see her this way, was breaking his heart. Salt in his wounds, and it hurt as hell, and he thought he might weep.

This was _not_ supposed to happen.

" _I need to go_!" Tonks sobbed, her voice warbling as she blinked back briny, salty tears. "Y—you need to go back to headquarters! I—it's Crouch, Moody, Barty…He—he tried…he tried to…" She swallowed, and a muffled little squeak escaped her lips, and Remus hated to see the young Auror in such a broken state.

It hurt as hell. Such a statement coming from another Order member had not been uttered before, and there was no unkindness that hurt him like this. It wouldn't have hurt were this Emmeline, or McGonagall or Molly.

But with the She-Stranger from his dreams as a wolf, with Tonks, it was unlike anything he had ever felt before, and he couldn't fathom why she had such a damned hold on him, and he barely knew his new partner.

He fell silent, waiting.

Tonks sniffed and wiped at her bleeding nose with the back of her palm. "Y—you're out…out here for _me_. You—you _know_ how it works, Moody! The mission comes first, you should have left me out here to _die_ , Mad-Eye" she sobbed, blinking back a fresh onset of tears. "Wh—what if _both_ of you had _died_ tonight?"

Her last question directed towards the pair of them escaped her as a half-choked sob, and Remus could hear the anguish in her tone, to see it in her eyes. He hated it.

Remus bit down on his tongue hard enough to taste the metallic tang of blood as he tried again, desperately thinking of the right words to say to convince her to trust him. That was all he asked. All he asked of his new partner, and hopefully, in time, a friend to him.

That she could learn to _trust_ him and allow him to help her.

"We still _are_. Neither of us is leaving you alone here. We're not going back without you. You _need_ medical attention _immediately_. We—we got you. You're safe now. Crouch won't hurt you ever again. I won't let him. I will keep you safe. You have my word, Tonks," Remus answered quietly, loathe to see her in such pain and he swallowed hard and blinked back his wretched, accursed tears and waited.

This was too much. It was killing him.

The strange man's answer sent a wave of nausea through her system. Her eyes dripped with tears as she thought of what had almost happened to her—what _had_ happened. Just thinking about what she had narrowly avoided made her want to vomit.

Her stomach gave a twisting lurch and she could taste the bile forming at the back of her throat, but she pulled a face and swallowed it back down. Crouch had been seconds away from assaulting her, in the worst possible way.

As Tonks's vision clouded at the edges, her head pounded and throbbed as his face swam into view. Letting out an agonized cry, she turned away when Lupin so much as attempted to set a calming hand on her shoulder.

"I can't have you all out here anymore, I can make it now, I need you to go back, and I can't have you out here for me, Moody, I—I need you to _leave_ ," Tonks begged as tears poured down her face and her already pale face blanched.

Her plea escaped her lips as a steady stream of words, fast and strung together, slightly slurred as she sniffled and blinked back tears.

Feeling the last vestiges of her strength leave her as it was sapped from her body, she shot out an arm intended to grasp onto Moody and let out a groan as she could feel herself beginning to lean forward as her equilibrium had not quite recovered from her grueling climb up the ravine floor.

Tonks would have fallen had Remus not instinctively shot out an arm to catch her.

Lupin could feel the pink-haired young woman stiffen out of reaction to the sudden, unexpected contact of his hand upon her arm, and he winced.

"That's _not_ going to happen, Nymphadora. You can _barely_ stand up, let alone _walk_ , and when you tried to Disapparate, you Splinched your arm," he snapped, and he hated that she shirked away from him as one of his hands not clutching onto her arm as he lowered her to the ground came to hover over her shoulder, just in case she felt faint or sick. "We're not letting you leave us. You _need_ a Healer, Nymphadora, _now_ ," snapped Lupin, biting the wall of his cheek.

" _Don't_ _call me that_ ," she snarled viciously, baring her teeth attempting to tug her arm out of his grasp as she resisted his attempt to gingerly help her lower to the ground to prevent her falling and injuring herself even worse. " _Let_. _Go_."

In a wild frenzy, the pink-haired young witch's hand came up and cracked across his throat in a vain attempt to shove Remus away from her.

He moved his head back to avoid connecting with hers and his jaw stung and a part of his left eye retracted in blinding white, searing hot pain, momentarily filling them with hurt tears.

Lupin froze, feeling his face tarnished with wrath but as he looked down and into those gray orbs of hers, he felt his temporary rage dissipate, at her eyes filled to the brim with tears of shock, hurt, confusion, betrayal, and Lupin had to remind himself that he had no idea of the true extent of the horrors Crouch had put Tonks through.

Emanating a tense, frustrated exhale through his nose, Lupin breathed slowly through his nostrils, feeling them flare, and he clenched his eyes tightly shut, willing the wolfish remnants of his temper to leave him.

He couldn't yell at her. Not after who knows what she'd been through tonight. He couldn't.

Remus looked down at the young, pink-haired witch, his face tarnished with heartbreak and annoyance at this woman's sheer amount of stubbornness, but which instantly faded at the sigh of Nymphadora Tonks's hollow, empty gaze.

He could feel his heartbeats thrumming erratically against his chest. And then Lupin withdrew an embarrassed, exhausted sigh and felt beads of sweat on his brow.

He sighed, and looked away for a moment, breaking the spell the young's woman's gray orbs seemed to have held him captivated, like a siren of old. "What _should_ I call you, then?" he murmured, trying to mind his tone.

It seemed an eternity before the young woman found her voice again, and when she did, it was so faint, that Remus had to lean forward to hear her.

"Tonks…" she whispered faintly, the ghost of a smile tugging on her lips, that Remus could not help but form a small, half-smile of his own, though it did not meet his eyes. "Or i—if you have to call me by my first name, th—then call me…"

Her voice cracked and faltered and her eyes closed, and Remus felt utter terror seize at his heart. _No. Not now...not after everything..._

In a desperate attempt to keep her awake, he snapped his fingers in front of her face.

" _What_?" he snapped, cringing as he realized his voice was curter and harsher than he would have liked.

Lupin watched as the young woman's eyelids fluttered closed, and he gave her a rather violent shake on her shoulder to keep her awake.

"What should I call you? Talk to me. N—no, don't go to sleep on us, stay awake. _Fight_ it."

_Don't let her go to sleep, Moony_ , James protested. _If she closes her eyes, she might not wake up again. She's lost a lot of blood. Keep her awake and talking to you_.

His voice was cold, and the command escaped his lips as a low growl. Her eyes fluttered open, just for a fraction of a second before she passed out from blood loss due to her Splinched arm and her other injuries, though not before he caught her name, and he leaned forward so the young witch could whisper it into the shell of his ear.

Just a single word, but it was more than enough.

" _Dora_."


	12. Trepidation

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

What in Merlin's name was Moody _thinking_ , leaving her _alone_ with this man, this Stranger?! Was Mad-Eye finally off his bloody _rocker_?! Was _that_ it?

This was…a truly horrible, all-around bad idea, Moody leaving the two of them alone in this desolate forest clearing to go and check on Barty Crouch Jr.

The old pain in the neck and her mentor had hobbled his way back in the direction he and this Remus Lupin character had ventured about three minutes ago.

Three minutes entirely too long that felt like agony in her own hell, with her in more physical pain than she believed a human should be capable of enduring, and with her new partner talking to her in a desperate attempt to prevent her from going to sleep, which sounded more and more heavenly by the second.

This man…was her new _partner_?! And—and she hadn't been _consulted_?

Was Dumbledore certifiably insane too? Had the old wizard finally lost his last marble? _How do you know you can trust him?_ The snakelike voice in her mind taunted, which admittedly sounded a little too much like Professor Snape for her liking. She ground her teeth in anger. _Get out of my head, Snivellus_ , she thought, though the man's insufferable drolling tone refused to leave her thoughts. Tonks frowned and tried to part her lips to speak, but nothing would come out.

Tonks felt like her throat was hallowing and constricting, cutting off air to her passageways.

She was white as chalk, the circles underneath her eyes more pronounced than before, which scared the Stranger, she could see him casting worried glances out of the corner of his eye every now and again, and her eyes felt frozen wide open in shock and utter disbelief as the young wizard, the very Stranger from her hallucination earlier, attempted to help her up off the ground, and support her weight by draping one of her arms over his slender shoulder.

"Are you hurt anywhere else other than your…current injuries?" the man demanded angrily, and Tonks blinked owlishly at the stranger, having to remind herself in her groggy stupor that his name was Remus. _Remus Lupin_ , she scolded herself. "Did he…did Crouch…? He…he didn't…?"

Remus Lupin's voice trailed off, and the anger and rage that soared to unfathomable levels in this new stranger's voice were unmistakable, and she shivered as a blast of nausea made her skin crawl and created a horrible ringing in her eardrums, leaving his further lines of questioning inaudible to the young Auror, who could only focus on her pains. She did not answer him. She _couldn't_. She bit the wall of her cheek and turned her head sharply away, not bothering to blink back and swallow her tears.

The pain wracking its way through her body had an unpleasant warmth to it, eating away at her stomach. There was nausea too, just enough to make her hold onto the gnarled tree trunk for support as she violently shirked away from him, and breath slowly through closed eyes and forceful, slowed, shaking breaths.

Tonks had often prized herself in ignoring pain and just rocking on regardless, but that just wasn't possible right now. It owned her, dominated her.

Every thought-controlled every action. Pain seared through her Splinched arm and the wound in her ribcage that still leaked blood, better than the branding of a Dark Mark, which she'd been told by Death Eaters she'd interrogated that it hurt like hell. Without meaning to, her body slumped to the forest ground and curled into something primeval, fetal, as she drew up both knees to her chest, all the while the pain burned and radiated, feeling like it was scorching her insides.

Her brows twitched as she struggled to catch just a single glimpse of new Order member Remus Lupin (well, new to her, considering she'd not met him), he who had come with Mad-Eye Moody, in an effort to play the valiant hero.

At that thought, she stiffened and bit the wall of her cheek. "You're too late," she whispered hoarsely, her voice barely above a whisper as she rocked back and forth on her heels. "Too late…" Though she could not make out details of the man's face as he was behind her for the moment, Tonks knew he could see her, every single tear tract that ran down her ashen face, how she could barely stand up. She knew that he was no doubt keeping a cautious eye on her, teeming with anticipation, no doubt the man had steeled himself for her to try to fight.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and felt a mounting panic rise within her heart as it seized ahold of her chest with its icy-like tendrils, as the man's tall, towering form moved towards the front and headed towards her. The panic and lack of air drove Tonks to start gasping, breathing as if all the oxygen in this damned forest had been sucked from the air around the two of them.

It felt as if her lungs weren't even there as the young witch struggled to bring air in. She could feel her muscles straining and the thoughts in her head turned from fear to a dizzy confusion. The man's voice came again, laced with concern.

"Are you all right? What's—what's happening to you?" he demanded, and though his tone was harsh and curt, she could tell that he was concerned for her.

Shortage of breath was the first sign that the young witch was having a panic attack.

She could feel herself inhaling breaths of cold air, but the damned air just wouldn't go in, like her lungs were surrounded by metal bands. Next came the rising panic, the dizzy feeling, and the need to get low to the ground, which she already was.

Tonks froze, stopping abruptly when she made a move as though to attempt to stand, and the man's towering form appeared in front of her, Lupin, she had to remind herself, though she still numbly _refused_ to meet the man's gaze.

How did she know her new _partner_ wouldn't attack her as Crouch did?

"I…" She swallowed, and Tonks found even that simple act quite difficult. By Merlin's beard, Moody had better hurry the hell up and get back here or—

And then, Remus Lupin knelt down to her eye-level, in front of her this time, and when the young wizard made a move to put a hand on her shoulder, she flinched and clenched her eyes shut. She heard him emanate a tense exhale.

" _Tonks_." His voice was scared, confused, panicked, and this surprised her. She blinked. Then blinked again, her throat going completely dry in an instant.

Swallowing back acidic, bitter bile that had crept its way up her esophagus, and mentally trying to shake out her fractured nerves, Tonks took a deep breath.

Remus Lupin was entirely too close to her for her comfort, though she lacked the strength to move. Tonks still blatantly refused to meet the young wizard's gaze and when she saw the shadow of the man's hand come up, no doubt to attempt to touch her face, to examine her for injuries, she smacked it away.

The moment the man's face came into view, the young Auror could immediately feel herself beginning to panic. Again.

It was the hair, it had to be the hair, so similar to Barty Crouch Jr.'s, and his light brown eyes, burning bright with anger, though she hoped the animosity she read in the man's orbs was not directed at her. _Don't be stupid. How could it? You don't even know the man…_

And yet, something about Remus Lupin's aura compelled Tonks to answer his question honestly. There had been no malice or hint of deceit in his question, at least…not any that she could detect, but then she'd been proven wrong before.

She would remain guarded and wary of her new partner. For now, until he could find a way to prove himself. Briefly, she wondered what his thoughts on her were. She winced, knowing she looked a right bloody mess, and by Merlin's left saggy buttock, where the bloody hell was Moody? She needed treatment…

"I—I can't breathe," Tonks gasped out, wildly clawing at something, anything to hold onto as she could feel another wave of nausea crash over her.

But her throat suddenly felt dry, and she could no longer form the words she so desired to speak. _Help me_ , is what she wanted to say to Remus Lupin, but the barely cohesive thought would not escape her lips. And then she saw his silhouette in the shadows of the darkness in front of her, unmoved, though he slowly adjusted his stance so he could better look Tonks in her pleading gray eyes.

" _What_?" The man's question left him as a harsh bark, though one of panic, as he angled his head to the side, regarding the young pink-haired witch carefully.

"Y—you…I c—can't…breathe," Tonks managed to gasp out weakly.

Lupin's brows furrowed into a worried frown, glaring down at his new partner, who was regarding him with sheer, unbridled terror in her gray eyes, and not just of her situation, which was bleak and he silently cursed Moody, locking his jaw, wishing the man would return and report all was well with Crouch.

The sooner he got Miss Tonks to St. Mungo's, the better her chances…

He did _not_ like the look on Nymphadora Tonks's face at all, how clammy it was, how the dark circles underneath both of her eyes were more pronounced.

She looked as if she were about to pass out underneath the old oak tree, and he couldn't let her go to sleep. _If she does, then she might not wake up again_.

James's voice inside his head had a point. And then sweet Lily spoke to him.

 _Keep her talking. Anything to keep her awake and listening to you, Remus_.

If she went to sleep right now, then Tonks wouldn't wake again. And that, for reasons he could not yet explain, troubled him more than anything. " _Tonks_!"

His soft voice let out a small gasp of concern as he firmly but gently grasped her by the shoulders, no longer caring if his new partner balked at the contact, in the effort to keep her awake. "Wh—what's happening to you? Why can't you breathe? What do you think is keeping you from breathing properly, Tonks?"

Remus shifted slightly to kneel in front of her by her resting place underneath the shade of the old oak tree, not that she needed it, given it had to be going on four or five in the morning at this point, and like the features of the man's face came into her line of sight, he gingerly knelt and somewhat forcefully cupped Tonks's chin in his hand, tilting her head upwards, and he could hear draw in a sharp intake of breath and he could practically see the venomous glower developing in her bright gray eyes that resembled the last ashes of a deadly wildfire.

Lupin didn't know how long Tonks had been out wandering the wildness, injured, in her current state of mind. What the bloody hell happened to her?

Had she perhaps eaten a poisonous berry that was now addling and had affected her mind? Did she hurt herself even worse and he just couldn't see it?

"I—I don't know," breathed Tonks as she continued to gasp for air, heaving as she tried to catch her breath, one hand clutching onto her Splinched shoulder.

"But…you _are_ breathing, Nymphadora, I—I mean, Tonks," he corrected quickly, seeing the young witch's nostrils flare in antagonism, and he blinked, startled, watching in shock and awe as the woman's short hair changed bright red.

The shock must have registered on his face, for his new partner offered a coy little smirk that was more of a grimace of pain as another shockwave consumed her, rippling through her body that caused her to erupt in a coughing fit. "I—I'm a—a M—Metamorphmagus," Tonks managed to choke out at last, and as her panic fit slowly subsided, Remus watched with wide brown eyes as the color of her hair reverted to its previous shade of dark maroonish pink, almost purple.

Lupin swallowed nervously, biting the inside wall of his cheek. Sooner rather than later, the truth regarding the nature of his condition was going to have to come out, though, given the unique circumstances in which they had just met, he deemed it an ill time to share such a confession. No. He couldn't. Not yet.

He would tell her later when she was in a much better physical and mental state of mind to hear such horrible news. Remus blinked at the young woman, a light pink blush speckling along his cheeks as he quickly realized she was waiting for him to say something. "I've never met one before," he confessed, his voice soft.

Tonks managed a weak smile, though it did not reach her eyes, and Remus knew it to be a fake, forced smile, and closed her eyes, resting her head against the bough of the tree. "Then I will be the first," Tonks declared faintly, too faint.

Tonks found herself staring into Remus Lupin's light brown eyes, determined not to look away first. She was certain that her new partner knew that she was trying to mask her true emotions from him, but still, she was determined to fool him. She contorted her lips into an awkward little half-smile.

But her cheeks were not so compromising. Tonks could feel their reluctance to be molded falsely. When Remus momentarily averted his gaze, her smile fell lifeless, allowing her face to return to a cold, hard gawk as she worked through another painful spasm as white-hot fire licked up the entire right side of her body.

Lupin heaved a heavy sigh of irritation that did not hide his worry for the young woman from his dreams. His hands violently started to tremble and his eyes watered as he kept his face turned away from Tonks so she wouldn't see the fear laced within his features, especially in his eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

When he turned back around, he froze. Her eyes were closed. "No…"

"Mmm?" The noise caused her lips to part slightly, though she did not open her eyes, and Remus did not like at all how Nymphadora Tonks's condition was worsening.

She looked to be on Death's door and if he couldn't get her help…. _No_ , Lily's voice inside his head reassured him soothingly, and he exhaled a shaking breath. _See the steady rise and fall of her chest? This woman's alive, Rem_.

Lupin let out a tired sigh and looked towards the forest canopy, closing his own eyes a moment as he shot a silent prayer to the heavens above, and to Lily and James, in their own way, helping their friend through this trauma.

 _Many thanks_. He returned his attention to Nymphadora Tonks, needing to ensure she stayed awake.

Remus stifled back a growl of irritation at her closed eyes. He liked to be able to see them. He wanted to look into them again, to gauge her thoughts. He wanted to know what she thought. Of her chances. _Of…of….me_.

During this confession, his new partner had not looked at him even once. Remus furrowed his dark brows into a frown as Tonks leaned away from him, trembling like a leaf in the wind, and he didn't think it was from the cold air.

 _Damn_. He cursed himself, grinding his teeth in anger. He had not thought to grab a cloak prior to Disapparating from Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and Moody had not yet returned with a status update on Crouch's condition, or else he would have demanded the grizzled old Auror relinquish his trench coat to her.

Nymphadora Tonks was looking extremely on edge and skittish, like the young witch with the vibrant pink pixie cut was thinking about fleeing this situation and their conversation entirely. Not that she would get far in her current physical condition before Lupin would stop Tonks, by using force if necessary.

Though he _sincerely_ hoped it would not come to that, that she would just…lay _still_ and try to focus on regulating her breathing and stay alive long enough for him and Alastor to escort her safely to St. Mungo's for medical care.

Remus's new partner was honestly staring up at him with those wide, almond-shaped fearful eyes glistening with unshed moisture as tears pricked and stung at the corners of the young witch's vision like she thought that Remus would try to force himself on her and torture her within an inch of her very life.

Lupin stifled a growl as he felt his frustrations of the evening beginning to mount within him. Maybe it was because Remus was feeling increasingly frustrated with his new partner's lack of response towards his questions. He wanted, no, he _needed_ to help Tonks. Why could she not breathe properly?

"Tonks," he repeated again, still firmly maintaining his grip on her chin as he kept it cupped in his palm. "I need you to…to open your eyes. _Look at me_."

She didn't, and he huffed in frustration and resisted the urge to shout at her.

Couldn't this woman see that he was only trying to help her survive?!

He sighed, emanating a tense exhale through his nose. He hoped that Nymphadora Tonks could see that he was beginning to grow increasingly frustrated with her lack of cooperation. Whether she liked it or not, they were partners now, the two of them. He would have her back, just as he hoped Tonks would have his.

But this….thing, this arrangement of Dumbledore's, was not going to _work_ unless she trusted him wholeheartedly, which, judging by a look she was shooting him currently that he could only perceive as venom in her glistening gray orbs, that she did not trust him, and he could tell by her body language that she was skittish. Nervous. _Afraid_. _Of me_ , he thought, and his heart swelled with panic.

Remus didn't know if Nymphadora was afraid of what he would do to her, or if she was thinking over the serious extent of her injuries, and he could tell by the skittish way she was darting her eyes to the left and right that she was afraid.

He did not like the way his new partner was eyeing him as though he were a literal monster, and the judgment and animosity he perceived within this creature's eyes set his blood aflame.

"Tonks…" he sighed. "What did Crouch do to you?" he growled. "Did he…did he…" Lupin felt a light pink blush speckling along his cheeks as he gestured maddeningly with his hands, trying to emphasize the point he was trying to emphasize and broach such a sensitive subject with Nymphadora.

Tonks simply stared at him with those wide, doe-like, innocent gray orbs, her mouth slightly agape as she quickly got the gist of what Remus asked of her.

When she did not immediately answer him, Remus's frown deepened, as he grew even more irritated with the situation.

What the bloody hell was taking Moody so damned long?

 _Surely, it can't take him over ten minutes to check on Crouch_?

He couldn't say for certain what the delay might be, but one thing Lupin did understand and know for sure was this: the longer Tonks waited to explain, then the more impatient Remus was going to get, and she didn't know yet about… _My condition_ , he thought bitterly, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"N—no," she stammered, a blush of her own flashing across her features and she glanced down at her hands and fidgeted with her blood-stained fingers.

"What happened, Tonks? What did Crouch do to you, Nympha— _Tonks_ ," Remus growled, correcting himself at the proper use of the name he knew the young witch preferred, flinching at the harsh bark in his normally quiet, soft, and thoughtful tone. He knew he didn't sound like himself, and it had scared her.

A muscle in his jaw and behind his eyelid twitched, and Remus swallowed nervously. If she didn't start talking and confiding to him, and soon, he would probably end up yelling at her, and that would bode an ill start to a year-long partnership, and hopefully in time, a friendship.

Merlin only knew he and Sirius needed another soul in Grimmauld Place to talk to. Black could only torment Kreacher for so long, the man had already started to get restless and careless.

" _Nothing_!" she yelled, and Tonks visibly winced at hearing how broken and distraught her voice sounded as her own temper snapped, and her nails dug into the skin of her palm. "H—he's done _nothing_ to me, Remus. I—I'm _fine_ ," she growled, lowering her voice, and turned her head and lowering it, allowing a lock of her thick pink pixie cut to fall over her right eye, shielding her from him.

Tonks made a noise that sounded like an odd little strangled noise in the back of her throat as she blearily lifted her head and got a glimpse of her partner.

This man who was asking the intrusive questions that she did not want to answer, nor even revisit what she had undergone at the hands of Barty Crouch, was handsome enough, she supposed. He appeared to be a bit older than her, though still quite young. Early to mid-thirties if Tonks had to pinpoint his age.

Three horrible scars as diagonal slashes across his face were prominent against his pale skin, though not exactly grotesque, they were prominent against such pale skin, enough to be shocking upon first glance. Tonks gaped openly as she observed Remus Lupin's sharp jawline, chin, and good cheekbones. On either side of his straight nose were two blazing light brown eyes. His brown eyes, even in the blackness and headiness of night, looked as though they reflected the warmth of the sun. His were such a unique color, a mixture of light and dark melted as one.

His dark brows were actually quite graceful but currently furrowed in a frown. All of it was framed by a thick tuft of short light brown hair flecked with the beginnings of gray that was sprinkled throughout his hair and his temples.

Tonks was well aware she was staring at her new partner, but she couldn't help it. Remus Lupin was a man who she did not quite know what to make of.

Volatile, moody, yes, but…but it truly seemed like he did care for her, in some small way.

She could only hope that, in time, he was a better choice for her than Snivellus. At the thought of Severus Snape, what little color was left in her face drained, and she blanched, bristling. Tonks let out a pained whimper and promptly looked away, an odd little strangled sound escaping from her throat.

He seemed to sense that he was being stared at, for when his chin lifted slightly and he swiveled his head to meet Tonks's gaze, when Remus stared, it was gentle as if there was a kindness that flowed through them and reassuring.

Remus's words escaping his lips before he could stop himself, right as his temper was a hair's trigger away from utterly imploding, and then…there would be no stopping the storm that was raging war within the restrains of his mind.

"Oh, _really_?" he snapped, practically seeing the venomous anger drip from his words as he spat more than spoke them to Tonks. "Is that why you're covered in blood and bruises? Why you're so _scared_ that you can't even look me in the eye, and how when you tried to Disapparate, you were too weak to do it and Splinched your arm? What did Barty Crouch _do_ to you, Tonks? He _hurt_ you. I know that. But…but what I don't know is _how_ , and I _need_ to know, Nymphadora. _What_. _Did_. _He_. _Do_." he snarled, kneeling down at the young Auror's eye-level.

He was trying to be patient with her, he really was, but it was proving increasingly difficult. He growled in anger and locked his jaw.

Merlin save him that he didn't want to traumatize her even further than she already was, but…

Remus could feel the irritation rise up within the confines of his chest, and he startled, surprised, as those doe-like eyes of Nymphadora Tonks's widened again and she blinked, struggling to sit up, though when Lupin offered her his hand, she proceeded to stare at him blankly and curtly refused it. Bristling, and realizing she left him looking like a fool, he lowered his hand and growled angrily.

"I…" Her voice faltered and cracked, and he flinched at how harsh his voice had sounded, but Remus was beginning to feel incredibly frustrated at her lack of answers, and she was sliding in and out of focus, and Merlin's beard, it scared him. More than anything else he'd ever felt in his life, which he thought strange.

At last, Tonks seemed to find her voice. She looked away. "I can't…"

The word escaped her lips as a half-choked sob, and Lupin could feel the worst of his anger dissipate. He heard her swallow down hard past the lump in her throat and her head lowered in shame as Tonks blinked back her welling tears.

"Just…" Remus paused for a moment to get his bearings and ensure his temper was under control. He exhaled a slightly shaking breath and tried again. "Just tell me what _happened_ , Tonks. Even if it doesn't make sense to you. I need to know what Crouch did to you so I can ensure it won't happen to you again. You hear me?" he urged, bringing one of his hands to rest on her uninjured arm.

Lupin took a slight step back, still maintaining his kneeling position to better look the young woman in those hauntingly beautiful gray orbs of hers glistening with unshed tears. She looked like she was barely holding it together at the seams.

Remus raised his hands slightly, frowning as Tonks dared to meet his gaze. The fear and heartbreak and pain withheld in her eyes were too much to bear.

"I promise you, Miss Tonks…you are safe with me," he murmured lowly, lowering his voice, and forcing himself to remain calm and collected. In her agitated state, given her severe medical injuries, there was no telling what would happen to her if her blood pressure spiked and rose to a dangerously high level.

In all honestly, the man was amazed the young witch could even speak with her Splinched arm. Were that him, he knew he'd be a crying bloody mess. Remus wasn't even aware he was staring at her bloodied, disjointed arm until she blushed.

"I've had worse," she whispered, her voice so faint he almost missed it. That wasn't a good sign. Nor did he like the darkening circles underneath her eyes, steadily becoming more pronounced the longer they damn waited on Moody.

 _Worse_?! What in Merlin's beard could be _worse_ than a Splinched appendage?! Remus blinked, feeling his light brown eyes widen in utter horror.

Though he had no time to ask a follow-up question, and he wasn't really even sure what words of comfort he could offer to the young, pink-haired Auror.

What did you say to a woman who had been brutally beaten and almost murdered by Barty Crouch Jr., the very same man who killed Frank and Alice?

What did you _say_ to a young woman who you barely knew who was in excruciating and agonizing pain over a Splinched arm and Merlin only knew what other injuries lay just beneath the surface that he couldn't see but she refused to show it? He did not know, and he _hated_ that he was at a loss for his words.

Lupin felt his lips part open slightly to speak to snap at Nymphadora Tonks as he noticed her eyes had drifted shut, yet again, and he had to keep her awake, but he didn't get the chance as a noise from behind commanded his attention. A rustling noise of twigs and leaf underfoot caused Remus's ears to perk up at the noise, and he exhaled a sigh of relief as the audible thumping sound of Mad-Eye Moody's prosthetic limb kicking aside a fallen tree branch resonated nearby.

Tonks swallowed back the bile in her throat as her vision blurred and everything in the alleyway seemed to spin and created black swirling mists in her line of sight.

The poor Auror was barely aware of her new partner gingerly helping her to her feet, blatantly ignoring her fearful and faint protests for him to stay away.

Tonks could not even hear herself speak. Not her muffled protests, nor her fading cries for help. The only audible noise she could hear was the ringing of her own ears, and she just wanted it to stop. She wanted…she wanted to sleep.

Extending an arm and snaking her way along the line of the tree trunks to steady herself, her stomach heaved a pressure she was so unfamiliar with, and before she knew it, the strength in her legs gave out as her equilibrium had still not quite recovered from the violent force of Crouch's blows, or of her fall into the ravine where she'd Splinched her arm, which hurt by the mother of Merlin…

This was proven when she felt her body tilt forward and begin to lean and would have fallen had Remus not shot out an arm to catch the worst of her fall.

He let out a low warning growl. " _Stop_. _Moving_."

The command escaped his lips as a curt snarl, and when he bared his teeth, Tonks winced.

The look was almost…dare she thinks it… _wolfish_.

She repressed a shudder that went down her spine and the man's voice, though moments ago had been laced with concern and worry for her well-being, now merely sounded downright ticked off with her, and Tonks let out a muffled whine and could not speak.

"Take my hand. Hold onto it, Miss Tonks, and don't even _think_ about letting go. You are injured. You have a Splinched arm and Merlin only knows what _else_ is wrong with you. If you move further, you risk doing even more damage, Tonks. I _need_ to escort you to St. Mungo's. You'll be staying at Sirius's house with him and me."

"I…." she managed to gasp out weakly, but the withering look he shot her made her clamp her lips shut, and she offered a mute nod, feeling suddenly sick.

Tonks swallowed down past the lump in her throat and fixated her attention on Moody as her protégé fixed the feuding pair of partners with a grim look.

She felt her blood chilled to ice in her veins as his swiveling eye came to rest upon her, and she did not even hear herself faintly and weakly ask the question.

"Mad-Eye? Wh—what's happened?" she whispered hoarsely, and she stiffened and resisted the urge to hiss as she felt Lupin's grip tighten on her arm.

He needed to _let_ _go_ of her, and right bloody _now_! The way her new partner was behaving, it was as though he were a _dog_ who was behaving as though his prize bone had just been snatched away, and she the bone in this poor metaphor. Tonks did not understand at all why he continued to hover over her and fret and cling to her.

It was possessive behavior similar to what Crouch had exhibited and shown towards her earlier. Tonks let out a tiny pained whine and made no comment.

Mad-Eye turned to Remus and Tonks; his mouth pursed into such a thin, rigid line as he fixed the pair of Order members with a solemn, deadly serious look. "It's Crouch," he answered grimly, the tone in his disgust clearly evident.

She stiffened and she heard Lupin intake a sharp breath of cold night air.

" _And_?" she urged, not sure that she liked the look in the older man's eyes. There was a look of utter rage in Moody's eyes that she'd not seen before.

"He's…he's gone. Crouch has escaped."


	13. Guilt

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Tonks heard her mentor's words but could not seem to accept them as fact. Her skin greyed as her piercing quizzical gaze flitted from Mad-Eye to Remus.

"Th—this…no…th—that's not possible, Moody. He—he can't be gone, he can't. Why—why didn't…." she whispered. Her mouth hung with lips slightly parted and her eyes widened as far as they possibly could.

When Moody stopped talking and became silent and not as vocal as usual, though Tonks preferred to think of his method as more harsh barking, Tonks knew there was a problem, and the next two minutes dragged on in silence. _Silence_. Tonks strained her vocals, but nothing came out except a mewl of fear.

Crouch was…Crouch was _loose_. Gone. Escaped with his wretched life. That meant…that he would come for her again.

And next time, she was afraid he would finish what Crouch had started.

"Oh, Merlin Above, save me…"

Her murmured prayer was interrupted by a bout of violent coughing and choking as her shoulders shook in protest, as did her entire body, and suddenly, she could feel herself shaking like a leaf, her body wracked with raw sobs, and she had zero control over her emotions and the situation, what was happening.

Lupin, meanwhile, was not sure how much more bad news in one night he could take and still be expected to have even a modicum of sanity left within him.

Remus noticed Tonks's sudden deterioration in her already bleak physical condition and immediately rounded on Moody, his light brown eyes flashing angrily and seeming to change, to darken in their hues the angrier he became.

His eyes in the moment were dark hickory as rich as the earth's soil, stained with the color of hot chocolate on a cold winter night that wrapped around Tonks like a blanket as she stared through her haze of immense pain at the man.

Those deep pools of dark-cinnamon swirls seized the depth and heaviness of a thousand and one untold stories in the man's eyes, which imprisoned the sweetness of that rich chocolate and the bitterness of a strong coffee within them.

Her new partner's eyes were the type of brown like a bar of rich chocolate, sweet. The chocolate that melted at the slightest beat of heat from affection or love, or happiness. But that chocolate could also grow hard and stale from the cold harsh reality that was apparent in the wizarding and Muggle worlds.

Heartbreak, or the depression that he hid from all those around him so well.

But Tonks could see it.

Lupin's eyes consisted of raw emotion, and as Tonks squinted through her blurred vision, struggling to see, his eyes revealed to the young woman the exact thought that crossed the marvel of this man's ominous mind.

He was furious.

Remus blinked, and the weighted gravity of Moody's words hit him just then, as though he had been doused with a bucket of ice water, and he shivered.

"He _what_?" he snarled, baring his teeth in anger. "I thought you said he was detained! This—this couldn't have _waited_ , Alastor? This isn't good for her; can't you see it's just stressing her out? She's hurt, Moody, and you tell her _this_?!"

Lupin violently jerked his head towards Tonks and Moody's hardened expression softened, though the mad swiveling of his mechanical eye didn't stop.

Mad-Eye Moody merely grunted in response, which infuriated Remus. Tonks's mentor angrily pointed to his one good eye, which had begun to black and bruise a sickly purple color and was already rapidly swelling in size.

"Yes, well, he bloody got the better of me, Lupin, _didn't_ he? Is _this_ not evidence _enough_ for you, boy?! By the time I got back, the little git had somehow managed to get hold of his wand and out of his restraints," he snapped.

Remus felt his blood boil and opened his mouth to angrily retort, but his gaze continuously drifted between Alastor and Nymphadora, torn between his desire to fly into a rage at the news that this woman's attacker and would-be-rapist escaped and desperately wanting to keep an eye on his new partner's rapidly deteriorating physical condition.

He did _not_ like how Tonks was looking. At all.

The Auror pursed his lips into a rigid line. "No point in getting mad about it now, boy. What's done is gone. The ruddy git escaped, and somebody's got to tell Professor Dumbledore what happened here tonight," he growled, silently fuming.

Without missing a beat, he turned towards Remus and fixed the younger wizard with a withering glower that even Remus knew better than to argue against. "It's gonna be _me_ , boy. She's in no condition to go anywhere tonight except a medical ward of St. Mungo's, and you're her partner, so you should—"

"Ngh—y—you should go, Lupin, I—I can…I can get there by myself." Tonks offered weakly, her voice cold and startlingly dismissive, startling both Remus and Moody, both at her ability to speak through what appeared to be another spasm as it wracked her body, traveling down her spine like lightning.

" _No_." Remus's voice was hardened, clipped, and curt. "I'm _staying_ , Tonks."

As if to emphasize his point, the moment Tonks felt her knees begin to buckle as her strength left her as they could no longer support her body weight, he quickly draped her uninjured arm around his shoulder and groaned with the effort to help her stand up as straight as she possibly could, careful to be mindful of her injuries.

Lupin tried to ignore the churning and rolling nausea of his stomach as the blood continued to seep through the wound at her side, staining her palms red.

Her Splinched arm and wound at her side were the ones giving her the most trouble he could tell, and if he didn't get her to St. Mungo's immediately, then…

_No_. James was speaking to him inside his head now. _Don't think like that, Remus. This one's your new partner. You've never had a partner before. Don't you see it? Dumbledore's given you this chance. Don't leave her side, not for a minute_!

"Tonks?" he urged, doing his best to keep the desperation and panic from creeping its way into his voice, and finding it increasingly difficult as the seconds passed and turned into minutes. "I…y—you're going to be okay, Tonks…"

But even he himself was having trouble believing his own words.

He exhaled a shaking breath through his nose and turned towards Moody, whose face had reddened in anger, and his scarred hands balled into fists at his sides.

Remus recognized all too well the classic signs of a man about to lose his temper, and Moody, unfortunately, was past that point of no return by now. Lupin wasn't fooled.

He knew Alastor blamed himself for Crouch's sudden escape. But he could not concern himself with Barty Crouch Jr. quite yet.

For now, Nymphadora needed medical attention, or she was going to die.

_No_ …. He shook his head to clear his mind and swallowed down the lump in his throat and blinked back his wretched tears that threatened to escape his lids.

"Alastor. Tonks is going to be just fine. I—I promise."

_Lies. Just look at her. She's' practically a walking corpse. You should have left for St. Mungo's five bloody minutes ago! She's lost a lot of blood. She's weak. She's dying_.

He swallowed, licking his lips to moisten them, though no moisture came. Only dryness.

"You go alert Dumbledore, Alastor. Tell him what's happened and alert the rest of the Order I'm heading to St. Mungo's," he commanded, not even hearing himself slip into the role of leader as he spoke. "I'm going to get her there," Remus announced, his voice hardening until he was sure it rivaled that of steel. " _I'm_ taking her to St. Mungo's. I'm going to keep you safe, Tonks. I promise," he declared, and when he'd finished his big declaration, he bit his lip and waited.

He really hoped that she would relent and learn to trust him. He didn't want to have to use force, but if Tonks wouldn't cooperate, then he'd have no choice.

Moody nodded curtly, and without wanting or needing to be prompted, he turned on the heel of his boot and Disapparated with a loud, resonating _crack_!

Tonks felt her heart thrum against her chest, nothing more than a throbbing mass of corded muscle as it beat relentlessly in her chest, threatening escape.

A half-formed, gasping, choking sob almost found its way to her lips, and yet, her tongue refused its release and the way that her new partner moved so fast to close off the gap of space between them the moment Mad-Eye vanished, she hated it.

"G— _go_. Leave me here…." Tonks growled, though her voice was so faint by this point, even she barely heard herself.

She groaned and let out a mewling little whimper as she shoved her new partner in his chest to get him to back up a few steps and give her space, and when he made no move to respect her wish, the young witch shoved his chest again, her hands pressing into Lupin's chest.

But her weak efforts, given how rapidly her strength seemed to be sapped from her given how much blood she'd lost by this point, were futile as Remus Lupin's arm was practically clinging onto her uninjured arm, and when she shoved him away again, her arm outstretched in front of her as though she was looking for something else to grab onto, her equilibrium still not recovered as she felt herself stumble, the edge of her boots catching on an overly large gnarled root.

She felt herself start to fall, and she winched, clenching her eyes shut and preparing for the brace of impact as her head would hit the forest floor just now.

Tonks clutched onto the trunk of a gnarled old tree for support, doing her best to put distance between herself and her new partner, who had such a growing look of anger intermingled with a fierce possessiveness that it almost felt wolfish.

She froze. A blast of cold nausea made her skin erupt into goosebumps and left a horrible, fatigued ringing on her ear, leaving whatever Remus was saying to her completely inaudible.

His words sounded an entire Quidditch pitch field length away. Muffled, like…like he was underwater or something. She hated it.

Her brows twitched as she weakly turned back to regard her new partner with no small level of trepidation in her eyes, and Remus was already facing her, silently watching her, and teeming with a restless anxiousness and anticipation.

"I…" But her voice cracked and broke as it faltered. She couldn't speak.

"Tonks?" he urged, angling his head to the side, his brows furrowing into a frown. "Answer me," he pleaded, biting the inside wall of his cheek as his grip on her arm tightened. Remus grunted in frustration with the effort to lift the young witch to her feet.

_If she weren't so bloody stubborn, she'd be at St. Mungo's already_ , he thought darkly, and gave a shake of his head to clear his thoughts.

"I…I can't let you die, Tonks. I'm your _partner_. You have to trust—" But Remus's words were cut off as heat spasms dragged across her body in unrelenting waves.

Tonks could feel her vision fading and everything in the damned forest clearing around the pair of them seemed to revolve. The young witch couldn't even hear herself plead for help.

All she heard was the stillness, and the damned bloody tinnitus ringing in her ears that refused to relent up at all.

Her stomach lurched and she thought she would be sick, and before she could even fathom what in Merlin's beard was happening to her, she felt her knees buckle and she collapsed to her knees, the fabric of her jeans digging into the dirt and leaves.

And then she stiffened as she felt Lupin's arms circle tightly around her waist and almost gingerly pressed her violently shaking body into his.

Tonks let out a muffled squeak as suddenly, she could feel herself being lifted up off the ground and swept up in her new partner's arms, her head lolling backward and resting against the crook of his elbow as he had no other choice but to carry her in his arms bridal style.

Lupin did not move or flinch, he didn't even so much as a bat an eyelid as he glanced down at the young woman in his arms.

This was _his_ fault. _If I'd gotten here sooner, I could have saved you, Tonks…_

Remus bit down hard on his tongue as the young witch's breaths came in short spurts, pained gasps as panic consumed her completely and threatened to engulf her tormented mind. _No. Please No…_

Lupin clenched his eyes shut and shot a silent, pleading prayer to Merlin above, to James, to Lily, anyone up there that could help them.

The guilt at not getting here fast enough to save her was like oil in his guts. His insides died slowly in the toxicity, needing no more than a spark to set it ablaze.

The fire inside of him burnt him out so badly that there was nothing left of him now but an empty shell of a man, an outline of his person.

_Please…Help me…._ Remus shot another prayer to anyone willing to listen.

_Keep her awake and talking, Rem_ , Lily's voice chimed in, her sweet voice tinkling like a soft voice, and even with his eyes closed, he could envision Lily Potter nee Evan's sweet smile. _Don't let her go to sleep. Tell her to fight this_.

Tonks's tongue felt thick in her mouth when she attempted to speak, she couldn't, and it felt as though an invisible strong hand had clamped itself over her mouth.

"Shh. Don't try to speak. And don't go to sleep, Tonks. You have to stay awake for me, do you understand?" In a last-ditch effort to keep the young pink-haired witch in his arms awake, he snapped his fingers in front of her face and hardened his voice to steel. "Stay awake."

Lupin's voice commanded her, and she winced, her eyes widening at hearing the dip and breaking crack in his voice.

The young witch flinched involuntarily as one of his hands not wrapped around the back of her waist to support her weight in his arms came up to rest at the back of her hair, one of the pads of his fingers ghosting along with the egg-sized lump in the back of her head.

She stifled her cry of pain and had she the strength to, she would have screamed at her new partner, to take his hands off of her.

Tonks had had more than her fill of men touching her in unwanted gestures of so-called 'affection' for a good long while.

She blinked owlishly at the man's lined but handsome face as his face swam in and out of the focus of her blurred vision.

"Y—you're going to be all right, Tonks. I—I promise. I'll get you there." Remus shifted her slightly in his arms to adjust his stance to better support her weight and Tonks shivered as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle.

"H—have I been…poisoned?" she whispered weakly. She wouldn't put it past Barty Crouch Jr. to have done something to her while she'd been knocked out.

She desperately wracked her brain trying to remember what had happened. If there was something that she had eaten that somehow, he might have tampered with, in some way, now that she knew the man to be an unregistered Animagus.

He could have easily slipped something into her drink or food when she'd stepped away for a moment back at the Auror Office earlier today.

_Damn_ … All she could recall having was a bagel with cream cheese in the break lounge, and a candy bar from the vending machine and she'd thrown a fit when the damned bloody machine wouldn't take her Knut and two Sickles for a Chocolate Frog.

She remembered going around to other Auror's desks, and Kingsley didn't have a Knut that she could swap him, but Dawlish had one… He'd given her one in exchange for her faulty one.

_What if HE did it? Damn him. Damn Crouch. Damn them all to the seven hells below. I'm going to kill them all…Poison. The bastard poisoned me. This is it. How I die. I…I go now…_

A wretched tear escaped from the corners of her lids as she thought as to how, as far as deaths go, hers wasn't so bad.

She could die at least knowing that she'd made something of a difference.

The countless number of Voldemort's followers she'd arrested.

That was good enough for her, and she could live with such a death.

Her thoughts spewed venomous thoughts of black, putrid hatred as she wondered if somehow that Chocolate Frog she'd eaten as a mid-afternoon snack while finishing the filing of her latest report on a series of jinxed toilets in the upper London district that had caused three Muggles to lose limbs and require rooms in St. Mungo's, had somehow been intended and poisoned as she ate it.

"No," Remus answered her, and his response escaped his lips as a low growl.

His voice was shaking, and his tone sounded harsher than it had a moment ago. "You haven't been poisoned. A—at least…I hope not," he whispered hoarsely. "Y—you're going to be _fine_ ; didn't I tell you? I'm your partner, you, and I, we're responsible for one another like it or not, and I can't let you _die_. I meant what I said. Every word. I'm going to get you to St. Mungo's. A—and then… I'm taking you home, to Grimmauld Place. You'll stay with Sirius and me at headquarters."

Tonks felt her eyelids flutter closed and she did not hear Remus's desperate plea for her to stay awake. She was dying.

She was sure of it. Death by poisoned chocolate, of all things. What a way to go out.

Crouch had paid Dawlish someone to poison her snack this afternoon and now, because of their bloody actions and her stupidity, she was dying.

Tonks swallowed and let out a pained gasp, her lips parted open slightly as she involuntarily rested her head against Remus's shoulder, too weak to fight back anymore.

"Take me there, Lupin, please…take me… _home_. Home…sounds nice, doesn't it," she whispered weakly, the ghost of a smile tugging on the corners of her lips.

When it occurred to Nymphadora Tonks that she was steadily and slowly passing out of this physical world, she thought it might send her mind insane.

Another tear slipped from her gray eye, her right, peaceful, yet eerily somber as she cried.

The last thing Tonks saw before she lost herself to the unconsciousness of a dreamless black mist, was her new partner's face. Remus Lupin's face, and she could hear his voice…speaking to her…as if to reassure her that she'd be fine… even though she knew that it wouldn't.

Tonks felt her eyelids blur with tears as the wretched hot salty liquid formed behind her lids threatening escape.

Everything around her became strangely fuzzy and disoriented, and then as she closed her eyes, she saw absolutely nothing at all.

Her consciousness was floating through a strange void. Throughout that inky space, her heartbeats pounded loudly against the restraints of the walls of her chest, echoing in her ears, alongside the man's soothing, melodious voice, and her rapidly fading pleas for help until they escaped her lips as a soft, quiet mewling.

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them at any time it wanted. Remus had learned this the hard way when he was only five years old when Fenrir Greyback had bitten him in retaliation for something his father, Lyall, had said.

Lupin glanced down at the bloodied, broken form of the young Order member in his arms and flinched, shifting Tonks in his arms yet again, his grip tightening. He could not help but notice how fragile Nymphadora Tonks was.

Like she was made of the finest china. He momentarily worried that she would shatter if she were to fall. With a slightly shaking hand that was now stained crimson from the young woman's blood, he reached up a shaking hand to tuck a stray wisp of her hair that had fallen in front of her eyes, swooping it back away from her forehead.

She was…really something.

Even in the dark, he could see her, like a shining beacon of light. The white creamy tone of her skin, even now, as pallid, and clammy as it was, reminded Lupin of whipped milk.

He couldn't help but wonder if he were to reach up to one of his hands and caress her cheek, would he graze only the air.

As if she were nothing but a ghost. She held the exuberance of youth, though from what he could tell of her, even back in those damned woods and as fatally injured as she was, she'd walked with the confidence of someone a decade older.

The young Auror with the vibrant pink hair was not just flawless in bone structure as a result of good genetics, but her skin was like silk over a glass and the young woman radiated an intelligent beauty.

He cursed under his breath as she murmured something inaudible. His face was the last thing she saw before all the feelings in her body drained away.

Tonks was not awake as Lupin shifted her in his arms and Disapparated, not once relinquishing his tight grip on her limp, unconscious form as the two of them Apparated right in front of St. Mungo's, and before he could so much as lift his head, a heart-wrenching cry of anguish rent the otherwise silent night air.

The sound immediately made Remus Lupin's ears perk up at the unexpected sound, and his head whiplashed so sharply upwards, trying to discern where the noise came from, and then the noise came again: a long, drawn-out shriek of grief and despair, and the sound came from his left. A woman's voice.

_Merlin help me_. Remus closed his eyes shut and bit the inside wall of his cheek, not wanting to turn towards the source of the noise but knowing that he would have no choice.

A woman in her early to mid-forties suddenly appeared out of the corner of his peripherals, with a wild, frenzied look in her dark brown eyes. Her cheeks were flushed pink with rage, though Lupin had first assumed it to be from the cold.

Her pink lips were pursed into such a thin line. Remus hated to think it, but if this woman was who he suspected her to be, then Miss Tonks's mother was an unpleasant woman.

A tendril or two of light brown hair had escaped from her loose, messy bun, but her forehead was wrinkled by many peaks and trenches—caused by a few years of consistent scowling, if Lupin had to hazard a guess—which unflatteringly crowned dark, heavily-lidded eyes that seemed to permanently harbor a disdainful glower as she looked towards Remus and then down at the unconscious figure of his new partner, still clutched in his arms, shadowing their beautifully unique shade of dark brown, the one redeeming quality of this woman's appearance.

The woman's entire face seemed drained of any signs of joy and amusement. Instead, her thin cheeks told a tale of despair.

The brunette's hardened gaze lingered on Nymphadora Tonks's limp form in Remus's arms and he could only watch helplessly as the stranger began to violently shake.

"No," she whispered desperately in a voice that sounded so small. "No, no, no, no, no, you—you _beast_! Wh—what in the seven hells have you done to my _daughter_ , you—you _animal_!" she snarled, her wrathful gaze flitting back upwards to meet Lupin's stunned and quite frankly, angered glower as he looked the woman dead square in the eyes.

Remus felt his face drain of color and immediately took several steps back, feeling his lip curling upward in a low snarl.

He backed away from the encroaching young woman and from behind her, this had to be this young woman's father, with an equally disturbed look on his face, and still, Lupin continued his retreat, though he needed to make a bolt for the front entrance of St. Mungo's.

But still, he backed away, both of fear for himself and for the young woman that he still held against his chest.

Fearing that these people may wish harm upon him, he clutched Tonks even tighter to him. Remus felt the gentle wind greet the concrete beneath their feet and his skin just the same, and he flinched, startled, at the familiar cracking sound rent the air.

Yet, he was blessed to feel it, for he heard the familiar murmurings of Professor Dumbledore, Moody, and Professor McGonagall come to stand next to him.

The wind's currents flowed through the St. Mungo's lot, unaware of how its song soothed those who could hear it, though, at the moment, it did nothing to quell the heart-wrenching fear that tugged at the strings of Remus's heart.

"Headmaster. Alastor, Professor," Lupin managed to croak out by way of greeting, though he did not relinquish his grip on the young woman in his arms.

Nor did he once avert his gaze from the advancing forms of the stranger's.

"Remus, it's good to see you again. Miss Tonks, it would seem, owes you her life," offered Minerva McGonagall kindly, though even the Transfiguration Professor could not quell the gasp of surprise that escaped her lips as she peered over the rim of her spectacles at the bloodied, grotesque mess that was Remus Lupin's partner, whom he was clutching tightly to, as though the very shreds of his sanity depended on holding onto her, and keeping her alive.

" _No_ ," he responded angrily. He did not want her life. He wanted her to keep it. "She owes me _nothing_ , Professor. I just...want her safe. To...to recover," he said quickly.

But Remus did not notice the brief exchange between the three Order members and as a result, missed it completely.

There could be no doubt in his mind now as to who these people were and what they wanted of him.

They wanted his _life_. They believed _him_ to be the one responsible for the young woman's rapidly deteriorating physical condition.

Remus clenched his eyes shut and shot a silent prayer to James and Lily.

_Merlin help me. They're—they're her parents, a—and to see her like this…_

His friends, for perhaps the first time in his life, did not answer him, and it was then that Lupin knew that James and Lily could not help him with this one.

No. He was well and truly on his own to deal with the brand- _new_ problem that was staring him straight in the eyes, with a glowing animosity that he knew that he himself was the root cause of.

He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was looking into the eyes of Nymphadora Tonks's parents.


	14. Escalation

**A/N: Not much to say for this chapter except, hats off to Dumbledore and McGonagall, who get a funny little moment towards the end!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

_Damn_. _Merlin Above, spare me this torment_ , he silently prayed, though he knew Merlin would not listen to a monster's prayer, an outcast's prayers, like _his_.

Remus flinched and bared his teeth in a moment of aggression that came off as misplaced anger, though in actuality it was coming from a place of fear.

The ambiguity of not knowing what would happen to him (or to her!) was enough to send him into another full-fledged panic attack, and he thought he would have, were it not for Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore standing protectively on either side of the distraught man, the only barrier between himself and the young witch's parents.

Lupin heard himself emanate a rather tense exhale and he shook. "She—she was attacked by a Death Eater."

His voice was low, and barely left his lips as a hushed murmur full of shame and hurt.

And before Remus could so much as blink, he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a man who was a good head taller than him, though Lupin quickly set his face to a neutral impassiveness, a look that he had perfected over the years following the revelation of the nature of his lycanthropy.

He was, sadly, used to this kind of reaction from others by now. Though that did not make each encounter any less painful.

If anything, it only added yet another layer of salt each time this happened onto the already tender wound that was his broken heart, and this time was no exception to that.

Remus felt his stance stiffen and his grip on the young woman's form tightened.

He wasn't about to let anyone other than a St. Mungo's Healer _near_ this woman tonight, and then the reality hit him, his face pale as if hit by a blizzard.

" _You_!" The girl's mother viciously snarled through gritted teeth and locked jaw as she pointed a shaking, warbling finger in Remus's general direction. " _Murderer_. How—how _dare_ you lay a hand against my daughter, you _animal_!?"

Her words dripped as venomous honey from her tongue, poisoned, yet bitter and sweet, and each one felt like a stab to Remus's heart, and he did not know what to say nor how to react to these insults that were clearly intended to wound.

The strange man who had moved to stand beside the grief-stricken brunette narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, his gait slightly uneven, lumbering.

_This must be her father_ , he thought wildly.

As he strode closer towards Remus, his shoes made a rhythmical noise against the pavement, solid and regular, almost like that of a soldier. His lined, careworn face was stern and angered.

Lupin's first thought was that the man that now stood but a few feet away from him looked like an aged version of himself.

At first, his eyes were cast towards his young daughter's unconscious form, and then he suddenly seemed to realize the weighted gravity of the situation, at their rendezvous at St. Mungo's.

It did not take Remus's mind long to put together the missing pieces of the puzzle, as he realized that someone—probably Alastor—had alerted Miss Tonks's parents to the severity of her medical condition and had told them to go to St. Mungo's.

Tonks's father's face had the same structure as Remus's, high cheekbones, and symmetrical. He had the same light brown eyes, though slightly more tanned skin.

The man was still slender despite his years of forty-three or so. Toned. Not at all stooped or showing any signs of a hard life.

Around the man's eyes were laughter lines in just the right amount. Remus supposed that Tonks's father was a man that was oftentimes happy more so than not, but in this moment, he was deadly serious.

As he closed off the gap of space between himself and Lupin, Remus felt his heart skip a beat and color drain from his face.

The man met Lupin's gaze with a blunt refusal to avert his gaze first. It was odd to see those half-familiar features devoid of warmth like they'd been stolen.

With a surprising strength within that Remus did not at first assume was possible of the older man, he watched as the girl's father gingerly lifted the young woman from Lupin's arm, an act which Remus violently internally protested as he felt an uncomfortable pit forming deep within the depths of his nauseous stomach.

Remus heard himself emanate a tense exhale of relief as Dumbledore stepped forward, his gray robes swishing as he walked, and there was an uncharacteristically somber, and slightly angered, look in the man's cobalt orbs.

"My dear Andromeda," the Headmaster intervened, taking a small step forward and gently placing a withered hand on the brunette woman's shoulder. "This is not the time nor the place for such confrontations. If you cannot control your anger, then we have a problem."

"He..." Andromeda Tonks started to say, though trailed off upon being on the receiving end of a particularly nasty look from Dumbledore.

Dumbledore sighed. "I am well aware that you are concerned over the condition of your daughter, as are we _all_ , but do not blame Remus. This man standing in front of you is your daughter's partner in the Order. He was with Alastor during the extraction and is the one responsible for bringing her here. He means your daughter no harm and is one of the kindest, gentlest souls that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. His heart is pure and golden. Your daughter could not be in more capable hands. She is quite safe around Remus, I can personally reassure you of this, Andromeda. Do not shut the man out right now. If you must be angry with _anyone_ , then allow _me_ to bear the brunt of your wrath, for _I_ am the one who assigned Miss Tonks to this particular mission tonight."

Lupin blinked, stunned at Hogwarts' Headmaster's words as the older gentleman came to his defense, and a tiny, mewling noise from Tonks commanded his attention immediately downward, and he immediately winced.

Nymphadora Tonks, though still unconscious, was in so much pain her complexion was ashen. Her natural pale skin had sunken in tone to something so lifeless that it scared Remus just to look at his new partner in this way.

Her eyes were still closed, though he could tell just by looking at her that the young witch had sucked herself into a deeper place to cope, and he was helpless to help her.

It barely seemed enough, and it wasn't _fair_ that he could do _nothing_ to help.

Every few seconds, his gaze dropped to the wound at her side, but mostly they remained fixed on her face in a soft stare so that whenever she did open her eyes, if at all, he would be the first thing Tonks sees.

He wanted it to be. He had been in her dark place before, felt more pain than Lupin knew a human body could ever bear, and it broke his heart to see his partner hurting this way.

Remus could feel the sweat drench his skin, the throbbing of his own eyes behind their lids, the thrumming of his heart against his chest.

His fingers curled instinctively around Miss Tonks's form, nails digging into the blood-soaked material of her now-ruined shirt as he shifted her yet again in his arms to support her weight.

He could not hear his rapid breathing, but he could feel the air flooding in and out of his lungs. Hesitantly, his eyes glanced downward at Tonks.

Fear tortured his guts, churning his stomach into intense cramps. Fear engulfed his conscience, knocking all other thoughts aside except getting her help. The fear he felt overwhelmed his body, making it drastically exhausted.

However, most of all, the fear was making him calm and that was what scared Remus the most.

He blinked, startled, as he realized her father said something to him, and he felt his face drain of color as he looked upwards at him.

" _Let_ _go_ _of my daughter_. _Now_ ," Tonks's father growled in an icy tone devoid of any semblance of warmth or kindness, and it did not escape Remus's attention that the man's hand curled around the handle of his wand tightly.

Glancing to the left towards Professor McGonagall for confirmation, the elderly witch gave a curt, worried nod, the briefest of gestures, and Lupin could swear he heard the Transfiguration Professor breathe an audible sigh of relief as Remus, against his better judgment, relinquished his hold on Miss Tonks, taking a half-step forward to meet Tonks's father halfway, and transferred her to his arms.

"Be sure to support her head," Remus advised, flinching at the rude undertones in his own voice, though considering the manner in which this young witch's parents were treating him, he saw no reason to be kind to these people.

Tonks's father shot Remus a venomous glower, though the older man made no comment, for which Lupin supposed he should be grateful.

The last thing they all needed was for a brawl to break out at the front entrance of St. Mungo's.

Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek, wincing as he quickly realized that he had overstepped his boundaries just now, and he jumped as the father's holler of anguish echoed and reverberated in Remus's ears like a sudden clap of thunder.

It was a roar of pure anger as the scream from deep within forced its way from the man's mouth, as if his terrified soul at seeing his daughter this way had unleashed some horrible demon deep from within the recesses of the man's heart.

The unexpected scream seemed to have awoken something dark within Tonks's mother, as Andromeda Tonks's light brown eyes narrowed until they were mere slits, and before anybody in the vicinity could react, the young Auror's mother closed off the gap of space in two swift strides and raised her hand to strike Remus.

Lupin instinctively stepped back and raised his hands to his face in self-defense, though before the witch's mother could dare lay a hand against him, a powerful baritone voice rent the air, polluting what once was silent as the atmosphere around the small group of people became polluted now with rage.

The Headmaster's baritone, deep voice reverberated throughout the entire lot, and Remus thought it was something of a miracle the St. Mungo's staff didn't come running, though there was a low roll of thunder to Dumbledore's voice that could not be ignored. Not by him, or Tonks's parents, or anyone else….

" **ANDROMEDA TONKS, THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH**!" came Professor Dumbledore's voice.

Remus blearily lifted his head to take in the scene unfolding before him, and he quickly realized that the Hogwarts Headmaster had raised his wand against Nymphadora Tonks's mother, and a length of rope had shot from the ends of his wand and snaked around her middle, while a second rope wrapped around her wrists and bound them together, preventing the grief-stricken mother from daring to strike out against Remus or raise her wand at the man in anger.

An effective remedy in preventing her from reaching her intended target.

Professor Dumbledore's cobalt orbs flashed angrily, darkening to a more cerulean hue in color, and Remus inhaled a sharp breath of frigid air that pained his lungs as he realized Minerva had come to stand next to Remus, her own wand drawn and held at the ready in a defensive position, one hand gripped on his arm.

It was a simple enough gesture, meant to show her support, one that Lupin greatly appreciated, given the tension mounting between everyone at the moment.

Remus drew in a sharp intake of breath that pained his lungs as Dumbledore's powerful voice, hardened and clipped, spoke to Andromeda.

"You will _kindly_ still your rage, madame. You dare lay _another_ hand in violence against one of my Order members, Andromeda, and you will only succeed in making a complete and utter spectacle of yourself," Dumbledore retorted to Andromeda coldly, though Remus could have sworn he saw the briefest flickers of sympathy dart through his darkened sky-blue orbs as his gaze flitted back towards Remus.

Lupin was sure he saw the Professor offer him a coy, but brief little wink.

Andromeda seethed and bristled at the Headmaster's demand, a retort of her own burning on the tip of her tongue as she fought and struggled against her restraints.

"Don't you _dare_ berate me, Albus! You _have_ no children, you've _no_ idea what this is like, do you, Headmaster!" Andromeda spat venomously, violently thrashing her wrists, futile though it was, against the rope restraints that bound her. "Our daughter has been attacked!" she gasped, paling. "He—"

" _Saved her life_ ," interjected Professor McGonagall, peering coldly at Andromeda Tonks through her spectacles.

She glanced towards Dumbledore, who said nothing, though the silence in it of itself was more than deafening. She swallowed nervously past the growing lump developing in her throat and continued.

"You would truly condemn this man for saving your daughter's life, Andromeda? Were it not for Remus and Alastor's combined efforts, Miss Tonks would be _dead_."

Her words came out perhaps harsher than the Transfiguration Professor intended, for as Minerva McGonagall gazed upon the distraught faces of Andromeda and Ted Tonks, something within her hardened exterior softened.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek as he watched in silence and shock as Minerva slowly lowered her wand and took a minute to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and drew in a deep breath before continuing to speak.

"We cannot change what happened to your daughter, Andromeda, and Ted, but the further we linger out here, the worse her condition becomes. Your daughter needs a place of healing and immediate medical attention and _this_ ," McGonagall added, glancing around the front outside lot of St. Mungo's main entrance and visitor and admissions lobby, "is not at all it, dear. She needs to go inside. _Now_. Without delay."

"Perhaps," Dumbledore offered slowly, casting a quizzical glance between Remus, noticing how pale and scared the poor man's face looked, before darting back to the pair of distraught parents, though he made no move to wave his wand and remove the rope restraints from Andromeda Tonks's wrists or her middle out of fear of if he were to release the grief-stricken mother, she would attack Lupin again.

"There is a place elsewhere where we might discuss this in a _calm_ , collected manner," he emphasized darkly. "Your daughter needs time to heal and rest. Such stress is not good for Miss Tonks and will only exacerbate her injuries."

"A fine idea," barked Mad-Eye Moody from behind Remus, hobbling forward, clutching onto his walking stick for support, his magical eye swiveling in all directions. His first words since Apparating on the scene at St. Mungo's.

Lupin felt an incredible fiery heat creep to his cheeks as the rest of the group's heads all swiveled at once in his direction as they looked towards Remus for confirmation.

He gave a mute nod.

"I believe headquarters has the most room," he spoke up quietly. "But I don't think I…"

_Can leave her alone_ , is what he wanted to say, but his words would just not come. His voice trailed off as a fresh wave of adrenaline surged through his veins and he had to stop himself from lunging forward and snatching Nymphadora Tonks back from her father's arms.

He could not quite explain it, but holding her as he had a moment ago, he had felt in heaven. _Safe_. _Secure_. Like nothing could hurt him.

And his ticket to that precious place had abandoned him, leaving him feeling empty and bereft, the moment she had left his arms for that of her father's, and he wanted to scream.

His conscience was screaming at him to stand up for himself, that he did not have to stand here like this and listen to the girl's mother's verbal abuse, but…

Something about the pink-haired Auror was compelling him not to leave her side.

He blinked as he met the distraught father's gaze, who stared back defiantly.

"What happened?" Ted Tonks growled, glancing down at his daughter's unconscious form in his arms, looking absolutely horrified, appalled, disgusted at the young woman's current state, and Remus could tell by the apprehension in the older man's eyes and the stiffness in his shoulders that he did not like nor did he trust him, but something about the way he stared felt… _strange_.

Remus blinked. For a moment, he could not place this look, nor read the expression in the man's eyes.

And then the realization hit him, that this man, Nymphadora's father, did not seem fixated on the three jagged scars on his face like everyone else in the wizarding world seemed to be whenever they first met him.

Words temporarily left him for the third or fourth time that night.

Lupin stared into the older wizard's bright eyes burning with such rage and anger, it was something of a wonder that the father had not attempted to attack him yet.

His heart fell silent, and Lupin jumped when the man's lips parted open to speaking, and he yelled.

" _Answer_. _Me_." The distraught father roared, and it was only when his wife, Andromeda, laid both of her still-bound hands on the man's shoulder, her fingers giving it a gentle but firm squeeze, that the tension in his shoulders left him and something within the man's hardened exterior shifted.

Ted Tonks's expression softened, though it did not stop Remus from flinching as the older man's dark brown eyes desperately searched Lupin's eyes for any sign of the truth…waiting for Remus to speak. _Say something to them…_

The man was clearly expecting an answer. Lupin wildly wracked his brain for something to say, but to his surprise, his heart answered for him.

"She was attacked, sir," he began hesitantly, painfully twisting his fingers together and weaving them in between his knuckles as he felt a cold sweat glisten on his brow. "By a Death Eater."

He paused, wondering if he should reveal her attacker's name, and then decided such information was unnecessary and would only succeed in increasing their already agitated mental states, and that would bode ill for them all.

_Especially_ him. _No_. he could not tell her parents yet the man's true name yet. He needed to wait.

He would withhold the man's name for now.

"I…I tried to save her, but I…I wasn't…wasn't fast enough, I didn't…"

"You _saved_ Miss Tonks's life, Remus. You give yourself far too little credit, Mr. Lupin. Do not underestimate this accomplishment. Your actions tonight made _all the difference in the world_. To _her_ , especially, Remus. You are, by rights now, her partner. You are to look out for her, just as she, I'm sure, in time, will watch out for you, Remus, and return the favor when the time comes, though let us pray it does not. _You did the right thing_ , Remus," Professor McGonagall finished for him, and Remus felt his head whiplash sharply upward to regard the aging Transfiguration Professor, and he mutely nodded, his blush deepening on his face as the heat continued to creep its way to his cheeks at its insufferable, petty pace.

"I—I did," he answered, thinking it best to answer the young woman's parents truthfully here, and he steeled himself for another potential outburst as he watched Miss Tonks's father's jaw muscle twitch, though the worst of his rage seemed to dissipate as Nymphadora suddenly gave a feeble little pained twitch.

Remus inhaled a breath of cold air and crept forward, ignoring the withering look the young witch's parents shot him as Lupin craned his neck for a better look.

The witch's eyelids fluttered, and she drew in a sharp breath of air that immediately resulted in a violent coughing spell that shook her mostly awake, a truly pitiful sound that tugged at Lupin's heartstrings, and he felt his panic return.

Lupin was hardly aware that he'd breathed out a tired and relieved shaking breath at seeing the young Auror awake now, which meant that she was still alive.

He glanced up, giving a curt nod towards the young woman's parents and Professors Albus and McGonagall, silently trying to thank both of them with his eyes for their interference.

The expressions both teachers shot him back told Remus that he did not need to. He let out a tired sigh. He did not need to be here. He would only be adding stress to her life, and he was likely the very last person the young witch wanted to be near right now.

He would not—could not—encroach upon her time of healing. She needed space. She needed her parents.

Nymphadora Tonks did not need him.

He had done enough. Remus had just turned his back and was preparing to Disapparate. He had fulfilled his mission, after all.

He had saved the Stranger's life, and had safely delivered her to St. Mungo's, when the young woman's voice, small and faint, rent the otherwise silent night air now that she had been roused from her state of unconsciousness.

"Wait." The plea was soft, and desperate. He froze, and turned around to regard the young witch. "Th—thank you. Remus," Tonks whispered, her voice much too faint for Lupin's liking, and had he not already been hanging onto the young witch's every word like his life depended on it, then he would have missed it completely.

He could not help but hear how nice his name sounded coming from her.

And she was… _smiling_.

Remus was floored, feeling like his mind was reeling as his skull pounded against his head.

_Smiling_?! How in the name of Merlin could she be smiling when she was in such excruciating pain? Who _was_ this girl?

He could see every feeble twitch to her body, every taut muscle that spasmed.

Who _was_ this woman that Dumbledore had assigned him to work with? Was she so truly remarkable that she could ignore the agonizing, fiery pain of a Splinched arm that was rumored to be unlike anything else a wizard or witch could undergo, just short of the Unforgiveable Curses, (though he thought his transformations could give Splinching a run for his money), and her stab wound at her ribcage?

Apparently so.

Remus blinked, lost in the pink-haired Auror's glistening gray eyes and her soft, hurting smile. That smile was the prettiest thing Remus had seen in a while, for extended to Tonks's eyes and deep into her elusive, mysterious soul.

It seemed so genuinely sweet, so innocent, and pure, with just the right touch of shyness and apprehension, but it did not stop the unexpected flood of warmth that welled within the confines of his chest as his heart gave a flutter. Lupin blinked.

For a moment he was startled, thinking how nice it felt, to hear his name from her lips.

This was perhaps only the second or third time in his life that a woman had _ever_ thanked a monster like him.

He knew that he did not deserve her thanks, much less their newfound partnership, but there was a small voice at the back of his head, James's voice, urging the man to take her remark seriously.

_Well? What are you waiting for? Say thank you, Remus. Take the compliment. Don't backtalk. Say. Something._

Remus blinked, waving away James's voice with an airy wave of his hand, and he could feel the questioning stares at the gesture as he quickly realized the others had seen it, and his blush deepened.

"Y—you're welcome," he stammered, the heat flushing to his cheeks in even greater intensity.

Before his new partner could further open her mouth to speak, Remus dipped his head in acknowledgment, allowing that one coarse, stubborn lock of his light brown bangs to fall in front of his eyes, effectively shielding her expression from his wretched sight.

He turned his back on the little family, and on Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Alastor before the young witch could so much as say another word.

Remus walked away from the front entrance to St. Mungo's, feeling the rough cracks of the cobblestoned street beneath the soles of his shoes, the wind moving as if he were not there at all like he was a ghost, and nothing more.

Lupin paused and did not bother to stop the thought escaping his lips. "I'm glad you're going to be all right," he murmured, the ghost of a small half-smile tugging at his lips.

He felt as though he were drowning in a sea of indifference, desperate to swim up beyond cloudy skies to the stars above him.

Lupin furrowed his brows together in a confused frown, wondering why it hurt as hell, that it hurt him as though leaving the young witch behind with her family was killing his soul as sure as a dagger piercing his chest would stop his heart as he walked further away.

As the cold night air rustled his light brown hair and kissed his cheeks, Remus allowed a small smile to ghost across his handsome but lined features, thinking how grateful he was that he and Moody had been able to save her life.

_What are you doing, Rem?!_ Lily's voice piped up inside his mind, rendering him frozen in his tracks. _You cannot just LEAVE that poor woman alone tonight_. _You turn around RIGHT NOW and get back there, Remus!_

"Oh, yes I _can_ , Lily," Lupin growled, balling his hands into fists, and shoving them in his black trousers pocket.

Though he was torn between his desires to stay and the desire to leave the young woman in peace, for she had been through more than enough trauma endured in a single night than he believed possible.

Such conflicting thoughts were swirling around in his confused head. He breathed deep and slow, just like his father had taught him to do whenever, as a young boy during the earliest days of his painful transformations, when his dark, wolfish thoughts and instincts threatened to take over his entire mind and body.

Every muscle felt tight, sprung for action, fully prepared to Disapparate, and yet, he found his feet were rooted to the cement beneath his feet and he couldn't, nor did he want to, move.

The only thing he could do was glance back over his shoulder, where the small group of people was still crowded around St. Mungo's.

_What the bloody hell are they waiting for?!_ James's voice barked angrily from the back of his mind. _Shouldn't they have gone inside with her already?_

"They should have," he murmured in a hushed whisper, furrowing his brows into a slight frown. "Can't they see she's hurt?!" Remus heard himself growl.

The only thing he felt he could do was to look at the pink-haired witch from his place in the shadows, knowing that this was where a creature like him belonged, forever in the darkness, never allowed to live a life in the sunlight or warmth.

And she…this celestial-like creature, belonged in the warmth of the sun.

That's just the way it was. She was an angel, he was a demon, monster, a beast.

Such a friendship could never be, for that idea was forbidden. He truly didn't know what Dumbledore had been _thinking_ when he had assigned Remus as her partner.

His body was screaming at him to Disapparate and head back for Grimmauld Place to give Molly and Sirius an update, who would have no doubt learned of everything from Mrs. Weasley, to let his new partner rest a few days in peace.

To get rid of this excessive adrenaline that still coursed through his veins like a wildfire, a result of what he'd almost done to Barty Crouch Jr. a while ago.

What he still _wanted_ to do, should the man dare to show his face around Miss Tonks again.

Though the demonic voices swirling around in his tired mind were currently stronger than the faint muffled voices than that of his friends.

The Mad Beast within the confines of his chest re-emerged with a guttural roar, screaming at him to forget his thoughts of the pink-haired young Auror, how the beast's thoughts were right, that the girl would bring him nothing but trouble if he even so much as _entertained_ the idea of turning around and going back.

Even now, as he stood completely engulfed in the inky blackness of night, he could feel the Beast lurking within the shadows.

An evil that no one but him could see. A monster, a beast, an animal that tormented poor Remus day in and night with no breaks in between the cycles of the full moon's curse each month.

It sought out his weak heart and made itself a home inside of him. Inside Remus's head.

The distraught, exhausted wizard could feel it raging inside him at what he had almost done to Crouch, the violent, putrid desire he'd spat at him.

_You really WOULD rip Crouch apart limb from limb, wouldn't you, Moony? If that man hurts her again?_ James's voice piped up. Remus blinked owlishly in surprise at his friend's question. James was sounding…concerned.

"I…" But Remus could not bring himself to answer James.

Though he had succeeded in managing to save Miss Tonks's life, and he would do it all over again, several times over, if, given the chance, it did not change the fact that he would have savagely beaten a man, Death Eater or not, to his death and killed.

For _her_. He would have committed the ultimate sin of wizardkind and taken another human life. For _her_. He would spill copious amounts of blood. For _her_.

Remus groaned tiredly and raked his fingers through his tuft of light brown hair, breathing in and out shaking breaths, clenching his eyes shut and willing the voices in his mind to cease, to desist these exhausting, troubling views.

But they wouldn't. Lupin could feel it, raging inside of him, reminding the man of the monster that he truly knew himself to be.

Just loud enough for Remus to hear the Mad Beast's growls that threatened escape from within his chest, but there was a cage, a door of sorts, in between It and him.

He had kept it locked away now in a room inside his head, tried to keep it as far away from him as humanly possible.

But it was still there, clawing and tearing its way through the holes in the said door, trying to reach what was left of Remus's humanity and sanity.

_If I even have any left_ , he thought bitterly, his light brown locks sticky in his hands as he continued his nervous fidgeting habit of carding his fingers through his hair.

Remus felt himself heave a heavy sigh and buried his face in his hands, letting out a low groan of anguish. He could not be seriously thinking of going back there!

"What—what would I even _say_? Would she even _want_ me there?" he demanded, and when they did not answer him, he growled in anger.

_Only one way to find out_ , James piped up. Lupin scowled. His friend's voice sounded uncharacteristically smug and satisfied about something, though what that 'thing' might be, only James and Lily and Merlin above knew for certain.

Remus's frown deepened as he knew that sooner or later, this mental door of his would break, and the Mad Beast, the monster itself, would have free rein.

Lately, it had shown Lupin ways that it had managed to change itself. Him. Like what had happened earlier with Crouch, as he reflected on his words to him.

_I'll rip you apart limb from limb. I'll slit your throat_. Remus blinked, startled. But Merlin's beard, that—that _wasn't_ him!

He had almost violently murdered Crouch, and all to save his partner, a young woman whom he barely even knew!

Though he would be the first to admit that Barty Crouch Jr. deserved it, and more than that, the man was stupid enough to show his face to Remus again.

As the days passed, and he grew older by the second, the monster looked more like Remus than anything else, and Remus had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was to try to develop a friendship with his partner, it would not bode well for him, and he could already feel her effect.

The effect she had on him, and she had no idea of the instantaneous peace she brought his wallowing soul. Remus would let Nymphadora Tonks get too close, and then his heart, if he allowed that damned stubborn corded mass of muscle within his chest to feel anything at all for the young Auror, would just be broken into pieces if she ever became friends with a _handsome_ , _younger_ Auror.

No. He couldn't risk it.

No, it would be safer for Miss Tonks if she knew what was best for her and stayed well the hell away from him. But…but…

Remus froze as a sudden gust of wind wafted the scent of honeysuckle and lavender, her scent, his way, and he knew it quite well by that point, her shampoo, he knew it.

The air grew thick with a tenderness that could not help but to force Remus to breathe slower, deeper, and dare he even think this next thought… _happier_.

He thought it was rather strange, a foreign concept to him.

And then, a new thought hit him.

_What if I went back there and stayed?_

Lily and James's voices chimed in.

_You can do it. Just…put one foot in front of the other, Lupin, and go back there. You're her partner, Rem_ , Lily said, sounding tired with him, and he could almost envision her exasperated features.

"I—I couldn't. Well, I—I could, but…what would I say to her? Would she…even want me?" he whispered; his voice barely audible over the breeze.

_Yes, you can_ , Lily encouraged. _You can DO this, Rem. Don't be an idiot. Stay. With Her_.

Lupin bit the wall of his cheek. He shook his head, lifting it sanguinely and cursing himself for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea. He barely knew Nymphadora Tonks at all.

_Don't do this_ , the dark voice, that snakelike hiss whispered. Remus paused and swallowed hard, already anticipating his next move.

"I must be _out_ of my _mind_ ," he growled darkly, raking his hands through his thick tuft of hair one more time as he turned back around the way he'd come.

Remus's thoughts were so engrossed in thinking about his partner's face, that he was hardly conscientious of the fact that his feet had already begun the walk forward of their own volition, his body no longer taking directions from his mind.

Ted Tonks hadn't relinquished his grip on his daughter's unconscious form, and he seemed surprised to see Remus return as he glanced over at Lupin with no small amount of distrust and apprehension in his glistening dark brown orbs.

Remus cringed and frowned, flinching only once as he dared to take a step closer and close off the gap of space between himself and Nymphadora's father, and stood straight up at his full height of around 6'2, but even then, Ted towered over Lupin by a good head or two taller.

He swallowed and licked his lips to moisten them and find his bearings before he could find his voice to speak.

"Sir, I realize this is…forward and many would deem it inappropriate, but I should like to request permission to assist in your daughter's recovery in any way that I can. I'd like to stay with her so that she is not alone when she wakes up."

Lupin was surprised to hear himself confess this sudden desire, and he thought for certain the young witch's parents would refuse his offer.

It was Professor Dumbledore who spoke up, saving the Auror's father the trouble of responding.

"Of course, I think that a rather _splendid_ idea, don't you, Ted?" Albus answered kindly, nodding his head. "The woman is your partner, Remus. You did save her life, after all. I think seeing a friendly face when she wakens would do her a world of good. Besides, you were there when she…when…well…"

Dumbledore's voice trailed off and the old man did not bother to complete his thought.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and watched as Ted Tonks let out a heavy sigh that in all actuality sounded more to Lupin like a growl of anger at the thought of a man who was essentially a stranger being allowed anywhere _near_ his precious daughter, and had been about to open his mouth to violently protest and shoot down the Order member's request, but a withering look from Dumbledore and McGonagall alike softened his features, and he curtly nodded.

Remus exhaled a tense sigh of relief, feeling the tension leave his shoulders, though it quickly returned the moment Ted Tonks turned back to face Lupin.

His dark eyes were narrowed to mere slits, and still holding his daughter in his arms, he strode towards Remus in two swift moments that he was but a blur.

Lupin could not manage to find his voice as he fell under the scrutinizing gaze of Nymphadora Tonks's father, Ted.

He felt his face drain of color, and his cheeks flush hot, his stomach heavy, full of lead. His heart pounded in his chest, threatening to break out, and beads of sweat formed on his browbone.

For a moment, he feared that the young woman's mother would try to hit him again.

Ted Tonks's gaze drifted and settled upon his scars, and Remus instinctively flinched, as the man's dark eyes lingered on the jagged lines longer than Lupin would have liked, though he knew if he were to explain and reveal the truth here and now, the young Auror's father would likely have no qualms of killing him.

It was only when Nymphadora's father's gaze drifted towards Dumbledore, who was fixing the young witch's father with such an ice-cold stare, unlike the Hogwarts Headmaster, that the man flinched and finally relented begrudgingly.

"You may stay," her father growled in a low husky voice that did not sound like the man at all, for mere moments ago during their conversation, his voice had been less rough, almost soft, in a way. "But if Nymphadora wakens and she does not want you there, then you _leave_. If she decides to sleep, then you _leave_. If you do anything at all to upset Dora or harm her or so much as lay a single finger on her in any way that she does not want and I find out about it, boy, I will not hesitate to kill you where you stand. I'll snap your neck if you so much as to make one _move_ out of turn, and not even _Merlin_ will be able to protect you from me. She's my _daughter_ , my little girl…and I protect what I love. You get in my way of that, and I can guarantee that you will regret it, and I'll kill you myself if she's mistreated under your watch. I don't _care_ if you're in the Order," he snapped darkly, his eyes narrowing until they resembled a pit viper's pupils.

Remus swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat. The poor man's throat hallowed and constricted, and he couldn't speak even if he wanted to.

Ted Tonks's threat escaped his lips as a low warning growl, one that immediately told Remus everything the younger man needed to know of Ted.

That he cared for his daughter more than anything else. Lupin looked back behind over his shoulder to say something to Dumbledore and McGonagall, but they were in the midst of a conversation in hushed tones with Mad-Eye Moody.

Remus furrowed his brows into a frown as he turned back around, making to follow Ted and Andromeda Tonks as the distraught parents carried their only daughter and child inside St. Mungo's for medical attention, not wanting to delay.

He bit down on his tongue and paused a moment before daring to enter through the doors.

Once he crossed the threshold of the outside world into St. Mungo's, he was, for better or worse, Nymphadora Tonks's partner, officially.

_You're not doing this for YOU, you blind, bloody fool, you're doing it for HER_ , James shouted, and Lupin didn't even bother to hide the wry little smirk that formed on his lips.

Lily, Merlin rest her soul, was much kinder in her tactic regarding her friend's hesitation.

_She needs you now, Rem. More than you know._ _You saved her life, Rem. Don't you think you owe it to her as her new partner to get to know her better? All you have to do is stay with her_.

Lupin closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. "You're right," he whispered. Lily was right.

As always. As uncomfortable as this entire situation was, not being there when she woke up meant not being there for her at all, and if that happened, well, then he might as well have just slain her himself, for she should not have to endure something so traumatizing alone. He could not just abandon Tonks now.

_Don't be a coward, Remus. You're not like Snape_ , you know James chided.

_That_ did it.

Lupin felt his head whiplash sharply upwards and he did not hesitate to do perhaps the second hardest thing he had ever done in his mundane, miserable existence, and as he exhaled a shaking breath through his nose to calm the tremors in his limbs, he stepped through the doors of St Mungo's as he flung open the door to St. Mungo's and slam it shut behind him, and as the resonating sound of the bloody door rattling in its hinges from the sheer force of him slamming the damned thing, Remus could not shake the feeling as though his life were about to change, perhaps irrevocably, and hopefully, in time, for the better.

Remus was smart enough not to look back.

* * *

Professor McGonagall emanated a tense exhale through her nose and cocked her head to the side as she, Dumbledore, and Moody stared after the spot where Remus Lupin had stood only moments ago, all three of them thinking over the events that had led to this moment. She glanced sideways at the Headmaster.

A look of exasperation was plastered across Albus's lined features, as his cobalt eyes widened with shock and surprise, a look she wasn't too familiar with.

For not much could ruffle the man's feathers, though Minerva wasn't fooled.

She could tell the old wizard was still thinking over Ted and Andromeda's violent and unwarranted reactions towards poor Remus.

Professor Dumbledore sighed, his shoulders slumping in relief as he pocketed his wand and folded his arms across his chest and let out a heavy sigh, still staring after the now-closed front door.

Though when he spoke, he did not look at either Moody or Minerva.

"Well," Albus said after a long silence. "That went even _worse_ than I expected."


	15. Constant Vigilance

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN **

The Fire Whiskey as Alastor Moody lifted his flagon to his lips and drank heavily turned down the volume on Mad-Eye Moody's thoughts. It brought to him memories of good times past, and he let himself dwell in them rather than think.

And at this moment, he was both here and not, existing in two moments. Somehow, it steadied the grizzled old Auror, gave him the resolve to go on.

Fire Whiskey was Moody's one vice in this world, and he intended to make a virtue of it, savor it, not a race to the bottom of his flagon.

When the liquid settled, he brought it to his weather-cracked lips and let the amber fluid sit in his mouth a while before swallowing that sweet, blessed sip of his precious whiskey.

Alastor closed his eyes, dwelling on only the flavor, blocking out everything else that was currently troubling his paranoid mind. Merlin's beard, it was good.

And then he opened his eyes and regarded the reason behind his visit, which was currently eyeing him with a small level of amusement and interest in those cobalt twinkling orbs behind his half-rimmed moon silver spectacles.

It could have been water in his silver flagon, but it _wasn't_. It wasn't and everyone bloody _knew_ it.

Already the paranoias and worries of his day were beginning to fade, and that was even before he had taken the second swig of drink. Moody pursed his lips into a thin line as he regarded Professor Dumbledore, currently seated behind his desk.

The pair of them had Apparated back to Hogwarts, the enchantment temporarily lifted by Albus. McGonagall had headed back to Order headquarters to give an update. The man could think better in the confines of his own office, or so Dumbledore had claimed.

Moody cautiously regarded the Hogwarts Headmaster from the other side of his mahogany desk, the damned thing perfect in its slight imperfections, made more wonderful by the passage of time and the age in the wooden swirls of the desk's surface. Dumbledore patiently clasped his ringed fingers together, waiting.

Mad-Eye watched as Professor Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, and the light from the flames in the fireplace and the nearby candle that he had lit to provide warmth and light through his rather dimly-lit office illuminated the older wizard's tired, lined, and careworn face, the wrinkles boring deeply into his skin.

Albus's expression was one of frustration and fatigue. He had had enough. This man had stories to tell, and experience danced on his lips like a curious child.

And yet, Dumbledore stayed silent, those listless eyes just watching Moody, not telling, the firelight adorning his skin and bathing it in an amber-like hue.

"How in the bloody hell could Snape have let this happen? How could _I_ have let this happen?" Alastor growled, hearing the crack, and warbling in his voice as he lifted his flagon to his lips again for another swig. "This is my fault."

"The fault is not of your making, Alastor," Dumbledore spoke up, his voice soft and reserved, though there was no mistaking the hardened edges of his voice. "We could not have anticipated that Miss Tonks would attempt to go off on her own, nor that Severus would make little to next to no effort to put a stop to it. Both parties are at fault in this regard, Alastor. You are _not_ to blame here, Alastor. Miss Nymphadora should not have been so brazen in her efforts to want to take on Barty Crouch Jr. _alone_ , and Severus should have made more of an attempt to dissuade her from going alone. It is they who are at fault in this regard, not you."

"But it might as _well_ have been my fault, for I have as good as killed her tonight by not checking up on the girl more often. If she would have told me what she was planning, I could have stopped it," Moody growled, not bothering to hide the note of self-loathing in his tone. "The girl is _my_ protégé, and had I known what she was attempting, the bloody _fool_ , I would have forbidden her from it. Tonks did not think this thing through! Her actions have _consequences_ , and now look what's happened, and it's my fault. I should have stopped her—"

"Do you _really_ think that would have stopped her, Alastor? Somehow, I do not believe that it would have. Nymphadora Tonks possesses a stubborn streak, not unlike that of her mother's. It's in her blood, Alastor." Dumbledore challenged, though his tone was not accusatory. Merely curious. "Miss Tonks is an Auror and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. She, like everyone else inducted into the organization, knows the risk. She was agreeable to the dangers that are posed."

Moody said nothing in response, he merely proceeded to scowl in anger.

The Hogwarts Headmaster sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger as he shoved his half-moon silver spectacles back in their proper place on his face where they belonged and regarded the old Auror quietly.

Moody pursed his lips into a thin line, and before he could open his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by the arrival of one of the figures from the oil portraits behind Dumbledore's desk.

"Sir," began Armando Dippet nervously.

Dumbledore's cobalt blue eyes seemed to lighten slightly as the enchanted portrait behind him spoke up, and he slowly swiveled his head about to regard the portrait, a growing look of concern in his eyes.

"What of Miss Tonks, Professor?" Albus asked, his expression grim and his tone quite solemn. "Is there news, Armando?"

"Miss Nymphadora Tonks is in a private ward of St. Mungo's, sir, expenses covered by you, effectively relieving the financial burden from her parents, per your request, receiving the best possible care that the institute can provide for her, but…"

Former Hogwarts Headmaster Armando Dippet started nervously, and Moody furrowed his scarred and singed brows into a twisted frown as he could not help but notice that the former Headmaster had a nervous tic of weaving his fingers in between his knuckles, and he was actively avoiding Albus's eyes.

"Go on." At Dumbledore's urging, it was not exactly a request, and there was no mistaking the hardened edges of the older wizard's usually kind tones.

The oil painting of Headmaster Dippet frowned and let out a tired sounding sigh, twiddling his thumbs in a fit of agitation.

"Her condition is critical, sir. Miss Tonks has developed a high fever, though the Healers are working on bringing it down. But that is not where their concerns lay, Headmaster. It's the wound at her ribcage that is giving her the most trouble. Her Splinched arm has been mended, thanks to the essence of dittany, but whatever happened to her during her fall, her wand hand is damaged, sir. Nerve damage is what the Healers are inclined to believe. In time, she will recover, but not without pains and a great deal of rehabilitation on her part, Albus. But the wound in her ribcage is not responding to the usual treatments, for the wound keeps re-opening and bleeding, no matter the methods used, sir. I do not know if perhaps the blade the Death Eater that struck her with it was cursed with some form of Dark Magic, but there is every possibility that it was. And…"

Armando Dippet paused, sticking out his bottom lip in a slight pout, unsure if whether or not he should continue, though, after an unusually stern look from both Albus and Moody, the former Hogwarts Professor gave a reluctant little sigh.

"The tensions between the young witch's parents and the werewolf Remus Lupin are quite high, sir. The Healers are threatening to remove the young man from the premises, based on…accusations, sir. The woman's parents believe Mr. Lupin will ah...try to force himself on her and...please, I beg of you, do not make me say it. They will _not_ let him into the room to see her, sir, and as a result, the man is not taking their refusal _lightly_. Shall I tell them you will be arriving on the morrow, sir?"

The portrait's figure visibly flinched.

"She has spoken of wishing to see Mr. Lupin several times in various states of delirium, sir. It's the fever speaking, but I do believe there is a part of Miss Tonks that truly wishes to see the man, deep down, though she knows it not. He _did_ save her life, after all, Albus. I think that it would be good for her, sir. And for _him_."

"As do I," responded Albus quietly, stroking the ends of his long gray beard as he was contemplating the correct course of action. "Very well, Armando," he sighed, and Moody could detect the edges of the man's patience being tested. "Please return to St. Mungo's and inform Remus that I will be arriving in the morning and that he is to return to Grimmauld Place _immediately_. Tell him do not to engage further with Andromeda and Ted Tonks. He should sleep while he can and get some rest. Given what he's done here tonight, he's earned it. Pass along the same advice to Andromeda and Ted Tonks as well. They too could use the rest, as it has been a stressful night for all involved, though particularly for Miss Tonks. She needs rest, and the constant stress will only worsen her condition and exacerbate her injuries and will not aid her in her healing process whatsoever. I do not think Miss Tonks will be up for receiving any visitors until the morrow anyways, so best to leave her be for now."

Professor Dumbledore paused, seeming to need a moment to gather his thoughts as he twirled his wand in between his fingers. Armando dipped his head in acknowledgment of the Headmaster's message, and turned to go, but paused when he heard Albus call out. "Armando." Professor Dippet slowly turned.

"Sir?" The former Hogwarts Headmaster's tone was cautious and wary.

Albus turned back around slightly in his chair to regard Alastor, and Alastor could detect the faintest traces of rage in the Headmaster's rapidly reddening face.

Though when Professor Dumbledore raised his voice to ensure the painted figure of Armando Dippet heard him, Moody could detect no traces of anger in the old wizard's voice. "Please kindly inform Remus not to do anything _rash_ until I arrive in the morning around ten o'clock, and all parties involved in this little dispute shall _kindly_ still their rage and find it within themselves to behave as the _responsible_ , _mature adults_ I know them all to be, particularly Andromeda."

Armando hesitated. "And...what happens if they do not, sir?"

Dumbledore sighed. "If they do not… I shall know, Armando. And _do_ take care as well in advising Mr. and Mrs. Tonks that should I find out that they have laid a hand upon Remus in anger or anything _else_ of a volatile nature in retaliation against my decision to appoint the man as Miss Tonks's partner for the entire year, that they should be soon dealing with _me_ , and they shan't like it, I am afraid, Armando," he said, and he reached for a quill and fidgeted with it. "My decision on this matter is _final_. Remus _is_ Nymphadora's new partner, for a year, two years, perhaps indefinitely, for all I know. If they do not like it, they'll deal with _me_. _All_ of them, Armando."

"Very good, sir." Armando murmured it under his breath and soon, the figure began walking through the other portraits, hands clasped behind his back and murmuring under his breath to himself, too faint for Moody to entirely make out what the former Hogwarts Headmaster was saying, though occasionally he caught a few choice grumblings such as, "The audacity. Would _never_ have believed it. What the girl must _think_ of her parents, a full-on _brawl_ in the middle of the hallway, it's no wonder she doesn't speak to them and she's practically disowned them both," he growled, nodding his head to other painted figures.

Moody snorted and repressed the urge to roll his one good eye as he leaned back in his chair and waited until the portraits had quieted their grumbling to speak. "What of _him_? The bloody git escaped," he snarled through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I surmised as much," Dumbledore remarked, eyeing Moody's blackening eye over the rim of his spectacles. "What exactly happened, Alastor?"

Alastor heaved a sigh of frustration, raising his wand to his temple, closing his eyes, and extracting a silvery thread from his long mane of grizzled hair.

Professor Dumbledore procured a thin glass vial from an inner pocket of his gray robes and swiftly caught it as Moody hovered his wand over the vial's opening.

"See for yourself," Moody barked, well, _moodily_ , and folded his arms across his chest, pursing his scarred lips into a thin, rigid line that almost vanished.

It did not take a genius like Dumbledore to see that the Auror was sulking.

His curiosity intrigued, Albus gave a wave of his hand and revealed the Pensieve hidden underneath a cabinet in his office, and waved his wand over the basin's silvery mist, and shot Moody a questioning look before looking into Alastor's memory of what transpired that could have led to Barty Crouch's escape.

"Do feel free to help yourself to some of the Lemon Snaps while you wait, though a word of caution, they do tend to snap at you," Professor Dumbledore kindly offered.

Moody merely grunted in response at the Headmaster's poorly timed bad quip, an ill attempt to lighten the tension, and Albus shook his head, not wanting to waste any more time on pleasantries.

Not when Miss Tonks's life hung in the balance, and perhaps there was a connection that Alastor might have missed.

Professor Dumbledore emanated a tense exhale through his nose and closed his eyes before submerging himself in the silvery shrouded mist that engulfed the bowl and curled up into the air as thin vapor wisps.

If Tonks were to survive this, then he needed to know everything about what had happened to her while being held captive by Bartemius Crouch's son.

What the man's motives were for her.

Why he _wanted_ her. And so, Albus Dumbledore closed his eyes and completely submerged in the silvery liquid, cool as it bathed his face, and allowed the Pensieve to look into Alastor Moody's mind, allowed the device to take him back to where it happened….

* * *

Though Moody would never dare admit this to _anyone_ bloody else for as long as he drew in a breath, the cold look reflected on Barty Crouch Jr.'s face gave him the shudders and sent a chill of revulsion down his spine.

The younger man seemed to have no sense of humanity at all. His heart was made of crude stone, the way he had brutally tortured and attempted to rape his young protégé.

And he smelled of blood. Of danger.

Their captive, still being held firmly in place by the old oak tree's roots, had barely said more than two words to him.

Lupin had gone ahead in a manic frenzy, the fool, not wanting to wait until Moody had Crouch properly detained, a foolish act that caused the grizzled old Auror to shake his head in disbelief.

_All of this over a girl he's not met yet…_

There was no doubt in the aging Auror's mind however, that Remus would like Tonks. She was so radically different from any of the other Order members, and though Nymphadora was still quite young, she exuded a certain sort of wisdom that was _well_ beyond her twenty-four years of age that was unlike anything he'd ever seen before in another human being.

Tonks was truly remarkable. Moody's thoughts on his young protégé were immediately interrupted as Crouch threw back his head, as much as the tree's trunk would allow him to rest his head against the gnarled bark, and he laughed.

" _Shut_. _Up_. You open your wretched mouth to speak again, and I'll engorge your tongue, Crouch, and watch you choke on it. I'll only be too glad to watch you die," Moody growled the command, whispering it through clenched teeth, his blood turning to ice in his veins as the man's laughter was cold and listless, and then another one of what could only be Tonks's screams in the distance rent the air, deep in the heart of the woods, and Moody visibly flinched.

Crouch quieted, though the occasional snort still left his lips, and perhaps against his better judgment, Moody felt his entire body stiffen and the old Auror asked the question that was burning on the tip of his tongue.

"What's so funny?" Mad-Eye growled.

It took Barty Crouch Jr. a moment to find his voice. "You go to all this effort just to subdue poor little _me_. But I have to disappoint you, Alastor, that it will not work. You think you've won. You haven't."

His words were cold and devoid of any emotion. Before Moody could angrily open his mouth to retort and tell the man to shut up again, he continued.

"Alice thought she could be rid of me. Well. She's _wrong_ ," he answered blasely, so casually, as though he were discussing the weather with Moody and skirting around the fact that he'd savagely tortured a young female Auror from the Ministry of Magic, near to the point of her death.

It was a moment before Crouch spoke again, and his sharp, angular head had turned to the side, and when he looked back towards Alastor's general direction again, Moody furrowed his scarred brows into a frown. Crouch was grinning.

"If only this _one_ of yours knew your _dirty little secret_ ," Crouch breathed, his dark eyes glistening with unshed moisture that Moody knew was not tears. "That in your own way, Mad-Eye, you really _do_ care for her, don't you? But you will not let yourself feel it. I wonder why that is, hmm? Why won't you? You should tell her. It's only a matter of time before you won't be able…"

Moody felt his temper swell at the dark wizard's poorly, thinly veiled threat and was about to retort when something in the Death Eater's voice gave the old Auror pause.

Crouch did not sound malicious, but rather…curious, wanting to know why he was. Alastor felt himself hesitate.

The scum of the earth was right, damn him. That it should have been simple to admit to his young protégé that, _yes_ , there was a part of him that thought of Tonks like his own daughter, but this was as good as it was going to get for someone like him.

When the pressure of his days at the Auror Office was inside him, not like a tangled knot but more like a ticking time bomb, he needed to let it explode somewhere safe.

He needed to go somewhere where it couldn't do lasting damage, and that was why he had taken on Nymphadora Tonks during the girl's Auror Training.

And that was why Tonks had him. Whenever he needed to vent, she called him, and she knew what was coming.

It wasn't an exchange, not in the same session. He got to yell his lungs out as much as he wanted and be a vengeful crass wizard of fury, and she would sip her tankard of Butterbeer and nod in all the right places, content to listen to Moody's rantings until his piece was finished.

It would only be when Mad-Eye would pick up his own flagon of Fire Whiskey that Nymphadora would ask him if he were ready for her perspective, and if he _were_ , he would keep drinking, otherwise, his shouting would begin again.

Her job was to tell Moody how she thought the other side likely felt or would react in the stories he as her mentor relayed to her, what fears and insecurities may have motivated them, tone down Mad-Eye's paranoia and his temper rather than egg the grizzled veteran Auror to that point of no return.

Then he could return to his office at the Ministry of Magic and talk things through.

Sometimes, Nymphadora was right, other times, she would be way off the mark and miss, but Moody couldn't very well talk to anyone else whenever he needed to vent like that. No one deserved that kind of treatment from him.

And Tonks was just the same. She would seek Mad-Eye out, he went, she vented, and he listened. Maybe that was why he liked the vibrant witch so much.

Alastor could not say for certain what his reasonings were, but it worked, whatever kind of fond relationship they had between the other. He did not gossip.

No one knew his secrets or Tonks's but for the two of them. Moody didn't know, sometimes he just felt like getting that rage out was the best thing he could do for himself.

_Something Lupin needs to learn how to do_ , he thought darkly. For the younger man would have killed Crouch if not for her scream…

"I'll come for her _again_ , you know. My sweet _Alice_. Lovely, succulent _Alice_. I'll come to her in the middle of the night. Perhaps sneak into her room at St. Mungo's. Steal another kiss. Take _all_ of her next time. Make _him_ watch. She'll _love_ it," Crouch's taunting words spat more than spoken in an attempt to goad Moody into responding cut through his thoughts of the vibrant pink-haired young witch, and Moody blinked, startled back to reality. He let out a growl and ground his teeth, locking his jaw in rage.

Moody felt a hot fire-spark of anger ignite deep within the pit of his stomach, and the man's words, what he was implying he would do to Tonks chilled his insides.

" _Shut_. _Up_." He barked, shoving the tip of his wand at the pale column of the man's throat. "A word of advice, Barty. You _really_ don't want to upset me right now. I did not consider myself a hero until you came after my protégé. But now it's _war_."

As if to prove his point, Mad-Eye dug the tip of his wand further into the man's throat. Crouch managed a muffled gasp but did not attempt to speak.

"You crossed the line tonight when you kidnapped Tonks, and I don't forget, boy," he snarled through clenched teeth. "I won't rest until you're beaten, and I don't mean just beaten down, Crouch. I mean _dead_. You escape, there won't be a place you can hide. I'll _find_ you, destroy you, and you best pray it's _me_ that finds you, because if it's _him_ …" Here, Moody gave a curt jerk of his head towards the woods, at the spot where Remus had bolted, taking after the scream that pierced the woods, smirking at Crouch's rapidly paling face. "Then there won't be anything left of you to find. Your precious Death Eater scum will never even find what's _left_ of you, boy. I don't care how it happens. I don't need you to suffer, kid. I just need your cold, black snake-like eyes extinguished from this earth. I can see it in your eyes. You think this an overreaction, but it isn't. You underestimate my relationship with Nymphadora. You're right. I _do_ care for her. Don't think I'll play by the 'rules' either. I'm allowed to exterminate vermin like you that attacks young women," he snarled, spitting at Crouch's boots. "Which is why I'm going to _enjoy_ this, boy, just wait…"

Moody lowered his wand slightly and pointed it at Crouch's chest, and that was when everything erupted into hell the moment Barty Crouch Jr.'s gaunt face erupted into a wide little grin.

He heard something whizz right past his scarred, half-missing ear, and Moody realized a fraction of a second too late that Crouch had used nonverbal magic to summon his wand back into his wand hand.

"Goddamn you—" he swore, and he did not even have a chance to react as his holler reverberated in his ears. And then it hit him like a block of ice that this was all a bloody trap.

_Merlin's left saggy buttock! Son of a bi…he WANTED me to goad him so that I'd get angry. He wanted me to set him free so that I could kill him, so he could escape at the last second_.

Moody did not know who he was angrier with at this moment: Crouch, for being so damned sneaky and the cunning little snake that he knew him to be had gotten one over on him, or himself for being so foolish and not realizing what had happened until it was already too late to stop.

" _Bombarda_!" Crouch bellowed, pointing his wand at the ground, at the tree root nearest his leg.

Moody's one good eye twitched behind the lid as the tree binding Crouch to the trunk exploded, one of the pieces of splintering wood hit poor Alastor square in his good eye, and no sooner than did the limbs that held Crouch hostage disintegrated, the world around the pair of them had become illuminated.

Crouch shouted something inaudible, and the fire that poured from the tip of his wand as he bolted back towards the front of his safe house, flashed into existence in a wash of red and yellow sparks, completely engulfing Moody.

The fire around the grizzled old Auror held its head up regally and proudly as its destruction spread while glowering at the surrounded man, daring Mad-Eye to challenge its awesome power. It ate everything in its path.

Yellow, red, and orange. The colors of autumn, yet this autumn caused so much damn destruction. This…this was not just fire.

It was Death. It was a giant wave, a firestorm, rolling in on itself, undulating like some grotesque creature hell-bent on the old Auror's murder. And it was hurtling towards him at a staggering speed.

Growling in frustration, Mad-Eye ground his teeth in anger and raised his wand.

" _Augamenti_!" A steady stream of water poured from the tip of his wand and as soon as the last flame was extinguished, coughing, winded, one hand clutching at his side as he wheezed and gasped for breath, he lifted his head, struggling not to inhale any more of the smoke into his lungs than he already had.

Coughing, a gnarled, scarred hand raised over his eyes to shield his eyes from the worst of the engulfing, thick plume of smoke that lingered in the air, the minute there came an opening in the smoke's wake, Moody was just in time to see Crouch raise his hand from a distance away and raise his hand and wave, though Barty Crouch Jr.'s face moved a little too slowly as if he were taking in the surroundings more than anything else.

And then he grinned.

As he did so, the temperature outside fell a little. Even in the dim light of the encroaching thunderstorm, the Auror saw the Death Eater's bared teeth. It was a Cheshire Cat grin of sorts, the kind that was so wide it was more as if he wanted to eat everyone rather than offer up a hello.

Mad-Eye Moody let out a yell that was so like a booming bark, and he knew the entire street of Muggles heard it, his scream of rage echoing between the tiny terraced brick houses on the other side of the street, creeping under the doors and squeezing through keyholes, traveling through the windows like they weren't even there.

Mad-Eye growled in frustration and shoved his wand in the pocket of his brown trench coat, clutching onto his walking stick tightly for support as he hobbled towards the general direction that Remus had sprinted off to in order to find Tonks.

"He escaped… goddamn it. Lupin's going to be _ticked_ ," he swore through gritted teeth as he continued clumping his way further into the woods, careful to mind his step to avoid tripping over fallen branches and gnarled tree roots. This was not the end of Crouch's kidnappings and murders, far from it.

It had only just begun.

* * *

Professor Dumbledore emanated a tense exhale as the Pensieve thrust him violently out of Alastor Moody's memory, less than an hour old at this point.

He pursed his lips into a thin line as he smoothed his set of gray robes and turned back to regard Alastor, the grizzled old Auror helping himself to a Lemon Snap, wincing as he plucked one out of the dish on Albus's desk, holding the fanged, snapping piece of candy between his thumb and forefinger.

"You're as bad as Hagrid. Why the bloody hell would I want to eat something that can bite my tongue off, you tell me that, Albus," Moody barked, and Albus stifled his smile as he came to recognize the comment was meant to be a minor insult at Albus's fondness of unique candies.

He made no comment as Alastor without another word popped the Lemon Snap into his mouth, and the moment the enchanted piece of candy made a squeak of protest bared its tiny little fangs and attempted to bite off Moody's bottom lip, Alastor let out a groan and bit down.

The noise from the Lemon Snap died instantly, and Moody pulled a face as he swallowed the candy, choosing to chase it with a swig of Fire Whiskey.

"You saw it, then," remarked Moody by way of greeting when Albus strode back behind his desk and sat down, a grim expression etched on his lined face.

Mad-Eye Moody did not need to elaborate on what 'it' was, in this case.

"I did. I am inclined to agree with your assumption that it would seem that Miss Tonks continues to remain in grave danger and will not be 'out of the woods,' so to speak until Mr. Crouch is captured," Dumbledore began solemnly.

Moody gave a silent nod, signaling he understood, though there was a look back in the forest clearing earlier, in Remus Lupin's eyes that he did not quite understand.

"Albus," he began gruffly, his voice brazen and gruff as he rose from his chair, wincing at the stiffness in his joints as he did so. Merlin's beard, but he was getting too old for this. Every one of his damned joints bloody well ached. "I'll lead a search team, see if we can't track Crouch's movements. If I know men like that _scumbag_ , and I like to think that I do," Moody growled angrily, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he regarded Professor Dumbledore, who was observing the grizzled old Auror in somber silence, "he's going to want to come after her. Finish what he started, the slimy git," he insulted. "Tonks is in danger."

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "She is. Though I must admit, I feel much safer knowing that she has a good man like Remus by her side to help her during this difficult time. I do not think that, given I've had time to reflect on it, that Professor Snape was the suitable choice for her as a partner in the Order. No. I think these two will be…a much better match for each other, in time, I am inclined to believe, perhaps maybe more than that."

"What of Lupin, sir?" Moody asked as he hobbled towards the Phoenix statue which would escort him back downstairs. "Should he be informed, sir?"

Albus furrowed his gray brows into a frown, weighing the pros and cons of telling the much younger man of the fact that Crouch fully intended to come after Miss Tonks again.

For now, he was inclined to believe his hunch that the young witch would be safe in Remus's care back at the Order's headquarters.

"No. Speak nothing of our conversation here tonight to him, Alastor," he answered softly, at last.

The look of abject shock and horror must have been evident on Alastor's face, for Professor Dumbledore felt his beard twitch without prompting as the older man lifted his chin and jutted it out slightly defiantly, to better meet Moody's piercing gaze.

"I think that such information now would only upset the pair of them, and added stress, given the severe scope of her injuries and we don't know how long she will need to recover, is the _last_ thing Miss Tonks needs at the moment, would you not say? And…correct me if I am wrong in this regard, though I must confess, I am almost never wrong when it comes to matters such as this, but…. Would you not say you _saw_ _something_ tonight, Alastor? I cannot quite explain it, though Remus does seem to care for her, in his own way, though I do not believe him to be aware of his own feelings, Alastor."

Mad-Eye snorted, his grip on his walking stick tightening. "That he is not," he grunted sardonically in response. "I think that you are right in that they will make good partners, but…you saw something _else_ in his eyes, didn't you, Albus?"

Professor Dumbledore felt his beard instinctively give another twitch as the corners of his mouth turned upward in a half-little smirk, and one of his lids gave a little twitch as well.

Of course, he had seen _something_ and had every right to suspect that his instincts would, in time, prove to him once again, that he was right, though he had no intention of letting anyone in the Order know of this.

Though he did know that Remus had spent entirely too much time alone, brooding, and lost in a vicious cycle of depression, melancholia, and self-hatred, of which all were entirely unwarranted behaviors, and what little he did know of Nymphadora Tonks was that she too, was something of a loner, regarded as an outcast at the Ministry of Magic's Auror Office for her unique appreciation for the Muggle world, given that her father, Ted, was Muggle-born.

She was smart. Incredibly smart to qualify as an Auror at such a young age, the youngest in the Ministry of Magic's history, to Albus's knowledge, and he considered himself a man who knew a great many things. Resilient, stronger than anyone gave her credit for, for he himself had never heard of a young witch climbing up an entire woodland ravine sans the use of magic with a Splinched arm, a stab wound in her ribcage, and a broken ankle.

Miss Tonks's strength was...truly remarkable, and unliked anything Albus had ever seen before.

Hopefully in time, just the companion that Remus John Lupin needed to find some small semblance of peace.

Though he could not very well alert anyone of his true intentions as to their newfound partnership, so Professor Dumbledore chose to offer Alastor a kind but knowing little smirk, an interesting gleam twinkling in his cobalt orbs.

"I can neither _confirm_ nor _deny_ the truth to that statement, Alastor," he said airily, dismissing the aging Auror's claim with a curt brush of his weathered hand.

Mad-Eye Moody's eyebrows shot so far up onto his lined forehead that they almost disappeared into his hairline, though he offered no follow-up comment or snide remark, for which Albus was grateful.

The Auror barely succeeded in hiding a yawn from him, and a quick glance at the clock on the mantle above the door told him it was now just past six o'clock in the morning. _What a long bloody night_. "Good night, Professor. Or morning, I guess I should say," he grumbled.

Dipping his head in acknowledgment, Mad-Eye Moody shoved his scarred hands into the pockets of his trench coat and stepped onto the stone platform behind the statue and Albus waited until the statue had effectively swiveled its way slowly down the stairwell and out of his office as it escorted Alastor out of his office.

The Hogwarts Headmaster heaved a heavy sigh and felt his shoulders slump and he rested his elbows on his desk and rested his chin in his hands.

_What a long night indeed_ , he thought tiredly, feeling his eyelids start to droop out of sheer fatigue and exhaustion.

And it was going to be an even longer one for Miss Tonks…


	16. A Surprise Visitor

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN **

Her vision slowly but surely cleared.

Tonks felt her heavy eyelids flutter open as she blearily awoke to the frigid cold of a room whose walls were painted white.

There were flowers, beautiful oil paintings, leather chairs, and soft music.

The young witch lay there quietly a moment, keeping her eyes closed, willing her breaths to slow down until her wave of nausea passed her as she fought back the urge to vomit.

What in Merlin's _beard_ kind of medication had they given her? The only indications of her heartbeat, her existence, that she had not somehow died, was the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her legs felt numb.

Curiosity slowly pried her swollen eyes open to meet the dismal view of the door across from her bed, the door a dark navy blue color. Tonks knew immediately that the door was locked, sealed with protective enchantments, that this was to keep her in _here_ , not _them_ out.

Them being Remus Lupin and her parents.

Outside this room could be anything, anyone. There was nothing even to mark the time. Would someone come in five minutes or five hours? Days? Would she even _know_ the difference by that point? She slid her eyes sideways. Short but plenty deep cuts ran along her arms, beyond that was her chart.

**Name** : Nymphadora Tonks

**Status** : Unstable

**Admittance** : 3:45 a.m.

**Cause of admittance** : multiple lacerations, Splinched arm. Shown signs of nerve damage to her wand hand. Requires extensive physical therapy. A danger to self, others.

**Diagnosis** : Unknown. Recommend keeping overnight for 2-3 days for observation. Will reassess patient needs if the mental and physical condition improves.

**Duration** : Unknown.

Known caretakers: Andromeda Tonks (mother), Edward Tonks (father), Remus Lupin (partner and designated guardian.)

Tonks could not stop the scowl at seeing the label of 'partner' by Remus's name, though her eyes were currently fixated under the 'diagnosis' tab, and her eyes widened in shock and horror at the thought of spending yet one more minute in this unfamiliar room that smelled like bleach. She had _had_ a partner…

" _Ollie_ ," she whispered, unable to stop the crack and dip in her voice as visions of the young Auror's face flitted through her mind, and she ground her jaw.

_No. You're not going to let this new man Dumbledore assigned you to go the same way as him, remember?_

Her conscience prodded her to forget thoughts of Ollie for now and forced herself to return her attention to the more pressing matter at hand: her imprisonment here.

2-3 _days_?! _Trapped_ in St. Mungo's?!

Tonks could remember not liking the lead Healer that had been assigned to treat her, though she was blanking on the man's name. He was thin and ginger, that was all the young Auror needed to know.

His voice came out like he had a grass reed for a tongue, and he was way too skinny for Tonks to be able to fully trust this guy.

He walked like his damn legs were stilts with a hinge at the knees. When he had come in earlier to check on her, finding her just barely cognizant of her surroundings and had spoken to her, Tonks had found her gaze inexplicably drawn to the man's balding head.

_Too small,_ she'd thought. _He can't get much of a brain in there, can he_? When he had changed the dressings on her hand, she had to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming, and the moment the Healer had put the sling on her wand arm, the very same one that had been Splinched, Tonks had wanted to reach right out of her bed and snatch the concerned look right off his damned freckled face. A strong slap might be enough, though.

She wanted to block out the man's words, but she remembered her new partner had been watching her. And she had not wanted to appear rude, so she'd bitten her tongue, stayed silent.

_"You're going to be in excellent hands here at St. Mungo's, Miss Tonks,"_ he had said, and the Healer had exchanged a knowing little look with Remus. " _Is there anything we can do to make your stay here more comfortable, miss_?"

_Yes_ , she'd said in a rare fit of meanness. _You can let me out of here and let me go home_. Though the man had laughed off her comment as sarcasm, though it had been Lupin who had come to Tonks's defense, claiming not to upset her and do anything further to exacerbate her injuries, which she'd not anticipated.

Tonks's gaze had remained fixated on Remus, however, whose gaze kept nervously darting back and forth between her as she lay propped up against several pillows, and that of the Healer, who did not seem to notice his growing angst.

She had not been able to understand why her new partner, a man who barely knew her, had taken such an intense interest in her own personal well-being.

Tonks had remembered her uninjured hand curling into a fist underneath the heated blanket the Healer had carefully draped over her lap and tucked it securely.

She knew now why she hated his guts. He was just like that guy that had tried to take her on a date back when she'd attended Hogwarts.

_Untrustworthy filthy liar_.

She seethed and bit her cheek as she cursed the scrawling initials of the Healer that had signed the order at the bottom of her chart.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and moved her fingers behind her head and felt the soft pillow, and it was only then that she felt the trembling in her wand hand, and when she removed her hand from out from underneath her, she bit the inside wall of her cheek, blinking back tears, as she lifted her shaking hand to study the extent of the damage, to pray to Merlin Above that the chart was _wrong_. She attempted to make a fist and flex her fingers.

_Big_ mistake. White-hot searing pain shot up her arm like a bolt of lightning. Her hand was shaking so badly, she doubted she could even get a grip on a coffee mug or a quill, much less that of her wand, whenever she was well enough to travel to Ollivander's to buy a new one. _Damn_. She blinked back tears.

This…this _wasn't_ supposed to happen. Not like this. Why _her_?! Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek to keep from crying out in pain.

Her body felt strangely numb and yet at the same time, it ached all over. Her mind churned as she struggled to regulate her breaths to something that resembled normalcy, already clamoring for relief to come to her. Merlin, what she wouldn't give for just a shot of Fire Whiskey. Anything to dull and numb the pain, make her forget.

Glancing upward from the pristine white bed with the heated blanket draped over her lap that she found herself in, Tonks desperately tried to steady herself, attempting to comprehend what was going on around her and what part of St. Mungo's she was in. What floor, what ward she was being detained in.

Where Remus Lupin and her parents were. Tonks bit down on her tongue and felt her brows knit together in quandary.

She was sure, yes, she was sure, that several hours ago, she could have sworn she heard the three of them arguing, though about what, Tonks didn't know, but she was curious to know the answer for herself.

_Perhaps if my new partner visits later, he'll tell me the truth…_

Tonks had asked to see him, and for reasons unknown for her, the St. Mungo's staff was not allowing Lupin to see her, which she did not understand why that was.

There was a small part, perhaps foolishly so, that had hoped he would be here when she woke up. At least then, she would have had someone to talk to and she did not get a chance to properly thank him.

She wanted to do it now, while she was awake and was able to think more clearly, now that she was, for the moment, out of the worst of her danger, but he had not shown up to see her yet this morn.

She could only pray for it. He had saved her life. And she hadn't exactly gotten to properly thank the man. Though she was not entirely sure if she trusted him fully yet, Tonks, even in her state of semi-deliriousness in the woods, hadn't been able to detect a single trace of malice or deceit in the man's light brown eyes.

_He'd gotten that strange look in his eyes when I tried to thank him_.

At that thought, she furrowed her brows into a frown. Though she had no spare time to dwell on the strange expression she'd seen last night in her partner's eyes when she had whispered thank you to him in her moment of lucidity before she had passed out again.

As though a woman had never _thanked_ him before in his life.

Tonks winced and bit the inside wall of her cheek as her legs felt shaky and were she not already lying down if she had been standing, she felt sure she would have fainted.

Tonks clenched her eyes shut as her face contorted as a painful spasm shot its way up her wand hand and traveled all the way up and down her spine.

Never before in her life had she experienced such horrible pain. Like _ever_.

Tonks could feel her head—or was that the room? —spinning ultimately, as her jaw locked and clenched up tightly and she collapsed back against her many pillows in horribly fatigued exhaustion.

Tonks let out a tiny groan and there was a horrible constricting on her throat, like the weight itself was sucking out her last possible breath.

The young subdued Auror sighed, her once tranquil face now seeming like she was struggling to breathe, and you could see it in her haunted gray orbs.

Slowly, the pressure within her throat tightened. Tonks struggled to sit up straighter against her pillows, her fingers curling into a tight fist around the strangely soft goose feather down blanket, the softest damned blanket she'd ever felt in her life, and she knew that the St. Mungo's staff carried no such blanket. _Did—did Lupin give me this, then?_ Tonks wondered, frowning.

She glanced down at the strange blanket draped and securely tucked over her lap, they must have done it when she'd still been asleep. _Strange. Very weird…_

Tonks knew for a fact the St. Mungo's staff used no such blankets when the Healers were making their rounds.

_So where did this come from, then? Remus?_

The young witch heaved a groan and put her shaking, uninjured hand to her forehead. Her poor head from where the back of her skull had hit the ground when she'd accidentally Disapparated into that stupid ravine throbbed and hurt.

It hurt as hell. The pain felt like someone had taken another knife to her skull. She rested her back against the pillow. Squeezing her eyes shut, she swallowed hard past the growing lump in her throat and the swells of nausea that churned her stomach, silently willing and pleading for the pain and hurt go leave her be.

The ache was dull as if some lazy torturer were standing right behind her, applying just enough pressure to be an annoyance.

The rest of her world here in the sequestered private room in St. Mungo's had become detached completely.

All Tonks could concentrate on was the pain rooted deep in her head. She could barely hear the other voices speaking lowly just outside her room's door.

No doubt someone coming to check on her. She could not stop the small flicker of hope that ignited as a small ember flame in the confines of her chest.

Tonks hoped that it would be Remus. She needed to thank the man already so her conscience could be at peace with the role he had played in saving her life.

Everything was a hazy blur. All she felt, all she knew, was the pain in her head, of this moment.

The young Auror let out another moan and glanced around her room at the strange, unfamiliar surroundings of her private room in St. Mungo's.

No lights were on to provide light, nor were any candles or fires lit to provide warmth, and as a result, the room was bathed in shadow, but a man's face burned as bright as midnight torches, black against white.

" _You_ ," she snarled angrily.

Tonks wildly glanced to her left and right to see if there was anything on the night table worth throwing at Professor Snape.

Nothing there.

_Good for Snivellus then, I guess_ , she thought, _pissed_ , as she dared to lift her chin as much as possible. The young witch bit the inside wall of her cheek and furrowed her brows into a frown. Tonks swallowed nervously as the man pointed his wand at the door.

" _Muffliato_!" he called out in his usual monotone, drawling voice of his before stowing his wand back in his pocket.

In his hands, he twirled methodically and slowly a tiny glass vial containing an unfamiliar liquid to Nymphadora. _Poison?! He—he can't be serious. He wouldn't. Dumbledore would murder him himself if he touched another Order member, or—or Lupin probably would, way he was acting last night during…_ she thought, feeling panic rise within her.

_Damn_. Tonks clenched her jaw in anger, though she dared not avert her gaze.

Whatever Snape wanted to say or do to her, he would have complete control over her to do.

Tonks swallowed nervously as Professor Snape slowly emerged out of the shadows and towards her bed, as she could practically see the loathing that spiraled in the man's blackened eyes, no doubt a result of the trouble she'd caused him.

She had been hoping that perhaps Mum or Dad would be by her side, or her new partner, Remus, when she woke, but now, as she looked into those jet-black inky pools that were the Potions Professor's eyes, Tonks was unnerved, given that the only emotion she could currently discern in the man's orbs was disdain and dislike.

A hatred for _her_ , of which Tonks felt she was undeserving of.

As she had done nothing wrong. Or…had she? She couldn't quite remember. She must have hit her head more than she thought.

"Wh—what are _you_ doing in here?" she snarled, cringing as she struggled to sit up, as her Splinched arm in its damned sling was preventing her from moving as comfortably as she'd have liked.

Tonks knitted her brows together in confusion and felt one arch in Snape's general direction as she bluntly refused to avert her gaze from those listless eyes.

"Are you hear to yell at me, Snape? Do you want to hear that I'm _sorry_? Well, I'm _sorry_. There I said it. What _else_ do I have to convince you?"

Snape furrowed his black brows into a frown and scowled, keeping his arms folded across his chest. " _Die_." He said it so casually, so matter-of-factually, that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.

Tonks scowled and knitted her brows together in confusion and agitation. "Oh, _very_ clever, Snivellus, that's _so_ original," she spat, disgusted. "Eat any good _books_ lately?" she snapped, feeling her temper swell in agitation, though she refused to avert her gaze first.

Nor he, it would seem, from hers. There was something else in the Potions Master's black eyes, much like her father tended to take on a darkened hue whenever he was angry about something (which, thank Merlin, was very rare).

Something that Tonks was not quite sure she could identify. Something that strangely resembled hatred and frustration and even worse…a burning animosity.

For _her_.

Tonks gulped, blinking. She did not know how to react or call for help with no wand, and even if her wand weren't damaged beyond repair, then there was the matter of the incessant, uncontrollable shaking of her wand hand.

It would be futile for her to even attempt utterance and casting of a spell or jinx to get this greasy-haired maggot-infested _scum_ out of her room if she couldn't even hold her wand steady. The jinx could backfire and hit her instead.

Nope. Her best way out of this unpleasant surprise encounter was to annoy him enough to get him to want to leave of his own volition, but… She could not help but ask him again, hoping to prompt him to answer.

"Why are you _here_ , Snape?" she asked again, unable to keep the note of bitterness from seeping into her tone, feeling her words drip as venomous honey from her tongue.

Tonks inhaled a sharp breath of cold air that wafted in through the open barred window as a shaft of sunlight momentarily illuminated the room.

The young witch blinked owlishly as she glowered up at the Potions Professor and it was only when the ray of sunlight fell on Snape that Tonks realized with a heavy pit forming in her stomach that Snape's right hand was pushing down against her pillow, just beside her left ear, and his left hand lingered above the pale column of her throat, which was highly inappropriate, causing her to frown.

Snape's spindly fingers did not move from her throat and Tonks's one good hand, her fingers had not moved in a pitiful attempt to force his hand off of her.

Instead, she emanated a tense exhale and forced her body to relax, closing her eyes as if Professor Severus Snape were the hooded figure of Death Himself, come to take her to that place in the sky above like an old friend.

_Do it, then_ , she told him in impossible telepathy, knowing that he was probably using his Occlumency skills on her even now. _Get it over with, Snivellus. Go on. Kill me_.

Tonks felt a tremor of fear and something that could only be described as fury as she felt the goose feather down blanket slowly slide to the floor, and she made a mad dive for the blanket and failed to latch onto the damned heated blanket.

This sweet, precious heated blanket was the only barrier that separated Snape against her body. Snape frowned and crinkled his nose at Tonks in disgust.

"You must be truly _out of your mind_ , Nymphadora, if you think _that's_ what I'm here for. You must have hit your head harder than I was led to believe, but luckily for me, I'm no longer your partner and thank _Merlin_ for that. Let the _wolf_ share in your miserable suffering, and if you're lucky, the _dog_ will share your bed and do us all a favor and maybe he'll give you his _fleas_ and they'll make themselves a home in that _rat's nest_ you dare to call your _hair_ , Tonks. Only a _wolf_ would dare to be with a _bitch_. You and Remus are perfect for one another. I couldn't be happier. _Truly_." he spat poisonously, sounding thoroughly disgusted and repulsed by such an idea.

She felt her jaw drop open as she bristled as Severus Snape's poisonous words.

Tonks could feel her shoulders tense and her teeth bare at the insult, though considering by this point in her adult life, she was used to such treatment from Snape, and if truth be told, she was still feeling rather miserable, she had no comeback to retort and merely opted to favor silence as the only apt response.

He made her so incredibly _angry_. The two of them were a complete mismatch as partners in the Order right from the start.

A poor calculation of error on Dumbledore's part. Snape seemed constantly determined to ruin her life and was so bloody damned _good_ at it.

She _hated_ Snape _so_ very much, with every fiber of her being. Their 'relationship,' if Tonks could even call it that, was not pleasant.

It was verbally abusive with how often the two of them traded insults like it was a Quidditch match, with each keeping score, bordering on physically abusive at times, unfortunately, though Tonks knew not all the fault lay with Snape.

They were both guilty of it. Tonks didn't like that Snape brought out an aggressive side to her personality, one that she actively sought to keep buried deep within herself.

What was _wrong_ with them?!

Both of them…he _hated_ her, and yet, here he was, in her room, alone, and looking quite like he wanted to strangle her now.

Snape, Tonks thought, was looking rather haggard, if judging by the darkened circles under the insufferable man's eyes was anything for the Auror to go off.

Even more so than usual, which was really saying something for the greasy-haired sleazeball _trash_. Though, something the man said gave her pause. "He's…"

_Oh, I knew it! Remus Lupin is a werewolf. That would explain the scars on his face, and his surly attitude last night gave the full moon ended five nights ago_.

Tonks winced as she could feel her eyes become wide and round with shock as the full realization and the reasons for her new partner's strange behavior hit her as though she had been doused in ice water.

Though Tonks did not let on to the Potions Master that she had figured out why her new partner in the Order had acted so hostile last night, not just towards her resisting his help, to her parents as well. It was all coming back to her now. Tonks paused and frowned.

It was not her business to reveal to Remus

that she had figured out what she knew was perhaps his darkest kept secret, and for a brief moment, she felt a stab of pity prick at her heart for the man.

She could not fathom what kind of life he must be living, nor did she particularly want to envision it for herself right now.

Right now, she had a bigger problem, and that problem's name was Snape.

Tonks knew that, in his own time, when Remus was comfortable and opened up to her more, she hoped that one day, he would be willing to confide in her.

Until then, she would wait for him to come to her, but for now…

_Need to get Snape out of my room before he tries anything stupid. Or I do_ , she thought.

Tonks swallowed nervously and licked her lips, wanting to put an end to their conversation.

" _Then why are you here, Snivellus_?" she shouted, her gray eyes flashing.

The fact that Professor Snape still had not removed his hand from her throat sent a swell of a riot in her mind. She could—she could scream. Call for help. _Call for Remus_.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as she could see the perspiration that glistened on Severus's dark brows, currently furrowed in a frown, his inhales, the faint stench of fading red wine on his breath, made her crinkle her nose in disgust, and she knew that Severus had seen it for himself.

Tonks decided that calling for help would prove a wasted effort, as no one would hear it until the Muffliato Spell had run its course, so she had no choice.

The young witch would have to hear the Potions Master out, to listen to him.

She let out a hiss as the palm of his hand felt startlingly smooth against the skin of her bruised and battered collarbones, how they were cold and practically trembling with anger told Nymphadora Tonks one thing.

That Snape's foundations were his own fury and pain, his own burden to bear by himself, and it all currently dripped as poisonous venom to her throat, which he held hostage.

Tonks steeled the muscles in her face, actively refusing to avert her gaze first.

So long as she appeared neutral, then everything would be fine, and Severus Snape would have no reason to hate her, though the Auror knew he didn't need one.

Through a swirl of sickening fears raging like an angry storm at sea inside her aching and throbbing head, came her mum's voice, casual and light, forever the optimistic one, whereas her father, Ted, tended to take a more pessimistic stance on the world and the way that it was heading, as the wizarding community prepared for war against Lord Voldemort and his followers, even if they didn't know it.

As usual, from Mum she could not hide her problems for more than a few seconds, but what in Merlin's name could she do in this little situation, pray to tell?

Nymphadora Tonks was trained to mask panic with apathy the day that she was old enough to learn of the Unforgiveable Curses when she was six years old.

And how she learned how some of the wizarding community treated her father, Ted. Called him a Mudblood, mocked him behind his back, teased him.

Though Tonks could not help but cling to that last shred of hope that burned as a small flickering ember flame in her chest. Just a tiny flicker against the wind.

But it was enough.

She still held out hope that there was even the remotest chance that someone as _foul_ as Snape could change, and perhaps while she was not hoping for a reconciliation of what had happened last night, she had been foolish to assume to think that he would not have wanted to address it with her, and now… _this_.

Tonks was beginning to wonder if thinking along these lines was a mistake, not giving in to the Potions Professor's ire like this because she let out a breathy little squeak as the man's strong fingers gripped around her neck deeper.

She felt her lips part open as she gave out a tiny cough, struggling to draw in more air. Tonks felt her gaze become steel and cold as she glowered at Snape.

_Do it_ , she challenged angrily, knowing full well he was using his Legilimency right now. _If you've got the gall, then kill me. End my misery right now, Snivellus_.

Tonks gasped and choked with the vain effort to remove the man's fingers from her throat, clawing pitifully at his hands with her one good hand, and it was only when she started coughing that Snape's eyes widened as he realized what he was doing, and he immediately relinquished his grip upon Tonks's throat, as though the very feel of her skin against his own had…burned him, somehow.

Snape stumbled backward a few steps, and upon seeing a chair tucked away in the corner of the room, seemed to think that more efficient than standing and lingering in the shadows with his arms folded across his chest and a scowl formed.

He closed off the gap of space between his current location by Tonks's bedside and the corner of the room.

Snape's frown deepened as the chair's legs noisily scraped along with the linoleum tile of the room, though he seemed to have forgotten he'd cast the _Muffliato_ charm on the door.

Severus did not speak to Tonks until he'd gotten himself situated in the chair next to her bed and glowered at her.

Snape snorted and rolled his eyes, his lips pursed into a thin line. "I don't think I need to explain to you why your behavior last night was so incredibly _stupid_ , Nymphadora," he spat venomously, his baritone voice echoing like thunder on Tonks's ears.

A tense and tired exhale escaped the Potions Master, that was quickly drowned out by the sound of the young Auror turning her head to the side and coughing, gasping for air, one hand clutching her throat, and she flinched as she could practically feel the indentations where his fingers had left markings.

_Remus won't be happy about this if he finds out about this and he sees the markings later when he visits. IF he visits me_ , she thought and bit the inside wall of her cheek, furrowing her brows into a frown as she still struggled to process the fact that her new partner was a werewolf.

She supposed that would explain his possessiveness towards her last night, and why the man hadn't stopped fretting.

Tonks wildly continued coughing and inhaling the air in the room until her heartbeats resumed their normal rhythm, and she sighed and closed her eyes, collapsing her head back against the pillow as she tried to force her body to relax in its movements, the fingers of her good hand resuming tight fists around the blanket that she hastily picked off the floor and draped it back over her thighs.

The way Snape's black eyes burned as lit coals and when they narrowed to mere slits and resembled the slit-like pupils of the _snake_ she knew the Head of Slytherin House to be, sent a shiver of revulsion down Tonks's spine as she glared.

Normally, Nymphadora had never approved of insults to describe someone like Severus Snape, who Tonks firmly believed was not necessarily worth the effort.

It seemed too far cruel for someone who she knew had more to offer. There was more to Snape.

Tonks could see it. "You have sad eyes, Snape," she remarked coldly, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she watched Severus startle.

And on that observation, she was not incorrect, necessarily. He did.

There was a tinge of melancholia in the man's black eyes, so at least Tonks could determine that Snape felt _something_ other than unbridled rage and animosity.

Though what that 'thing' was, only Severus knew, and it was his business, and his alone.

"Is _that_ why I'm here?" he snapped, still keeping his arms crossed. "To talk about our _feelings_?" he spat, Snape's cold and listless gaze fixated on Nymphadora.

"I don't know, Severus, why _are_ you here. I assume it's not for the pleasure of my company, though I'm told it's _exquisite_." She grimaced as she offered him a charming white smile, which he did not react to. Her smile faltered and her frown instantly returned. "You tell _me_ , Snape. Why _did_ you come to see me? What is it that you want?"

Tonks tried to shrug her shoulders but found it painful and difficult with her Splinched arm in its sling, which she was to wear a few weeks.

However, now as Tonks blinked owlishly at the sallow-faced, raven-haired man who she had once been forced to call her partner, she could think of no other word for Snape other than to call him a git.

His dark silhouette seemed like he towered over her, even while sitting in his chair like he was, the faint light streaming in from the open window coming to rest on his face, bathing half his face in light, the other in shadow.

It seemed to take Snape an eternity to find his voice.

"Why did you leave?" His voice was unusually quiet and soft, with no malice.

Tonks was quite flustered and could not immediately form an apt response.

The pink-haired Auror could come up with no other term than to describe Snape now in his current agitated state.

_Snakelike_ , she thought and shivered.

Her fingers tightened on the blanket as she snuggled deeper underneath it, though Tonks let out a muffled squeak of fear as Snape shouted it at her again.

"Have you gone _deaf_ now, Nymphadora? I asked you a question. Answer it." He growled, and Tonks shivered at the use of her first name, which had poured unchecked and unprovoked from the man's lips as she thought of why he was here, and when he did not repeat himself, Tonks could only blink at the man.

Snape was…truly something of a contradiction, Tonks knew. He claimed not to care, and yet, he was here, seemingly of his own volition to share in a dialogue with her.

_Why_?! The one question as an Auror that she always tried to answer first when trying to ascertain a Dark Wizard's motives for committing a crime. Why?

Why was Snape here? Why did he want to talk to her, and what did he want?

The one question that Tonks could not answer, and she knew now as she looked into the Potions Master's black eyes devoid of all feeling except for one.

A burning animosity for her.

Tonks swallowed nervously as she realized there was no way out of this…

She was well and truly trapped. With _him_...


	17. Confrontation

**A/N: I hope I didn't make Severus too out of character here, but I wanted to explore a different side of him that shows that, in his own way, he's not so bad, and...well, I don't want to spoil too much. You'll have to read for yourself and make your own conclusions on Snape!**

**On with the show!**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Whenever Tonks was around Severus Snape, it was always the same, a crushing pain on one side of her head that came and went in a vicious pattern.

It made her want to pace about, though given her current physical state, she couldn't. Her left eye had started watering with unshed tears on the painful side and she had to sniff to keep her nose from running. Tonks hated it.

A lot.

It was the same as her dad used to get and she remembered just how much empathy she'd had for her old man when she was just a little girl. Even today, he still got those bloody damned headaches, and now she did.

It was embarrassing, Dad staggering through their house, a hand clamped to his tuft of dark brown hair, crying, and wiping snot on his sleeve. Now it was his daughter's turn for these cluster headaches, and it was hard for her to think whenever they struck, though they were worse whenever she was around him.

_Snape_. Just the _thought_ of her former partner's name was enough to chill her hot blood to ice in her veins, and Tonks shivered, and though Snape scowled at the young woman's lack of response, the Potions Professor made no mention of the young witch's growing discomfort, for which she was grateful.

Tonks flinched and shirked away as the sallow-faced man seated next to her bedside snarled, not out of fear, though, but she hadn't exactly anticipated waking up from sleep this morning to find her partner not present in the room with her, and to find Severus Snape hovered over her, his hand on her throat like that, and was ill-prepared to offer him an apt response to his question, let alone an answer that Tonks knew would satisfy him and get him off her back.

She swallowed nervously, and her throat felt dry and parched. "I…" Tonks stammered, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she attempted to sit up straighter, all the while clutching the edges of the blanket draped over her lap.

But Professor Snape did not give the young Auror a chance to respond with her answer as he promptly held up a hand and cut her off, folding one leg over the other and still continued to keep his arms folded across his broad chest.

"It is clear you do not need to explain yourself to me or justify your stupid actions for your inexcusable behavior last night. You are a foolish woman who has no regard for the meaning of your own life," he growled poisonously. "It was stupid of you to risk your life by going off alone without me after him."

Tonks ceased her nervous fidgeting with the blanket and as her movements stilled, she looked up at Severus in astonishment, as the briefest flickers of fear and anger darted through her steely-cold gray orbs.

She felt her lips part open slightly in shock, but no words immediately came to mind to say.

The young Auror watched as Professor Snape sighed and looked at her with those black eyes of his. So far, in all the years that she had known Snape, she had never seen any other emotion in the man's dark eyes but contempt.

Severus Snape's eyes matched the way he felt towards the world: dark and cold. The whites of the man's eyes contrasted sharply with the pitch-black iris that sunk deep into Severus's sockets.

Their depths resembled that of a black hole in space, an air of eeriness, and unsettling coldness emanating from his gaze. But now, it looked as though they embraced the wind. A brief gust before calming down to something that resembled normalcy. Tonks frowned.

Staring into Severus Snape's eyes, she was shocked to see nothing inside. Nothing. It was as if the man's eyes were a depth of never-ending darkness combined with a large amount of charcoal being thrown at her.

She blinked, attempting to think this was a small side effect of her newfound paranoia, but nothing about them changed. Severus's eyes remained black. Pure black. Dark.

She had expected to see ocean blue irises, but instead, she saw a small portal of Tartarus, just waiting for her to dive in and he'd claim her soul as his.

The man's eyes were a bottomless pool of darkness, she knew this, but still, that did not deter her from trying to find the bottom. There was an unspoken bundle of sorrow swimming in them, and she could not explain it, but she felt the overwhelming desire to learn what could possibly give him such a melancholic look, but there was a fierceness and stubborn pride in them as well, and Tonks knew Severus Snape would never accept any help from her.

Those were the man's eyes, so intense, that Tonks could not avert her gaze. And even now, as Severus's dark piercing gaze glinted at her from his perch on the chair next to her bedside, his voice as he said something to her that she missed because she was so intently focused on the man's eyes, his voice sounded listless, dull in nature, and Tonks decided that she didn't like it at all.

She drew in a breath and held it, pursing her lips into a thin, rigid line as the man leaned back in his chair, concealing his face once more in the shadows, so that all Tonks could see of Snape were those black pinpricks that were his eyes.

The young witch let out a barely audible whimper of frustration, closing her eyes. And though Tonks could no longer read the emotions in Snape's face since he was effectively hiding from her, more or less, she could sense that he was not angry with her, but strangely bitter.

_But_ _why_? He had _no_ place in her life. This man was merely an acquaintance, given they were both Order members, as she was to him. They were not emotionally invested in each other.

He should not be here. Though the fact that Snape did show up suggested to Tonks that, in his own small way, perhaps there wasa part of the man that had managed to find it within himself to care for her own well-being.

She snorted and found it incredibly difficult not to roll her eyes at that.

Tonks did not have enough time to process why the Potions Master was behaving so strangely, why the man had stayed with her like this, seemingly watching her while she slept, with no one else in the room, which raised a red flag.

Just that fact alone was enough to disturb her, and she swallowed hard.

"Where are my parents? Where's Remus?" Tonks demanded hotly. She breathed in a slightly shaking breath as she felt her fingers' grip loosen upon the blanket and she let her hands fall to her lap as she cast her gaze downward to her lap, not wanting to meet the Potion's Master's cold, listless, black eyes.

"Is that…a flicker of _affection_ that I hear in your voice for Lupin, Nymphadora?" he jeered, ignoring Tonks's growing look of anger.

To that, Tonks had no response prepared, which only goaded Snape even further.

"Why, just last night, you were ready to rip the man's throat out like the savage dog I know you to be. Quite a disappointment that you did not succeed and do the world a favor and rid us all of that man's boorishness and brazen attitude. Yes, there it is," he taunted, folding his arms across his chest. "There's that look. _Affection_. _Caring_ ," he spat the word as though it were poison on his tongue. "I do believe that it is. _Good_. As long as it isn't me, then fawn away over your precious _wolf_ like a dog in heat for all I care, because I _don't_. You must be…truly _desperate_ , to seek that man's attention. Your parents are at home. Your…new partner," he sneered, the edges of his lips curling upwards into something that she could only describe as a twisted smirk. "Is patiently waiting just outside to see you, though he does not know that I am here. It _stays_ that way unless you value the loss of that tongue of yours that must be hung in the middle so that it can wag at both ends, witch," he growled, and Tonks did not bother protesting.

She bit the inside wall of her cheek, frowning. Tonks responded in kind by biting her bottom lip and sticking it out in a slight pout.

She could not explain it, but the longer she stayed in this insufferable git's company, the more nervous she became and apprehensive.

Which she thought was most peculiar given how his strange behavior was not at all like the Potions Master that she had known during her time at Hogwarts.

Creasing her brows into a frown, she placed a hand on her forehead. Still warm and kind of feverish, and her stomach rolled and churned.

Snape furrowed his dark brows in a frown at her peckish state, glaring at the darkened circles underneath her eyes and the beads of sweat forming along her browbone and rolled his eyes, scoffing at the young Auror's physical state.

He did not immediately answer, which made her nostrils flare in antagonism at his lack of response.

"As soon as we're done talking, I'll pass along the word to your charming parents that you're up. And Lupin will know," he snapped, his tone sounding impatient. "No doubt the dog wants time to play with his new plaything," he snarled, bitterness in his voice evident.

Tonks sat rigidly against the barred headboard of her room's bed's headrest, propped up against the two thick pillows as best as she possibly could.

She watched, momentarily interested, as the man's foot began to tap restlessly. The young pink-haired witch swallowed back her fear and swells of nausea and tried not to shiver while all the while waiting with gritted teeth.

Whatever it was that Severus Snape wanted of her, whatever 'this' happened to be, Tonks wanted nothing more for than their conversation to come to an end and be left alone in peace.

If the man had scornful words to present to her and for she to have no other choice but to accept them and take his 'chastising advice' to heart, then so be it, and she wanted nothing more than to leave St. Mungo's, this accursed damned white room that smelled like bleach and Clorox and sleep on a couch or a soft, warm bed at Grimmauld Place.

However, their exchange thus far, Tonks had to admit it, had been a rather odd one, especially for Snape.

Thus far, the words he had spoken to her that had spilled from his thin, wormy lips had been nothing but hostile, full of animosity and contempt and the most creative insults he could think for her.

Tonks felt her heart sink to the pit of her churning stomach as Snape continued to glare at his former partner and fellow Order member, which in turn, not only made her feel quite helpless given the nature of her predicament, but also, she felt the beginnings surges of anger swell within that pit of her stomach, and the young pink-haired woman could swear she felt her blood pressure spike as she silently bristled in growing anger, her jaw muscle twitched.

She could feel the bile creep its way at its petty pace up her throat, though she swallowed it back, knowing if she vomited all over the man's black robes, then he would undoubtedly give her even more than seven shades of holy hell.

Tonks fell silent and waited for Snape to say something— _anything_ —just to break the thick, uncomfortable tension that lingered in the room's air.

The young Auror had fully been expecting and prepared to receive more than a few harsh, choice words from her parents, and maybe even to a lesser extent, from Professor Dumbledore even her new partner, Remus, for abandoning Snape and attempting to confront the Death Eater all on her own.

But not from Snape. Not from the very man whom she knew hated her, who, by all accounts and purposes, as her former partner, should want nothing further to do with her.

So why then, was Severus here now, conversing with her? This puzzled her more than anything else, the one question she couldn't answer.

Tonks felt herself frown as she lifted her chin slightly, jutting it out in defiance to meet the sallow-faced, greasy-haired git's wrathfully, icy glower.

Finally, after several long excruciating moments spent in this uncomfortable silence, Snape spoke to Tonks, effectively shattering the silence.

"You are an Auror, Nymphadora. The Auror Office takes only the brightest and best, and therefore, I am having difficulty believing why your actions last night seemed to make sense to you. You should be intelligent enough to know why going after Crouch _alone_ was an _extremely_ _foolish_ thing to do," he began, wrath and insurmountable anger dripping in his voice as he shifted in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, his foot still tapping.

Severus Snape's irritable expression with the fiery young witch still very much intact, much to Tonks's dismay.

No longer was his deep baritone voice listless and droll-sounding, possessing the qualities to effectively put her to sleep.

Now, Professor Snape's tone was rough and coarse, which, in a strange way, put Tonks's panicked and frazzled mind at ease. In her mind, it gave Snape a sense of vulnerability, which up until this point in their very much one-sided conversation, with Snape taking the lead, had been startlingly absent.

Snape sighed and leaned forward in his chair, peeking at her precariously through the dim light that streamed in through the window of her private room in St. Mungo's.

It looked like it was going to rain judging by the clouds outside.

Tonks blinked owlishly and shoved mindless thoughts of the weather of London aside for now and forced her attention to return back to Severus, who didn't look too pleased with the young witch blatantly ignoring his chastising.

The Potions Master looked exhausted. The skin under Severus's eyes darker, and sallow-looking, as if Snape hadn't slept well the last few hours.

This at the very least, if nothing else, he had in common with Tonks, whether he knew it or not. Severus Snape cocked his head to the side and regarded the young pink-haired witch precariously through the shadows as though she were some exotic, unstable creature, and he merely the spectator.

Like she was some…creature, kept under a microscope for observation.

The irony of which, Tonks thought, was not at all missed by the sharp-witted witch.

She had excelled in Potions during her time at Hogwarts as a student. A fact which she had always believed had caused great resentment from Snape, who did not like her and had sought after every excuse to see her suffer.

Tonks blinked owlishly at her former partner as Severus Snape's scathing voice dripping with hatred brought her back to her present conflict at hand.

Ending their conversation promptly so he would kindly remove his presence from her room. _He should consider himself fortunate that I can't use my wand hand right now, or I'd aim a Bat-Bogey Hex right at his chest…_

Their unexpected little 'meeting' this morning, if she could even call it that, was not exactly what Tonks had been expecting, honestly.

Tonks had fully been expecting Snape to call her some sort of name meant to insult her, really.

'Witch,' or 'succubus' or 'banshee' were among his favorite terms to use, or any number of horrible, brutally cutting things that Severus Snape could think of to cut her down in this moment, when she was physically weak and vulnerable.

His insults would most assuredly not help her temper, nor how she felt about matters, and as such, provoking her patience in this manner would surely only succeed in sending her blood pressure spiking and her heart into tremors.

She couldn't endure this right bloody now, not when she was still feeling ill and miserable if she were being honest with herself in the moment.

"I found him. Brennan, Snape, b—but it's not him, it's Crouch Sr.'s son, Severus, and he tried to…he—he called me Alice," Tonks whispered hoarsely, hearing and feeling her voice trail off as she bit the inside wall of her cheek and she pointedly watched Professor Snape's face, whose expression remained dull.

If he was surprised at her confession as to the true identity of the Death Eater they'd been keeping tabs on his movements for the last six months, the man gave no indication as such, but then, Snape was a master Legilimens.

Severus Snape stared at Tonks, his black eyes that haunting depth of endless ink a muddle of qualm as he stared at her with incredulity on his face.

"You Disapparated straight into the path of Barty Crouch Jr.," he growled flatly. "Let me just take a second to _process_ this, Nymphadora," Snape snapped, the edges of his flat, monotone voice growing cold and hardened, which made Tonks wince as she recognized the signs of his temper worsening.

"You went alone without me, without telling me where you were going, so that you could use yourself as bait for a sadistic Death Eater who's been known to torture and rape young woman to the brink of them losing their sanity, before brutally murdering them and tossing their bodies aside like discarded tissues," he snarled angrily. "That's pretty _stupid_ and _foolish_ of you, Tonks."

The words dripped from his tongue like poisoned honey. Angry at her and full of rage, and yet, there was something else lingering in the Potions Master's tones, an emotion that Tonks wasn't sure she could identify just yet.

Tonks blinked. The moment vanquished almost as soon as it had come as she processed the disgruntled man's words to her and she silently seethed.

"Well, then I guess we're _both_ disappointed in each other, then," Tonks retorted hotly, feeling her face flush red in anger, her fingers curled around her blanket as she struggled to sit up straighter in the bed. "It's not as if _you_ were any different, Snape. For I could ask the same of you. You were there, just as I was. You could have come with me, and we could have taken him together, because that's what _partners_ are _supposed_ to do, Snape, to look out for each other, and you didn't, you weren't, and you never gave a _damn_ about me!"

The young woman jumped and let out a squeak of fear and pain as a white-hot lightning bolt of agony ripped up her wand hand and down her spine, as Severus Snape balled his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the small night table, which was placed precariously next to her bedside, and wobbled dangerously on its thin legs as the sheer force of his blow struck it.

"It is different with me, you blind, bloody fool!" shouted Professor Snape hoarsely, glowering at the young witch from where he sat in his chair, and as he leaned forward in the chair, doing so only revealed the unhinged, slightly deranged look in the deep pools of black listlessness that were the man's eyes.

It freaked her out, though she would not give her former partner and Potions teacher the satisfaction of letting him see just how much he was beginning to scare her with his volatile and unpredictable behavior now.

Tonks felt her own temper bristle within her as the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright at the man's outburst.

" _How_?" she snapped, curling her one good hand into a fist, wincing only once as her wand hand shook with the pain of her poor fingers attempting to make a fist. "How is different, Snape?"

"Crouch preys on young women such as yourself, and for you to be out roaming the streets of London with no one to watch over you was stupid, and had Alastor and Lupin not shown up when they did, he would have _killed_ you," he shouted, narrowing his flashing, darkened orbs and exhaling slowly through his flaring nostrils, his fists unclenching and clenching in his lap, as if he was unsure of what to do with them. "I am all well too-aware of what you think of me. I _know_ what I am," he snarled bitterly. Snape's frown deepened and he bared his teeth, still keeping his arms folded across his chest. "The world holds no place for someone like me, but I have an advantage that you do not. I can move about freely wherever I wish. But not you, Nymphadora. Not you."

There was an awkward long pause, and Snape fumbled in the interior pocket of his black robes, and Tonks felt her body involuntarily stiffen, and she wasn't aware she'd drawn in abated breath and held it, though she emanated a tense exhale of relief once he procured something long lost and forgotten.

Something that she thought she would never see again in her new life.

" _Ptelea_ ," she breathed, her gray eyes widening with shock and delight as Snape wordlessly held out his hand as the tiny male Bowtruckle, perched on top of Professor Snape's palm, turned towards Snape and let out a muffled squeak of dislike and pursed its thin lips and blew a raspberry at the Potions Professor.

Tonks giggled at the Bowtruckle's antics and received the little woodland sprite with a rejuvenated sense of enthusiasm, and upon seeing tiny Ptelea, it seemed to breathe new life into her, and restored a little bit of color to her.

Severus rolled his eyes at the young witch's sentiment as the tiny woodland creature turned back around to face his owner and scoffed, biting his tongue as he heard the Bowtruckle's little squeak of delight at seeing Tonks, and promptly leaped off of the Potions Master's hand and on top her shoulder.

"Yes," Severus drawled, sounding thoroughly unimpressed, watching with a bored listlessness as Tonks allowed the small Bowtruckle to clamber up onto her shoulder, and she could have sworn the Potions Master flinched as he watched the little woodland creature give an affectionate nudge of her cheek with one of its leaves on its head.

"Professor Dumbledore has been caring for it during your…incapacitation, but he thought that, given the nature of your injuries and the amount of time it will take you to recover, that you could use a companion."

There was a long pause, and then the Potions Master snorted through his nose. "Only _you_ , Nymphadora, would name your Bowtruckle after a hamadryad, after the elm tree, correct?" he questioned, and she nodded.

Snape fell silent, though he did not avert his fuming, piercing gaze from Tonks, which was making her feel as though his very stare was burning a hole through her heart.

Something about the way Severus had just said her name gave the young witch pause, and she knitted her brows together in quandary.

Tonks knew she was anxious when she could feel the bitter London breeze that smelled of future rain and thunder to come more keenly in her eyes.

It was that bizarre tear-less stage when her eyes took on a sheen of water and tension built behind them. Tonks knew she needed to shake the feeling off.

Now was not the time nor the right place for her tears. Not in front of him.

And then it hit her, and Tonks felt her frown deepen as she scowled.

"You _do_ care for me." Just a five-letter statement, but the emphasis of her words and their meanings was enough to catch Severus Snape completely off his guarded, reserved manner, and he blinked in shock at the young witch.

Tonks did not know why she found this revelation so surprising, but the simple fact of the matter was, such as the reason for the tinge of melancholia in the man's black eyes.

He had…he had _worried_ for her last night. _Yes_!

It all made sense now. _That_ was why he had come to her room this morning, why he had thought to deliver Ptelea to her, why he was questioning her like this.

To see _her_.

Tonks coughed once to quell the lump forming in her throat. She hoped that when Remus came in, he would have brought water.

" _That's_ you're here, isn't it? You wanted to talk to me _alone_. Because you don't want people to see that there's a side of you that cares. That's why you didn't tell Remus you are here. You knew he wouldn't take it well, but…you wanted to see me. There _is_ a part of you that cares for me, in your own way, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not," she challenged the man softly but defiantly, though she was careful to keep her voice lowered and as un-accusatory as possible.

Snape blinked, startled by the young woman's quiet response, and his already ashen face blanched as he realized that he had inadvertently let something slip.

His posture became even more rigid than before as he bolted from the chair he'd been occupying, practically overturning it to head to the open window. His face was shrouded in shadow and his back to her, and she could not make out the features of his sallow face to see if he were visibly troubled by her question, though Tonks knew better.

She knew that he was.

"Forget that I said anything. For his name and that cretinous _betrayer_ that dares to call himself, your new _partner_ is immaterial to our discussion, and I should be extraordinarily happy never to hear his name uttered again in my presence," Snape growled darkly, his black eyes flashing as he thought of Lupin.

Tonks winced and shirked back against her pillow as far as she could go as she focused on the glint of Severus Snape's eyes, wishing that the man would just step forward into the light.

She thought it strange.

How, with just one cold look from him, the verdict was told. Snape had been reflecting longer than usual, and Tonks felt her face fall, crestfallen, her brief triumphant smile faded.

Snape locked eyes with hers. His dark eyes beheld in them for her a strange, hateful disdain, but with Severus, the young Auror knew it was more than that.

There was a sudden tenseness in Severus's cold, dark eyes that the bitter man who wallowed in his own self-pity was no longer trying to mask.

His wide-open eyes reflected everything and yet saw nothing but her. Behind them was something more intense than normal thought, and the man's clenched jaw wasn't necessarily a good sign.

Tonks swallowed as she recognized the signs of a classic Snape outburst, having spent enough time around the man to know for sure, and she sincerely hoped he wouldn't start shouting at her.

To her great relief, Tonks watched as his shoulders slumped and her former partner regarded the young Auror with something akin to pity intermingled with anger and…something else in his rich black eyes.

Severus sighed and when he regained composure and found his voice again, he spoke as though he were talking to a twelve-year-old child instead of a fully grown adult witch at the age of twenty-four, almost twenty-five.

"Do not repeat a _word_ of what I am about to say to _anyone_. _No one_ can know, but…I am… _grateful_ that you will make a full recovery," he confessed through gritted teeth, spewing the words with venomous poison, as though just uttering the words themselves were causing him a great deal of pain, and Tonks blinked at him in shock.

The shock must have been evident on her pale features, for Snape smirked and the edges of his lips curled upwards into a twisted little smirk.

"But _next_ time you get into a spot of trouble, _Nymphadora_ ," he added, almost as an afterthought. "You're on your _own_. Do not look to _me_ to save your life. That's what _he's_ for," he snarled. "The next time you want to be saved, you'd better pray to _Merlin_ _and_ God for a favor, because that's the _only_ help you'll get," he snapped angrily, before turning back towards the window and Disapparating on the spot, vanishing where he stood with a loud crack!

Tonks blinked owlishly as she stared at the very spot where only seconds ago, Snape had stood.

The young Auror shook her head, unable to comprehend the conversation she had just had with Hogwarts's own Potions Professor.

She silently bristled at his insult for her. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and then her tongue and could almost taste the blood welling as she frowned, thinking over Severus Snape's words.

She blinked and felt something soft tickle her nape. Tonks let out a tiny squeak and looked to her left, sighing.

Ptelea had a look of concern on his face and was stroking her cheek with one of the leaves atop his head, his little beady eyes narrowed in suspicion and he blew a raspberry (a favorite pastime of his at people he met and didn't like), at the spot where Professor Snape had stood only mere moments before.

Tonks chuckled and held out her hand, watching as Ptelea hopped onto it and made a strange high-pitched humming noise of contentment.

"Wotcher. Don't fall off my hand, please, I'm in no condition to pick you back up if you fall," Tonks pleaded, biting her bottom lip in trepidation. "You don't like him, either, huh? I hope that he didn't mistreat you during the trip over here. You'll _tell_ me if he did, and I'll jinx him with a Bat-Bogey Hex first chance I get, Ptelea," she murmured lowly, reaching up a shaking fingertip to allow the pad of her fingertip to ghost over the top of Ptelea's leaves. "He truly frightens all, doesn't he, love?" she sighed and became startled at the ginger knock on the door.

Tonks froze, her posture stiffened, and she wasn't even aware she'd drawn in a breath and held it until she heard _his_ voice. Lupin's.

"Tonks?" Remus's voice sounded from the other side of the door, sounding thoroughly concerned. "I hear voices. Are you… _talking_ to someone in there? Who's in there with you?" he demanded, suddenly sounding agitated.

Though for the life of her, she couldn't think why. Tonks sighed and did not immediately answer her partner.

The young witch did not know if it was the taxation of stress brought out by what had happened to her last night during her unfortunate encounter with Barty Crouch Jr., or the result of her unexpected conversation with Professor Snape just now if she could even call it that, as it mostly involved him belittling her choice to wander the streets of London alone, but she knew she would get sick whenever her stomach gave out, and she swallowed back the urge.

It felt like her innards were being replaced by some kind of horrible black void, though she'd eaten nothing.

Tonks let out another sigh as Remus's voice came again, sounding more urgent this time, demanding to know who she was talking to.

She cast her gaze downward towards Ptelea, still resting on top of her right palm, though the minute he heard the unmistakable noise of another man's voice nearby, he furrowed his little green face into a frown and blew a raspberry at her room's door.

"Oh, hush now, this type of behavior is entirely beneath you, Ptelea. I don't think you have a need to be so hostile towards Remus. I don't think he'll be as bad as Snivellus, and if he _is_ , then we'll jinx him too," Tonks soothed, though she did not bother to stifle her giggle at the creature's behavior as she reached up to her finger and gave the little Bowtruckle an affectionate stroke of its leaves as she heard the doorknob click.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as Lupin entered the room, looking thoroughly put off and disgruntled as he carried in his hands a tray bearing medical supplies, and a second tray with what looked like food for her.

She wiggled her brows and noticed the stunned expression on Remus Lupin's face as the tiny little Bowtruckle hopped off from his perch, where he'd been idly resting on top of her hair, a vibrant wash of forest green against the pink, and perched himself on top of her shoulder and blew a raspberry at the poor, unsuspecting wizard. Tonks did not bother to stifle her small half-smile.

"Lupin, meet Ptelea," she sighed. "Ptelea, Remus Lupin…" Her voice trailed off as she lifted her chin to meet Remus's gaze, who met hers with a look of trepidation.

Finally, Tonks found her voice after a long, slightly awkward pause that lingered in the air as Lupin made no move to step over the doorway's threshold.

"Meet Remus Lupin. My new partner and your friend," she said at last, and as she allowed the faintest ghost of a smile to flit across her features, Tonks could have _sworn_ she saw him smile the moment she uttered the word _friend_.


	18. Of Bowtruckles and Partners

**A/N: The little Bowtruckle is really growing on me. Though I technically gave it my Bowtruckle's name that I have at home here in my writing office, I regret nothing lol. Here in this chapter was kind of start to see a slightly less moody version of Remus and hopefully a bit of a softer side.**

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

Somehow, Remus could not shake the feeling the look of cautious apprehension and nervousness that the young witch was currently shooting his way, was all his fault. He had no idea what to do in order to help Nymphadora, and if he wouldn't have spent so much time in St. Mungo's cafeteria for their Healers, fretting over what she might like to eat for breakfast, considering she'd eaten nothing the night before, then he might have been able to better prevent… _this_.

For how had a _Bowtruckle_ gotten into her room? To the best of his knowledge, pets were _not_ permitted within St. Mungo's. He could have _sworn_ he heard voices coming from the other side of this door. Had someone managed to sneak past the security measures while he'd been gone and see her?

Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown, taking note of her terrified face. He saw the very blood drain from her face, making the young witch even paler.

Remus marveled at how Nymphadora could be so timid and _afraid_ at the sight of him and noticed the hint of unease in her voice as she softly spoke up.

"I—I thought that…you were downstairs," she whispered in a voice that was barely audible, and he would have missed it had he not been hanging onto her every word. "But…I am…grateful to see you this morning, Lupin. I...I am...glad you came," she whispered through gritted teeth, every word sounding like it was causing her great pain just to speak, and suddenly, Remus felt guilty.

He should not be here. He should leave, allow her to rest, and yet...somehow, he felt compelled to stay just right where he was.

Lupin could hear the young witch's spasmodic breathing, and his eyes widened just slightly at hearing his surname pour unprompted from her lips.

He could not deny that it sounded succulent, for her voice was soft, reserved, shy around him, almost, though she had no reason to be nervous.

Remus was _not_ at all prepared for the sight that met his eyes the minute he crossed the threshold into Nymphadora Tonks's private room in St. Mungo's, as his gaze drifted upwards and came to rest on the small Bowtruckle on her hand. "H—how did you _happen_ to come across a _Bowtruckle_ , Tonks? Animals aren't allowed in here."

He watched with a scrutinizing gaze as a light pink blush speckled along her cheeks, flushing them with color, returning a little bit of color to her face.

"I… he's my…my _friend_ ," Tonks whispered, sounding suddenly ashamed. "He…he needs me. Ptelea has…attachment issues, see, and has taken a liking to me, I'm afraid. I could not leave him in the care of Dumbledore, Remus."

Remus felt his shoulders slump in relief. _It must have been Albus that she was talking to then_.

"You…you talked to him? Or was that the Bowtruckle?"

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek, hoping that her eyes did not betray her sudden fear at Remus finding out that Snape had just been in her room uninvited, for if he were to learn of their conversation, the man would probably instinctively go into the same pattern of behavior he exhibited last night, a fierce, and in her mind, unnecessary possessive protectiveness for her.

One glance up at Remus Lupin was more than enough.

_No. I can't_. "I—yes," she answered, perhaps a little too quickly. "Dumbledore…"

Remus narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows, feeling certain, judging by her sudden nervous demeanor that Miss Tonks was hiding something, though he would be the first to admit that if he were to try to press her for an answer, the results would be disastrous, given her emotionally fragile state.

Though his partner did not appear to want to meet his questioning gaze, for her skittish hauntingly beautiful gray eyes darted to the left and right, to anywhere but at Remus in a sudden panic. Remus furrowed his brows into a frown as he realized the wound near her right collarbone had reopened.

"You're bleeding," he pointed out by way of further introduction. He tried his best to mask the concern that he was sure was evident on his features.

"Mmm?" Tonks blinked owlishly at her partner before glancing down, and she felt her face drain of color. _Damn_ , she thought, locking her jaw in anger. _It must have happened when Snape was…his fingers must have brushed against the cut I got from the tree from last night_ , she pondered and frowned.

The marking was crude, just barely little more than a slash mark, grotesque and had started to smell, though for the moment, Tonks did not seem concerned, at least not until he set the tray of food on the nearby side table closest to the door.

"I—I didn't know what you'd like to eat in case you might be hungry when you woke this morning, so I brought…never mind, but you're _hurt_ ," Remus protested, and Tonks blinked owlishly at the young wizard as the man shifted the tray of medical supplies under one arm and closed off the gap of space, moving to occupy the very same chair that Severus Snape had just sat in.

Lupin could tell by the way Nymphadora Tonks's body instinctively flinched as he reached out a slightly shaking hand to inspect the wound on her collarbone, that the young Auror thought that he would try to hurt her now.

A tiny noise reached his eardrums and he perked up at the unusual noise and sat up in his chair and his gaze drifted to the top of his own hand as he gingerly lowered it, stunned, blinking at what was happening, at a complete loss for words and how to respond to what was currently transpiring right now.

"I…." Remus stammered, his voice trailing off as he gingerly lifted his hand to study it, for Tonks's mysteriously-appearing Bowtruckle had taken the liberty of hopping onto his palm and was glowering at him with narrowed, beady black eyes.

He stared, eyes widening in shock as the fiery little creature stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry at him, to which elicited a smirk from Tonks. He felt as though he could do nothing but gawk at the Bowtruckle.

" _Ptelea_ , be nice to Remus. He's my new partner. He's not so bad, _are_ you?" she scolded, chastising the minuscule creature as she held out her index finger, and for just a brief moment, the skin of her finger brushed against his palm and it felt as fire, her fingertips leaving sparks of flame in their wake, and Remus was not even aware he'd drawn in a hissed breath and held it, surprised by the sudden, though not entirely unwanted contact. It felt…rather nice.

As Tonks silently held out her hand and rested it against Lupin's, creating a sort of barrier to allow Ptelea to seamlessly walk across Remus's hand to hers.

And every bit of Lupin protested violently when she unexpectedly drew her finger away, to place the little Bowtruckle on her shoulder, where the little creature continued to eye Remus with no small amount of distrust in its eyes.

_This is…new. I don't think you've ever had a Bowtruckle dislike you_ , James's voice offered from the recesses of his mind. Padfoot sounded like he was fighting back his urge to laugh, and he could have sworn he heard Lily giggle.

_Oh, but I think it's rather sweet, isn't it, Rem? Maybe Ptelea is your chance, Remus. If you can get the Bowtruckle to like you well enough, then maybe Miss Tonks will too. It's worth a shot, it can't hurt to try, Remus…_

Remus exhaled a shaking breath through his nose. As usual, Lily was right, though James was right in this was the first encounter he could honestly say that he'd had with a Bowtruckle where the creature did not like him.

A breath ago he was but almost in heaven, where he felt apathetic with all the hurt and traumas that had been hurting and haunting his heart, and now this foreign feeling of warmth beginning to spread to the confines of his chest was about to abandon him again. Not if he could help it. Remus let out a sigh.

"Does he blow raspberries at everyone he meets?" He could not help but ask, nor did he bother to stifle the light little chuckle that escaped his lips.

"Only the people he doesn't like. He—he doesn't take kindly to strangers, but once he warms up to you, he likes you just fine. He'll like you well enough, just give him a bit of time, few days, and he'll come around. He _hated_ Snape, but I hope with you he'll behave himself, eventually, as long as you give him no reason to dislike you. He's quite protective of me, you know," she offered, her lips turning up in a small half-smile.

Tonks smiled. Perhaps the first real, genuine smile he had seen in the short few precious hours of knowing his new partner, and he could not help but think of how that smile of hers was the prettiest thing he'd seen in a while. It extended into her gray eyes and deep into her soul.

The way her lips lifted upward. The way her one dimple tended to crinkle just slightly. The way her teeth were perfectly aligned.

The warm glow her brief moment of happiness gave off that briefly transported Remus back to a time when he was the happiest, and he was traversing the Hogwarts grounds with James, Sirius, Lily, and Peter, and he could not shake the sense of how she smelled of autumn from his nostrils, and nor did Lupin want to. Tonks smelled of pinewood and eucalyptus, of honeysuckle, of the grass, everything that nature had to offer.

It was only when the scent of the forest faded from his nostrils, and the thick coppery scent of the crimson blood from her wound at her collarbone reminded Remus that Tonks had somehow managed to re-injure herself. He blinked and blushed in embarrassment, annoyed with himself for having been caught so rudely staring at her smile as he had. What was _wrong_ with him?

How could he have been so selfish? Here she was, in _dire_ need of medical attention, and he was lost staring at her smile and into those haunting gray orbs of hers that sucked him in. He cursed himself internally and ground his teeth in a rare moment of agitation.

"Allow me to see the wound, Tonks. _Please_ ," he said. Though his voice was soft, there was a harsh curtness to it. "Let me _help_ you. I'm your _partner_."

Tonks flinched at the hardened edges in his tone, and it didn't take a genius to know that he was still on edge over the events that transpired last night, and she wondered if it was at all possible for his soft voice to become any quieter? She guessed that it must have because that's exactly how he sounded.

So far, in their initial interactions with one another, now that the end of the fifth day of his circle was ended, he seemed much more relaxed than he had last night, and now was quickly proving himself to be a soft-spoken person around her. Nervous, a bit shy and reserved, and he enjoyed looking at her.

She supposed that the last observation should have raised a red flag in the back of her mind, but for whatever unfamiliar reason unknown to her, it didn't.

More so than Remus Lupin seemed to enjoy talking, which Tonks secretly thought a shame, for his voice was smooth, rich, and melodious.

_The kind of voice a man ought to have_ , she thought, biting her bottom lip, and sticking it out in a slight pout.

Though right now, as she lifted up her good arm not currently bound in the arm sling while her previously Splinched arm healed itself, Tonks didn't want to let Remus anywhere near her re-opened wound on her collarbone, a hand clasped over the slash markings, the flesh grotesque and blood once again, as it had last night, seeped through her digits.

" _No_ , Lupin," Tonks heard herself whisper hoarsely. "I—it's _fine_ , really. It's not as bad as it looks," the young witch added offhandedly, and bit the wall of her cheek to still her cry of pained agony. Just barely succeeding, and she flinched as she felt the little pattering's of Ptelea as her pet Bowtruckle moved to stand protectively on her left shoulder and blew another raspberry at Remus.

"Your hand," he murmured lowly, his tone shifting to one of concern for the moment rather than annoyance, for which Tonks was a little relieved.

"Mmm?" Tonks managed to mutter under her breath, and she glanced down at her wand hand, which trembled uncontrollably. She flushed and promptly turned her head to the left, looking away. "Oh," she stammered, feeling the heat creep to her cheeks. "I—it's my wand hand, they…they think that I've suffered some form of—of nerve damage or something when I…fell. I don't know if it...if it will ever go back the way that it was. The...the Healer, he said that...that I might shake every now and again for the rest of my life."

Her voice cracked and Remus could tell she was blinking back tears.

The tremors in her hand were almost uncontrollable as it shook maddeningly, and Remus could tell it caused Nymphadora no small amount of pain as she struggled to curl her fingers in a fist to attempt to stop it happening.

Remus was loathed to hear the faltering crack and dip in the young witch's voice, and he could tell that fiery spasms of pain were jolting up her hand, judging by the way they shook uncontrollably. "Are you all right?"

Tonks blinked. His voice was soft, kind, and laced to the brim with concern. For _her_. "I…no," she whispered, hating hearing how her voice shook as she blinked back briny tears. She lifted her trembling hand at eye-level to better study the tremors as another spasm wracked her entire body, shaking it.

"But you _will_ be. There are…exercises that you can try. Rehabilitation that we can try. You'll be lifting your wand again in no time, Tonks. I promise. I will even help you. _Let_ _me_ ," he reassured her softly, hoping that his voice did not betray his true emotions, for he did not think he could bear to see his new partner shed tears, as a single tear escaped her left lid, rolling down her cheek.

Remus quickly looked away and pretended that he had not noticed it, though he had seen the anguish in the young pink-haired witch's glistening gray orbs, and he could not seem to stop the small sigh of frustration as he dared to scoot his chair a fraction of an inch closer towards the young woman's bed.

Though he hesitated in his movements, ignoring Ptelea the Bowtruckle's little squeaks of protests as it hopped on top of his hand and began jumping up and down, tugging on his fingers in protest, as though it thought it could stop him. Remus smiled at the little creature's fierce and unwavering loyalty to her.

"Ptelea, _enough_ ," scolded Tonks, scrunching her nose in an adorable little pout that sent a swell of warmth through Lupin's chest inexplicably, and he felt himself smile at the Bowtruckle's antics towards him. He'd never seen anything like it, as she knelt her head slightly as she scrutinized the Bowtruckle's attempted aggressive behavior. "This sort of behavior is beneath you. Cut it out! Ptelea…Remus isn't going to bully you, now come on…stop this!"

Ptelea responded in kind to his owner's scolding by blowing a raspberry at Tonks, which earned a snort from Tonks and a soft, bemused smile from Lupin.

"He must like you a lot to be so protective of you," Remus offered, not knowing that, at the time, he was not exactly talking about her Bowtruckle.

Lupin offered the pink-haired young witch a soft smile and gingerly held out his hand as steadily as he could to transport the Bowtruckle back to Tonks.

He chuckled to himself as the little creature hopped up onto his partner's head and seemed to burrow and nestle itself within her thick pink pixie cut, though that did not stop Ptelea from poking his head out, a shock of vibrant green against deep magenta pink, narrowing its eyes, and blowing a raspberry.

"It really _does_ care for you, doesn't it? I don't think I've ever seen a more loyal Bowtruckle so attached to another human being before. It's…truly something," he confessed, reaching up a hand to scratch an itch behind his ear.

Tonks rested her head back against her two fluffed up pillows in surprise, not sure how to place the present expression that was etched on Lupin's face.

A look of utter amusement intermingled with something that she could only describe as admiration, though whether that was for her or her Bowtruckle, Tonks couldn't say. Right now, however, her mind was on other things, such as the darkening look in Remus Lupin's kind brown eyes as he scooted his chair even closer, his hand outstretched, heading for her collarbone.

"He—he does," Tonks whispered faintly, shirking away from his touch, and she furrowed her brows in a frown and scooted towards the other side of her bed in a sudden frenzied panic as Lupin took advantage of the opportunity to attempt to scoot a little bit closer with his chair to better tend to her wound on her collarbone. "Wh—what do you think you're doing, Lupin? Stay away from me, I—I don't want you touching it, it's fine, I—if you touch it, then you'll only make it bleed _worse_!" Tonks yelled, hating hearing how her voice broke, how it was fearful, and tinged with a touch of sadness.

She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat and her tongue felt dry. Remus said nothing in response to her desperate plea, which only reconfirmed her suspicions that she had, perhaps, just now crossed some invisible line with Lupin just now by wanting him to keep his distance and not tend to her injury.

As she dared to meet Lupin's gaze, the coals in her eyes smoked, added with fuel, as she knew, somewhat ashamed, that she didn't want him touching it. When Remus finally spoke to her, his tone was not accusing, but awestruck.

"Your eyes," he breathed. "They're…" Lupin paused, seeming to struggle for a moment to find his words. "Gray, and full of heat," he said softly.

Tonks wiggled a brow in his general direction, wondering if his off-handed remark was just a ploy to distract her so he'd catch her off-guard.

Well. It worked. But not a second time. Lupin's own eyes seemed to dip into hers, his hand outstretched towards her collarbone only slightly lowered.

"Mmm." Tonks's frown deepened, and she felt the Bowtruckle dare to poke his head out again from underneath a lock of her hair. "Hate to break it to you, Shakespeare, but smoke isn't full of heat. It's an _effect_ of heat, Lupin," Tonks corrected, yet it was hard to take his bitter tone seriously after his quip.

"That works too." Remus offered her a small, half-smile that reached his brown eyes. "They have a tendency to get darker, grayer when you're angry."

Tonks scowled and pursed her lips into a thin line. "Like you would notice," she snapped, feeling her defenses rise.

This was just a trick. It _had_ to be. What _else_ could it be? He was only talking to her right now, so she'd lower her guard and he'd treat her wound.

Remus lifted his gaze just slightly and met her gaze. "Like I wouldn't," he retorted coldly, somewhat dismissively, though he did not avert his gaze at all.

Tonks's frown only deepened at her new partner's comment, bristling as he resumed reaching to try to inspect the gash on her collarbone. It hurt as hell.

But that _didn't_ mean she wanted him _touching_ it. Tonks growled and bared her teeth in a wild frenzy, and reached for the nearest thing on the nightstand by her bed on the opposite side that she could reach to entice the man to keep his distance, the one hand not bound in her arm sling clutching onto her collarbone in a futile attempt to keep blood from dripping on the bed.

Desperately, she reached for the little vial that Severus Snape had left her. There were three of them, and she reached for the one closest to her grasping palm, and as she drew back her arm and hefted it as far as she could, it sailed against the room and cracked against the white wall, and Remus let out a growl as he felt her palm smack against his arm as he rose from his chair and strode towards her, a look of utter annoyance now on his handsome, lined features.

Remus's light brown eyes had turned into darkened slits, and he towered over the young pink-haired witch as he moved to the other side of her bed, closing off the gap of space in between the two of them, grabbing her wrist.

Yet, Lupin froze, his trembling hand not relinquishing his grip upon the young witch's uninjured shoulder, as if a binding spell had pressed his hand over the top of Tonks's, and he made no move to remove his hand from on top hers.

His lined face was tarnished with wrath and annoyance at the young Auror's stubbornness that reminded him a little bit of Sirius back at Grimmauld Place, and her staunch refusal to accept his aid, but which slowly faded at the sight of Nymphadora Tonks's hollowed gaze, as though she were exhausted.

_Easy, Moony_ , James's voice cautioned him, sounding sterner with him than usual. _There's a good chance she's still on edge from what happened last night. Go slow. Don't lose your temper over something so small as this_.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek as he could not seem to tear his gaze away from Tonks.

He could feel his breaths intensifying as he looked at her. Tonks's dry, cracked lips were parted slightly, though she did not speak, and she had this uncanny ability to pierce right through his eyes and into his soul without even knowing the effect she had impaled upon his fragile heart.

Lupin withdrew just slightly, and allowed his grip upon the young woman's skinny, delicate wrist to slacken, just enough and he sighed in agitation. "You _need_ to allow me to _help_ you, Tonks. Otherwise, it will get infected. And if that happens, it won't do you _or_ me any good, will it?"

Remus lowered his voice an octave, doing his best to quell the tremors that lay within his voice, and his hands balled into fists by his side as they shook with the vestiges of his last thread of patience as he waited for her to respond.

Tonks froze, her gray eyes widening as round as a dinner plate. She drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as she met her new partner's gaze.

The pink-haired young Auror was not sure she could place the stare he was currently giving her. A mixture of frustration, concern, fear, and…something else she could not quite place, glistening in his brown eyes.

She drew in a sharp breath of cold air, just as a gust of wind wafted in through the open window, and she felt the familiar sharp pang of pain in her chest. "Damn," she swore through gritted teeth, clutching at her heart. She was breathing, she could feel the steady rise and fall of her chest, but the air just wouldn't return to her lungs, like her lungs were slowly filling with water.

Next came the rising panic that began in the pit of her stomach, the immense feeling of dizziness accompanied by a horrible churning feeling of nausea that twisted her insides, and it was always a gamble if she would get sick.

Though she could currently taste the acidic bile coating the back of her throat. Inflating her lungs felt like pushing up against a chunk of stone on her chest. She sucked in the air around her as if it were chocolate, her weakness.

Yet here, she was, cowering at the edge of her bed in an unfamiliar private room in St. Mungo's, however temporary this little arrangement was, and she wasn't able to breathe, and Remus was eyeing her with no small amount of concern in his eyes. She let out a pained gasp that sent a swell of pain down her spine and caused the stab wound at her ribcage to flare up in agony.

Tonks shot out an arm forward, meant to keep Remus Lupin away from her, though she was surprised to see that it had quite the opposite effect, as the man's arms shot out the moment he spotted the strength rapidly leaving her, and he didn't hesitate to help her sit up straighter.

"Deep breaths, nice and slow, come on..." he encouraged, and she was relieved to see that his frustrations with her practically vanished the minute she turned her head to the side to cough. "That's it…"

Clenching her eyes shut, she did as Lupin advised and tried to force her breathing to return to normal, though her efforts were proving fruitless. "I…"

"Are you hurt? Is this another panic attack? Do you have asthma?" There was no mistaking the concerned undertones of the man's usually calm voice.

_He's worried for you, Dora…He's already proven himself to be different than that wanker, Snape, hasn't he?_ Ollie's voice spoke to her in his calm voice.

Tonks's eyes flung wide open at hearing _his_ voice, and before the young Auror could answer Lupin, she broke out in a ragged coughing fit and clutched at the wound site near her ribcage where Crouch had stabbed her in a mad rage, as if someone had punched her in the stomach and curled in on herself.

"Tonks? Are you sick? Is this another attack? Talk to me, Nymphadora."

He saw the young witch briefly shoot him a look of daggers at the use of her first name in full, though he'd forgotten her preference in his moment of concern for her well-being, not knowing how to help her.

Remus felt his concern for his new partner escalate to an entirely new plane of existence, as he perched himself on the edge of her bed's mattress. Lupin placed a firm, steady hand on her uninjured shoulder, and he pondered over how to help her now.

_Water, Moony_ , barked James's voice, sounding highly irritated and appalled that Remus hadn't been able to figure this one out for himself.

Remus glanced wildly around the room and then remembered the glass of water he'd brought along with an apple, a Chocolate Frog, and a couple of pieces of unbuttered toast since he didn't know what condition her stomach was in.

Shooting a brief thanks in his mind to James's suggestion, he bolted from his spot on her bed and crossed over the room's threshold to the other side, and returned with the water clutched in hand, careful not to spill any.

Lupin, as Tonks dared to meet his concerned gaze, felt the feeble muscle within the confines of his chest give a painful little quiver, and a strange, blazing heat immediately rose to his face and pulsated through the rest of his body.

Remus reached out a gentle but slightly shaking hand and felt her forehead. He frowned. It was growing warm. He heard her breaths hitch and through the close distance between them, Lupin could have sworn he'd heard the young witch's heartbeats pick up the pace and thrum against her chest.

Worry wormed its way into his stomach, twisting and churning his insides into hard coils and making him feel slightly ill himself as he glanced at her pallid features. The way that her pink lips were pursed into a line, how her gray eyes had dulled, that gray fire billowing within her soul now an ember, suggested to Lupin the very worst.

Nymphadora was having a relapse.

_Merlin's beard!_ Why could he not have simply stayed put by her side? He shouldn't have listened to Dumbledore last night and gone back to Sirius's.

If he would have discarded Albus's orders and simply stayed here, with her, even if he had to sleep in the chair he was currently sitting in, then if it meant she would have not had to suffer like this. Then he would endure it.

Remus resisted the urge to growl in frustration. "Tonks? Are you hurt?" Lupin was careful to mind his choice of words and speak with the utmost of care so as to not seem at all like he was coming across as demanding or hurt.

Her gaze was seemingly fixated in a furrowed frown upon the open window. Remus gently removed his hand from her uninjured shoulder, his gaze drifting towards the grotesque slash just above Tonks's left collarbone.

"Let me _help_ you," he urged. Now he was practically begging her, and even he could hear the desperation that had crept its way into his voice as it cracked and faltered. Lupin let his hand lower just a fraction of an inch towards her outstretched hand meant to stop him from taking so much as another move towards her wound.

But he did not relinquish his hold on her wrist clutched in his hand. Instead, he found his gaze drawn to it and though the pale, delicate appendage perhaps the most beautiful and interesting thing that he had ever laid eyes on.

Remus let out a tired sounding sigh as he ran the pad of this thumb over a nasty looking scar just above her first knuckle. "Tonks, I…" He trailed off, looking away for a moment before returning his gaze back to her.

"Yes?" Tonks whispered the question and was biting her bottom lip.

"You are all right?" Lupin asked Tonks, and there was no mistaking the amount of trepidation and fear laced throughout his voice. His voice softened, and had Tonks not been staring at him with those doe-like wide eyes brimming with a pure innocence that he previously was led to believe did not exist in this world, he would have chosen not to speak at all, but something about her compelled him to. "What's happening to you? Why can't you breathe, Tonks?"

Tonks could not help but stare at her new partner with widened eyes brimming of intrigue and wonder and confusion until she thought her head would explode. So that was the root cause of the issue. The direct cause for his sullenness last night, and why he had seemed reluctant to open to her thus far.

He was worried about her. Tonks sighed softly and resisted the urge to crinkle her nose, not wanting to give Remus the wrong impression right now.

In truth, Tonks wasn't ready to discuss in detail what had happened to her last night. Crouch's wild, the frenzied look was still too fresh of a memory.

The event as a whole had been terrifying. Crouch attempting to rape her, kissing her, at that she really did shudder in disgust as a tremor of revulsion went down her spine as her gray eyes clouded over, though one glance at Lupin was enough to know that he knew she was thinking of Crouch, and not of him.

The young Auror emanated a tense, soft exhale through her nose and gingerly placed her good hand on his shoulder, giving it what she hoped was a light, reassuring squeeze meant to convey comfort, to let him know she was fine, though she visibly winced when she pulled her hand away, and there was a faint red stain in the shape of her own fingerprints on the poor man's sweater.

"Oh," she whispered, eyes wide in horror. "I—I didn't mean to, I…"

But Remus offered a kind smile and held up a hand to stop her, pulling his wand out of his pants pocket and pointed the tip at the crimson, garish stain.

" _Scourgify_!" he murmured, though never once removing his gaze from Tonks, whose face had reddened in embarrassment. He gave a quick nod of approval as he glanced down and saw the stain had completely vanished. "There. Good as new. No harm was done, and even if it didn't come out that way, there are other ways. _Now_ ," he added, his tone adapting a more somber tone as his twinkling light brown eyes narrowed slightly, "allow me to see the wound."

His tone had hardened and coming from her new partner, it was not necessarily a request. Tonks could tell his patience was slowly but surely draining. Still, it did not stop the young witch from trying to deflect him.

"N—no, I—I am fine, Lupin, right now, I'm more concerned about you," Tonks pressured, finally noticing how, when he leaned forward slightly to better look her in the eyes, it looked as though he'd not slept a wink last night.

For his face was much too pale and the circles under his eyes prominent.

And then, as he processed her words, Lupin's head snapped up so fast that Tonks had to quickly move her head back to avoid connecting with it.

She stared, stunned at his abrupt shift in mood.

"How…how can you be so _calm_ about this, Tonks?" Remus snapped, giving her an incredulous look, as though she had sprouted horns on top of her head. Remus did not exactly shout at her, though his voice sounded rougher and coarser than before, his tone clipped. "Crouch could have killed you last night, and yet, you are more concerned over my own well-being. Why?" he demanded hotly, his face paling rapidly.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek. What was she going to say to _that_? _Oh, because I had a lucid hallucination of your face when Crouch was holding me captive that gave me the strength to fight back? And then you saved my life and got me to St. Mungo's just in time, and now, I owe you a life debt?_

Oh, yes. That would go over _swimmingly_ well. And after that, they could make friendship bracelets. Tonks furrowed her brows in confusion. She could not dare to voice that particular thought. This was, technically, after all, her first official day of getting to know her new partner, and such a revelation might very well scare him away.

"Because…you saved my life, Remus," Tonks insisted softly, lowering her voice to a hushed, shy whisper. Tonks knew that she just had to make Remus see her side of the situation. "And I owe you…"

"You owe me _nothing_." Remus's words were sharp and came off perhaps curter than he would have liked, for the wizard blinked, seemingly startled by her confession, though the look of shock on his lined but handsome face was quickly replaced by one of eerily cold indifference, a bitterness.

"Wha…?" Tonks blinked owlishly at Lupin, confused by the change.

The confusion must have been evident on her face, as plain as the nose on her face, for Remus scowled, pursing his lips into a thin line, and elaborated.

"You and I are _partners_. Were the roles reserved, I know that you would do the same. But…I do not think that I deserve your friendship," he stated coldly, turning his head away from the Auror and hung his head in shame, a seemingly stubborn lock of his light brown bangs to hang over his eyes, shielding his view from Tonks, and those eyes of his from the young witch's.

Tonks's frown deepened. She felt quite she had misheard the man. Though Remus did not give her a chance to argue her point, for he lifted his head and returned his gaze to her. "Nor do I even deserve your trust after last night. I—I have done nothing but cause you hardship in the span of a single day. If not for me, I could have…I could have gotten you here sooner…."

The anger from Remus Lupin's eyes showed the scared man within, the man who was taught to fight and seemingly starved of the friendship he craved.

Tonks considered herself a good judge of character, and as an Auror, she had to be good at reading a person's emotions, and right now, she could see the pain beneath it, and his soul drowning in this persona Remus Lupin had created to fit a world of indifference, no doubt brought on by the restrictions of lycanthropy, how the wizarding world made it difficult for a man like him to get a job that provided a steady stream of income and allowed him to keep it.

But Tonks knew she couldn't help someone like that, not unless the tears and other emotions would come, and Remus Lupin truly allowed himself to feel it, and he realized for himself without her prompting him what was really going on underneath the surface. And she could not fight it for him. _I can't…_

It would take such a toll on her to do so. The best she could for her new partner was offer a void, to let his shadow box until he craved that sunlight.

That hot fire-seed of anger rose within the confines of her chest, but Tonks quelled it back and bit her tongue in agitation, refusing to let Remus see it. Why was Remus putting the blame on himself for what had happened to her? Why was he feeling like he was the one responsible for what happened?

_He_ was not the one who had pursued Barty Crouch Jr., after all. _He_ was not the one who had talked back to Snape and provoked the man to the point of being unable to stand his insufferable company any longer, and now look!

All of what had happened to her last night was entirely _her fault_ , and Crouch's. _Not_ Remus's. Hers and hers _alone_ , and look at what had happened to her.

Tonks heaved a frustrated sigh as she lifted her trembling, nerve-damaged wand hand to her face to study it, and then gazed at her arm in its splint.

_This_ was what had become of her utter foolishness and lack of regard for her own life.

"Don't start this, Lupin, _please_ ," Tonks pleaded, reaching out with her hand and gripping onto the man's shoulders, forcing the man to meet her stony gaze. "Do not believe for even one _second_ that this was your fault! The blame lies with _me_ and with me _alone_. What happened is _my_ fault…"

Remus's light brown eyes widened at the young witch's agitation. This was perhaps the first time seeing his new partner so…furious in a lucid state before, and he immediately concluded that he did not like this. "Tonks, I don't—" he murmured softly, surprised at the young Auror's insistence, though the young witch immediately held up a hand, cutting him off.

" _No_ , Lupin!" Tonks interrupted violently, shaking her head wildly and staring down at her lap. "I should not have gone out on my own. I know that. I—I didn't think this thing _through_ , and my actions have _consequences_ , and this…and this…" she added, gesturing with a jerk of her head towards her wounded arm in a sling and her shaking, nerve-damaged wand hand, "are my consequences. This is my burden to bear. My punishment for last night."

By this point in their conversation, hot tears pricked at the corners of her vision, threatening to pour over if she couldn't maintain a firm handle on her emotions, which the barrier she had put up, those stone walls around her heart, she could feel them start to inexplicably crack and crumble around this man.

Remus opened his mouth to speak, but a curt tapping on the closed door of her room interrupted whatever he had been about to say next.

Lupin scowled, looking thoroughly annoyed at the interruption, though he reluctantly got up to open the door, flinging it wide open in irritation, casting a sideways glance at Tonks out of the corner of his eye and regarded the newest arrival, and felt his eyes widen in sudden shock and shame for his irritation at the interruption in his conversation with Tonks.

"Professor Dumbledore, what a pleasant surprise to see you here this morning," Lupin breathed, immediately taking a step back and allowing the Hogwarts Headmaster entrance into Nymphadora's room. "We did not e—expect you," he began hesitantly, biting the wall of his cheek.

"It is no trouble," Professor Dumbledore announced jovially, his beard twitching without prompting, though as the smile did not quite reach his eyes.

"Sir?" Tonks prompted in a weak, hushed whisper as she regarded the Hogwarts Professor from her perch on the bed. If the older wizard considered her injuries, he made no comment on them. "Wh—what can I do for you?"

"Oh," Dumbledore began, sounding rather distant as he twiddled his thumbs and rested his hands in his lap, smoothing the creases in his set of gray robes. "I merely wished to pop in for a spell and to see if you were awake…Ah," he remarked, a soft smile twitching behind his gray beard. "I see that your Bowtruckle was safely returned to you. I must confess, I will miss his company. Your Ptelea is unlike any of his species that I have encountered before. He is quite taken with you, Miss Tonks. Continue to care for him."

Tonks gave a mute nod just as the little Bowtruckle poked its head out from where it had claimed a resting spot under a particularly thick lock of Tonks's hair, and Remus could have _sworn_ , though he could not be sure, that he saw the little twig offer a tiny wave and a smile to the Hogwarts Professor.

Professor Dumbledore's words seemed sincere. Though the man's voice suggested the underlying hint of something else.

Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown. "Sir?" he prompted urgently.

Albus glanced up and peered at the pair of new partners over the rim of his spectacles with a suddenly somber expression etched on his weathered and lined face. "You have a visitor waiting outside to see you, Miss Tonks…."

Tonks froze, feeling her face drain of color as she desperately wracked her brain trying to think who might possibly be here to see her. Her parents would have sent along an owl or a Patronus to inform her they were coming.

She had no real friends at the Auror Office to speak of. Her closest friends and thing she had to a family were her fellow Order members, so who...?

"Who is it, sir?" she asked, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout, suddenly not sure if she wanted to know the answer to her own question.

Professor Dumbledore lifted his head and regarded the pair in silence. It seemed to take the man an eternity to find his voice again.

"Dolores Umbridge."


	19. Unforgiven

**A/N:** **Umbridge, you old witch, you hag lol. I hate this character _so very much_ , but I had a lot of fun writing for her, and I have another chapter planned for her at some point later in the story. Are you all in for a treat! I won't spoil it for you, but oh my Merlin, you're going to LOVE this! Anyone who's ever wanted a screaming match with Umbridge is in for quite a surprise! The next chapter is a good one too but relish this chapter for what it is. **

* * *

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, Dolores Jane Umbridge coughed once to clear her throat of a tickle and reached up a hand and patted her thick curly brown hair and reached down a pink-manicured nail to straighten the crease in her hot-pink wool cardigan.

Many hated to think it, though one would not dare admit the truth to Dolores, that the Secretary was a rather unpleasant woman.

She was not overly old, but her body had aged passed her years so much that she wore the wizened features of an old hag, a crone.

Her forehead was wrinkled by many peaks and trenches—caused by years of consistent scowling—which unflatteringly crowned eyes that permanently harbored hatred and disdain for most things.

The ones who _dared_ to call Umbridge callous were the bleeding hearts and the do-gooders of the wizarding community with little to no ambition, the ones that just did not 'cut it,' in Dolores's mind. In this world, the winner took all. The poor were _not_ Umbridge's problem.

She knew she was different from when she was young. Her mother chastised her for not displaying the correct emotions.

Umbridge asked if it meant the end of her lesson when her friend broke her arm falling off a broom.

She wasn't concerned when her brother tripped on nothing and cracked his head on the sidewalk, she just asked if that meant they weren't going out for ice-cream anymore.

She was callous, the worries of others were of no concern to her unless she was directly impacted, which she wasn't.

She furrowed her dark brows into a scowl as she stared at the black-framed wall clock for at least the tenth time in the span of a single hour, scrutinizing the second hand, which seemed to linger an extra minute at every passing second.

Umbridge took her gaze off the clock, silently vowing not to look at once more until another five minutes had passed and pulled out the piece of parchment paper given to her by Percival Weasley early this morning.

The woman skimmed through the smudged out graphite stained words, which were hurriedly scribbled on top of the parchment slip that smelled faintly of aged chamomile tea laced with cinnamon and honey.

After scanning the same words repeatedly an infinite number of times, Umbridge reluctantly found herself glancing at the clock as the second hand continued to move in its persistent manner.

The contents of this letter simply could _not_ be true: that Miss Nymphadora Tonks was claiming that Bartemius's own son had abducted her. Such slanderous, simple-minded lies were merely gossip and nothing more, a blatant attempt to discredit the Ministry and the Minister of Magic, and it was Umbridge's job to quell and quash these rumors however she saw fit, and this morning's appointment she fully intended to corroborate Miss Tonks's verbal statement to the contents of this very letter, for it simply could not be true.

It could _not_. The girl had been very clearly under the Imperius Curse, forced by whomever abducted the poor dear to tell the proper authorities that it was Crouch's son.

Slanderous lies, of which Umbridge, Fudge, and Crouch Sr. were not about to digest.

Bartemius Crouch Jr. was safely locked away in Azkaban Prison under the guard of the Dementors themselves, and for this young witch, never mind that she was the youngest and most intelligent to date in the entire Auror Office, to state such ridiculous slander, was utterly preposterous, and this, she could not allow.

Her concentration was immediately disrupted by the sudden sound of a door creaking open, and her inquisitive eyes shifted to the door to see none other than Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore exit Miss Nymphadora Tonks's private room, along with a much younger man in his early to mid-thirties with a thick head of light brown hair flecked with beginnings of gray throughout, but especially at his temples, and a scarred, lined face, though still quite handsome for his age, Umbridge thought.

Umbridge throughout her entire career at the Ministry had mastered her fake smile when dealing with what she deemed the 'undesirable' types, and Albus Dumbledore remained at the top of that list, right down to the wrinkles around her eyes that were capable of counting the flaps in a hummingbird's wing.

No one had ever questioned her except for one person, Albus himself.

That insufferable man saw in Umbridge's eyes, the windows to her soul, and held on to her true self, saw the woman for what she really was, as the façade crumbled into a real grimace, though Dolores did not bother to stop the tiny little squeak of a smile that escaped from her pink-painted lips.

"Ah. Albus," Dolores Umbridge greeted in a falsely honeyed voice just dripping with sympathy and sarcasm as she pulled herself off from resting against the wall, clipboard in hand, a quill resting underneath the metal clip for the express purpose of taking detailed notes during the young Auror's interview this morning. "I take it you got my owl bright and early informing you of my appointment with the young Auror, then? Ten-thirty, right on schedule…"

"I must have missed it, Dolores," Dumbledore replied airily, which immediately set Umbridge's blood aflame as hate surged through her bloodstream. "However, I arrived at St. Mungo's a solid two hours early to inform Miss Tonks's partner that she was awake and wished to speak with him, so no harm is done. Please. Allow me to introduce to you Professor Remus Lupin."

Remus blinked rapidly, glancing sideways at Dumbledore out of the corner of his eye, wondering why on earth the man was choosing to address him by the use of his former title.

He was no longer a Hogwarts Professor anymore, so why? And then it hit him. Remus could feel the heat creeping along his cheeks as he cursed himself for not being more attentive to detail, though, in his defense, he'd had more important things on his mind over the last few weeks.

_This is the same woman who instituted the beginning of the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act_.

Lupin knew that it was looked upon more favorably for a man afflicted with his condition to be in a position of employment that offered a steady stream of income, and though this was but a lie to save face on his behalf, Remus could not help but to feel a painful little twang as his heartstrings lurched as memories of his time as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor flitted through his mind.

He would go back in an instant if Dumbledore were to ever ask it of him.

Umbridge's gaze drifted towards the young man and found her eyes had locked onto the man's scars, and her frown deepened even more.

"I did not know, Albus, that you had taken to employing _werewolves_ now, to do your dirty work for you, Headmaster," Umbridge snapped.

The stranger standing next to Professor Dumbledore was a handsome enough chap, she supposed. Underneath the damaged skin was the bone structure of a god and his eyes were the sort of brown eyes that brought hearth-sipped hot cocoa to her memory.

She pursed her thin lips into a rigid line and flitted her gaze back to Dumbledore. Professor Dumbledore did not respond, and she felt her anger surge to new levels.

"I see. Well. In any case, I am here to question Miss Tonks regarding the unfortunate events of last night, sir," she began formally, stiffly, taking note of how the younger man's posture immediately stiffened and the man straightened his spine until he towered well over Umbridge, standing at around 6'3 or so.

The strange man's lethal stare felt quite piercing and painful as if his glare threatened to tear apart Dolores's black, putrid heart with just one look.

"Is this an interrogation, Madame Undersecretary?" Remus asked, unable to keep the note of anger from creeping into his tone as he pursed his lips into a thin, rigid line, scowling.

When Dolores did not immediately reply, the young man's face blanched and he turned towards Professor Dumbledore.

"Professor," Lupin began hesitantly. "It is my belief that Nymph—I—I mean, Miss _Tonks_ ," he corrected quickly, a light pink blush speckling along his cheeks, flushing them with color, "is not quite up to receiving…visitors just yet. Perhaps not for several more _days_. Nor is she in the right state of mind to revisit the events of last night. She is still healing, recovering from her wounds, and is not thinking clearly, Headmaster. She _won't_ even let me tend to her," he added, almost as an afterthought, and the man's tone suddenly sounded offended.

Dolores rolled her eyes, though Remus made no indication that he noticed or even cared.

"Whatever happened to her was traumatizing and I don't think that subjecting her to this a _day_ after she barely escaped with her life is a wise course of action, Professor. As her partner, I cannot allow this! _Please_ ," he begged, seeming to have eyes only for Albus Dumbledore, " _do not_ put her through this. I don't think her body can cope with the stress, Headmaster."

There was no mistaking the dawning look of outrage and desperate pleading in the man's light brown eyes, nor the fact that his posture had stiffened in a suspicious manner.

Umbridge glanced up at the young Auror's partner, this filthy half-breed, this wolf, and did not immediately answer the young man as her insides curdled like milk with lemon.

This man standing in front of her entryway to Miss Tonks's doorway, effectively blocking her and barring her entry into the room was the acid in what was otherwise about to be a much-needed and heavenly experience.

She could not quite explain it, but she knew this _dog_ revolted her. He stank and smelled of blood, and the haggard, poor appearance he gave off only reinforced her belief that _all_ wolves should be hunted down and captured like the dogs that she knew his kind to be. Remus Lupin, Dolores knew, revolted her.

The sight of the werewolf standing in the doorway made her _sick_ from the ends of her curly brown hair to the pink-painted nails on her toes snug inside her pink heels. Umbridge did not consider herself a woman who came to hate easily, but she knew pure evil when she saw it. She knew, and it was this man here.

The fact that Scrimgeour, the rumored next-in-line to take over for Cornelius, was able to sympathize with these half-breed vermin, these abominations that were a rapidly-growing plague upon wizard kind was abhorrent. Umbridge could feel her nostrils flare as her lips curled up in a sneer.

Nevertheless, she had her reputation to think of, so she forced herself to give off a little cough that escaped her lips that sounded more like a little squeak.

"I am afraid, dearie, that you are in _no_ position to make demands of _me_. It's Ministry standard procedure to conduct an interview whenever something like this happens. It is merely a series of questions, Mr. Lupin. Nothing more and nothing less than that, my dear man," she sighed, huffing in frustration. "I am certain that you can understand, an incident report must be filed for our records, sir."

As if to emphasize her point, Dolores gave a curt rap of the clipboard she kept clutched close to her breast, the tip of her pink-manicured nails making a sharp tacking sound that caused the younger man to flinch and scowl in irritation.

"And it cannot _wait_ a few more days when she is of more sound mind to answer your questions? She needs to _rest_." Remus Lupin vehemently protested this new and unexpected development, the look of anger growing worse in the man's normally kind, light brown eyes, and the man's lips parted open to speak and he took a half-step forward towards Umbridge, who could feel herself recoil in disgust as this _half-breed_ _dared_ to approach her, and her lips curl upwards into a sneer.

"I am afraid that it cannot, dear," Dolores retorted in her honey-sweet voice, careful to ensure that her voice remained as neutral as possible to avoid suspicion against herself.

Remus bristled, but made no comment.

Umbridge continued. "This woman holds vital information that our Ministry needs in its campaign against those who would seek to usurp the Ministry's power and watch it crumble. Whoever did that to the young woman in here _must_ be captured. The longer my questions go unanswered by Miss Nymphadora Tonks, then the longer this criminal remains at large. That woman holds the key to uncovering the answer behind her atrocious attack, and there are a few things that must be made quite clear to me."

Dolores furrowed her dark brows into a frown as he stepped forward. She huffed in frustration and continued. "I will require no guard to sit with us, as I do not believe the young witch a threat at this current time, given the extensive scope of her…unfortunate injuries, therefore I doubt there will be much trouble."

Remus Lupin had his hand curled instinctively around his wand, and Dolores found her gaze drifted towards it, and she did not bother hiding her disgust.

The thought of this half-breed _wolf_ touching her sent a shudder of revulsion down her spine, and the look of repulsion must have been evident on her features, for it was Professor Dumbledore who fixed the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic with an unusually firm, icy blue glower.

Lupin, who had, by this point during their one-sided conversation, had no idea how to properly respond at all to this woman's claims, only nodded mutely.

Though no _fool_ was he.

He would be an _idiot_ to place any real trust in Umbridge's honeyed words that were laced to the brim with cold animosity.

The Hogwarts Headmaster pinched the bridge of his slender but slightly crooked nose with his thumb and forefinger and heaved an exasperated sigh.

"I am afraid that Madame Umbridge is right, Remus, on all counts. It would be beneath us to interfere in a Ministry investigation," he sighed exasperatedly, sounding disgruntled. "You may ask of Miss Tonks your questions," Professor Dumbledore began courteously, though there was no mistaking the underlying hint of impatience that had seeped its way into Albus Dumbledore's soft, quiet tones. "But you _will_ conduct yourself, Madame Umbridge, in a _civilized_ decorum and you will treat Miss Tonks with _respect_ , my dear woman. Remus, if you would kindly wait outside with me, we shall not interfere with your interview, Dolores, but we should be just outside the hall should any trouble arise during your appointment with Miss Tonks, though I expect it shan't," he added darkly, glancing towards Remus, who was looking thoroughly outraged and off-put at the idea of having to remain outside and at the thought of Dolores Jane Umbridge being allowed into Tonks's room _alone_.

Remus looked as though he was about to violently protest, though after being on the receiving end of an unusually stern look from Professor Dumbledore, he heaved a heavy sigh and reluctantly removed himself from the door's entryway, though not before casting a worried glance towards the young occupant of said room, though he had no chance to say anything before Dolores Jane Umbridge offered him a poisonous, honeyed, sweetly smile and promptly closed the door in Remus and Professor Dumbledore's faces.

He let out a low warning growl. His last thought as he joined the Hogwarts Headmaster in standing guard just outside of Nymphadora Tonks's door was that he hoped that by allowing this, that the two of them had not just made a grave mistake in leaving her alone.

Remus could feel his temper bristle at the thought of Umbridge being left _alone_ with Tonks, who was admittedly, very much still in an emotionally vulnerable state of mind, and physically as well, and in his mind, in _no_ condition to answer any questions right now. Not from _him_ , not from Umbridge, _anyone_.

"She needs to rest, Headmaster." He emanated a tense, frustrated exhale, and cocked his head to the side, his ears straining for any sounds coming from beyond the closed door.

He could have sworn he heard Dumbledore chuckled at the gesture, though Remus dared not comment.

Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek, thinking that, at the first noise, any indication of trouble, and he would barge right in there and demand that Umbridge leave at all costs and that she would not trouble Tonks any longer.

Though for the moment, he was powerless, and he could not help but feel the growing seed of resentment at not being allowed in to serve as her protector.

Remus ground his teeth in anger. If Umbridge hurt Tonks in any way, he didn't care what the repercussions of his actions were, there'd be seven shades of holy hell to pay, and he would never find it within himself to forgive her for it.

She would die cold, alone, unpardoned, and unforgiven.

Remus locked his jaw _._

_I hope this is not a mistake._

* * *

Tension met Dolores Jane Umbridge upon crossing the threshold that separated the hallway of the ward of St. Mungo's and into Miss Tonks's private and lavish room.

Dolores stood with her back resting against the dark oak wood of the now-closed door and looked in a daze towards the young woman sitting against a mountain of fluffed-up pillows against the bed's headboard and surveyed the room.

Auror Nymphadora Tonks blearily opened her eyes and gazed at the new arrival. Umbridge bit the inside wall of her cheek and gave the young Auror brief once-over, thinking that, if nothing else, the young woman's short pixie cut was neat and pristine, a deep rich chocolate brown color that was really quite lovely.

Dolores blinked, startled at first.

This was one thing she could never quite get over admittedly, the striking resemblance the young witch bore towards Alice Longbottom. They had the same facial structure and dark chocolate hair color.

The resemblance was uncanny, and Dolores gave a tinny cough to mask the worst of her shock.

She was Alice at that age…the same dark hair…fierce, smart, and yet noble.

It was _definitely_ Alice and Dolores heard herself speak her name, but when she answered Umbridge, it was Nymphadora's voice that spoke.

But of course. Alice Longbottom—the _real_ one—was but a floor above them in the ward for Permanent Spell Damage. And even if not, Alice would undoubtedly be somewhere else—her nose buried in a book or back at the office.

She would be anywhere else in a closed space but with Dolores Umbridge.

Quite a shame, for if Mrs. Longbottom had but listened to Dolores during her time as an Auror at the Ministry and played her cards right, the witch would have soared, and had countless opportunities for a successful career presented to her, but instead, she had chosen to wed Frank Longbottom and disregard Umbridge's warnings at the Auror would only bring her grief, and then….

What had happened to Alice Longbottom was a _tragedy_ , a true crime.

The young witch, who was admittedly, even Dolores could not deny this, one of the brightest witches of her age and perhaps one of the smartest in the entire Auror Office, lay within this bleach tinctured private room that was a horrible assault on the senses and immediately gave cause for Umbridge to dip into the pocket of her pink cardigan for her handkerchief to hold to her nose.

A curtain hung limply, rustling faintly in the cold London breeze from the open barred window, which helped alleviate the sickening stench of disinfectant.

Umbridge could practically see Miss Tonks's uncertainty flare in her nostrils as she regarded the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister clad entirely in hot pink as the older witch spotted a chair next to the young Auror's bedside and thought that more efficient than remaining standing in her position by the door.

Dolores set her clipboard down on the wooden nightstand by the young witch's bedside and gave it a curt tap with her wand so that the quill and clipboard hovered in the air, just off to the left of her head and the quill began scribbling of its own accord, leaving her hands-free to ask Miss Tonks her queries.

Nymphadora Tonks's face remained an even sweeter sight, except for the sight of her arm in a sling, and her other hand not bound in the device was trembling uncontrollably.

A huge purple bruise was prominent on the girl's right cheek and there was a small cut just above her left brow and another on the corner of her lip, and the young woman's complexion was entirely too pale.

Yet, she was still as lovely as the sunrise, even now, and Dolores Umbridge could not help the antagonism that brooded onto her own features. Her nostrils flared and she gave another tinny cough.

"I trust your stay here in St. Mungo's has been comfortable. Miss Tonks," she began in a voice that was falsely sweet, dripping with honey and laced with mock concern. "I am here to collect from you your recollection of the events that you went through yesterday evening. I am here to question you. Do you understand, my dear?"

Umbridge chose her words carefully, insistent upon not using the word 'interrogation' for if the young witch knew that was what this was, then the girl would undoubtedly clam up, become frightened, and refuse to tell her anything.

The young witch nodded slowly, favoring silence as the only apt response.

"Can you state your name?" Umbridge asked crankily as she crossed one leg over the other and heard the mad scratching of the feather quill next to her.

"N—Nymphadora Tonks," she whispered, feeling a strange coldness envelope her, but no darkness came. She shivered and bit her tongue, feeling an old iciness on her tongue and that was when the sound of the quill Umbridge was using accidentally made a loud scratching noise that caused her to jump.

"Ignore the quill, dearie, just focus on me. Focus on my face and listen to my questions. I am not here to harm you, Miss Tonks, though not many Aurors, especially not one as young as you, have lived through something so traumatic and I am curious to learn how you did. You may begin whenever you feel ready."

Tonks nodded slowly, her brain working on overdrive to process all of the information in her hazy, groggy stupor.

There were a thousand questions burning on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be released.

Tonks wanted to ask where the rest of the Auror Office was when all of the murders of Crouch's victims had started catching the attention of the Ministry, and then, to a slightly lesser extent, the Muggle police force, why it had taken the Ministry months to pay attention to all of the unfortunate young woman between the ages of eighteen and thirty-three that were going missing, and the very man who had saved her life was now standing just outside the room, waiting for her.

_She won't believe it's Crouch…_ _She'll laugh at you. The old hag won't believe you._

For whatever reason, Severus Snape's snake-like hiss of a voice was taunting her, goading her into feeling compelled not to tell the truth to the Senior Undersecretary seated by her bedside, who huffed in frustration, clearly waiting for Tonks to answer her.

Tonks felt her lips part open slightly to speak and was not given a chance to start before Dolores Umbridge curtly held up a hand to interrupt Tonks.

"I am terribly sorry, Miss Tonks, to have to come at such a tiring hour. The trauma you went through must have been utterly _exhausting_ ," Dolores remarked indifferently.

In a moment of rare and genuine curiosity, her gaze drifted towards the cut on her cheekbone and above her left browbone.

"Oh, _my_ ," she remarked, falsely claiming concern at the ugly bruise that tarnished her cheek. "Doesn't it hurt you?" Umbridge asked. " _That_?" she prodded, reaching out a stubby finger, attempting to try to touch only the edges of the black and purple bruise when Nymphadora Tonks violently pulled her face away and yelped.

"It's all right. It's not as bad as it looks," the younger witch replied coldly, leaving Dolores's hand hanging and her looking the utter fool as she lowered it.

Umbridge furrowed her dark brows into a slight frown. "Do not fret, my dear child. You are still quite beautiful. For a Metamorphmagus," she added, almost as an afterthought, seeing the outrage evident on the young Auror's face. "Besides, you have to get used to it anyway, I'm sure, as you are not used to it."

Dolores stifled her urge to smile as she watched Nymphadora Tonks's brows come together in confusion and her lips part open slightly, and the young witch stared at Umbridge before looking away in a frustrated exhale.

"Beg pardon?" Tonks asked Umbridge, her voice shy and quiet, nervous. "Get used to what?"

Umbridge smiled, feeling her lips stretch wider than she thought was possible. "Why, being called beautiful, my dear. What else? Do you require anything before we get started, dear? A slice of pound cake, perhaps? Something to give you a little bit of a boost. Water? Tea, perhaps, with a nice dashing of sugar? You're looking rather pale and peaky, my dear."

Tonks shook her head vehemently. She would accept _nothing_ from Umbridge.

For all she knew, the old crone had poisoned it or laced it with Veritaserum.

"N—no thank you," she panted, weakly clutching at her ribcage. "I—it's fine," she reassured, forcing a rather weak smile onto her face, though she could feel her cheeks' reluctance to be molded falsely as they fought it.

Tonks could not deny that something about this entire situation felt off. It felt wrong.

"Wh—where's Lupin? Or Professor Dumbledore? Shouldn't—shouldn't they be in here with me during this?" she pleaded, watching, and falling silent, waiting.

Out of all the times to fall under scrutiny during an investigation, why did she have to talk _alone_ , and why had Umbridge chosen _today_ to visit her here in St. Mungo's?

Would not this have better served her purposes until Tonks was back at the office and to work? Tonks did not understand Umbridge's motives.

Remus and Professor Dumbledore were just outside the door, she was sure, yes, she was sure, that she could hear their low murmurings, and she wished he was here.

Tonks hoped that Umbridge was just here to get her side of the story and file her report.

_Not accuse_ , Ollie's voice piped up from the back of her conscience, and Tonks clenched her eyes shut and ground her teeth in anger at hearing his voice.

Umbridge's frown deepened when Tonks had opened her eyes again. No doubt the older witch had noticed her seemingly strange demeanor, though she did not comment on it.

Dolores Jane Umbridge, Tonks realized, like it or not, was just here to do her job, and her job right now was to question her and get her side of the story directly, since they very well couldn't question Crouch.

"I just wish to speak with you, for now, Miss Tonks. You are not in trouble." Dolores Umbridge forced a smile that didn't quite meet her eyes.

In fact, she looked to Tonks like she was rather upset about something.

"Your… _partner_ and Professor Dumbledore are both right outside. I just need your version of what happened to you last night, everything to start out."

Tonks swallowed down hard past the growing lump forming in her throat as it hallowed and constricted and looked towards the glass of water resting on her night table. She was incredibly parched, her throat felt dry and scratchy. And a half-hour ago, she'd wanted nothing more than a simple drink.

But now, as she looked at the glass of water, it almost felt to Tonks like it was a trap.

_Moody's paranoia is rubbing off on you_ , Ollie's voice chastised her. Tonks was able to recognize that she was in her own private room at St. Mungo's, and Umbridge, with Professor Dumbledore and Remus standing guard just outside her room (she hoped!), certainly weren't going to poison her or drug or anything of that nature.

But still…Tonks could not help but still to harbor a twinge of caution towards the Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic for this little action.

She _was_ , after all, the very same woman who had instituted the beginning of the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act, making it almost neigh impossible for people with Remus's condition to maintain steady employment in the wizarding world, and it was also no secret that she harbored ill will towards half-bloods.

Besides, after the grueling night she'd suffered if almost being attacked and raped, she did not think that Dolores Umbridge, or anyone else at the Ministry of Magic, would blame her for at least harboring a little bit of caution towards this line of questioning here.

Umbridge laced her stubby, rounded fingers together, and regarded the broken young woman in front of her. "You're shaking, dear thing. Is it warm enough for you in here? Do you have blood sugar dips, by any chance?"

"N—no," Tonks stammered, shivering, and clutching onto the blanket as she pulled it up to rest over her lap. "It's…it's just been a long night, Undersecretary. One that I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to survive."

"There's no need for you to be scared, Miss Tonks," Umbridge piped up reassuringly, offering the dark-haired young witch a soft smile and hoped that it, for appearance's sake, appeared genuine. "I am _just_ here to get the truth from you, that's _all_. I promise you that you are not in any trouble with me, dearie. Those of us at the Ministry just want to hear what happened to you, Tonks."

Tonks let out a tiny sigh and repressed a tremor of revulsion that threatened escape down her spine.

She _really_ didn't want to talk about it.

She winced as she recalled how her body had jarred with each one of Crouch's violent blows, how the pain seared through her skin and took away every single feeling of safety she'd ever had. Crouch put his all into each strike.

His unwanted kiss still burned as fire and tingled on her lips.

The visions of his face as they flitted through the front of her mind, refusing to part from her thoughts were the worst, cutting her insides and churning her stomach as if they were but shards of glass piercing her intestines.

Tonks chanced a glance towards the closed door, straining to hear their voices again. She knew without a shadow of a doubt, her new partner was standing on the other side of the door against the wall, probably.

And though she couldn't see Remus Lupin, she could sense his presence, and she thought that what would bring her the most amount of comfort, though Tonks could not even begin to explain it, was for Lupin to be standing right here, by her.

She knew her request was going to be denied, but that still did not stop her from asking.

"Can't Remus come in?" Tonks pleaded, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout and biting down hard. "If my partner doesn't speak and say anything, can't he just…sit here next to me? I—it would help…"

Umbridge was already shaking her head fervently, denying her request without even having to utter a single word. "My sincerest apologies for the discomfort, Miss Tonks, but _no_ , your partner _cannot_ come in," she began, scrunching her nose and glancing over at the clipboard still hovering in the air next to her head. "You may begin recanting of the events whenever you like."

A tremor of cold traveled down her spine and she shivered. Tonks bit down even harder on her lip that she could swore she felt it start to crack a little.

"The truth," Tonks whispered hoarsely. "About the Death Eater. Who he is…it's…it's Barty Crouch, Jr., Madame Undersecretary. He took me…tried to rape me..." She shuddered.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and when she lifted her gaze from her trembling hands resting uncomfortably in her lap, she could already tell that Dolores Umbridge thought that she was lying, by the fake smile on her face.

"That's quite impossible, my dear. Bartemius's only son is still locked away in Azkaban Prison, where he rightfully belongs. You _know_ this, dearie. Perhaps whichever Death Eater abducted you was merely impersonating him with Polyjuice Potion."

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown, though Ollie's voice once again spoke up at the back of her mind, quietly advising her. _Her mind, just like Fudge's, is twisted and warped by fear and a blunt refusal to accept the truth, T_.

"No," Tonks whispered desperately, still biting down on her lip and thinking that she would incredibly lucky to even have her bottom lip if she couldn't quit this nervous tic of hers. "It _was_ Crouch, Madame Umbridge—"

"That is _quite_ enough, Miss Tonks, wouldn't you say?" Dolores interjected, holding up a hand and effectively cutting off Tonks before she could further argue on the matter. "You merely…saw another man posing as Crouch's son, though what the man's motives were, I cannot say, my dear. To frighten you, I suspect." Her voice was cold and dismissive.

"I _know_ what I saw, it was Crouch's son, and he has to be stopped. Now, before he comes after me again, Madame Undersecretary," Tonks protested, well aware of the desperation and pleading undertone that lurked in her tone. "I—I _know_ what it sounds like. That I'm _crazy_ , but I—I'm _not_!"

Tonks knew that even as she blinked back briny salty liquid from her lids that threatened escape, that her voice lacked the conviction to sell the point she really wanted to make, and her cracking voice erupted from her as though it would be the silencer to the dark, demonic voice that was doubt in her mind.

In a moment of rare frustration for the young Auror, Tonks let out a groan of agitation, she reached up to her one good hand, the pads of her fingertips sticky as they entangled themselves in her dark brown pixie cut, of which she had rapidly changed from its usual dark pink color to a more neutral color the moment Professor Dumbledore had announced that Dolores was here to see her.

Dolores had never once seen Tonks's hair a wild color like pink or purple whenever she was confined to administrative work at the Auror Office, and Tonks aimed to keep it that way.

Anything to stay on the hag's good side.

Her lungs burned as the biting air wafting in from the outside window thrashed in and out of her at a speed that she thought she could not control, and she was quite sure that slick tears would slip from her eyes at any given minute.

Dolores quirked a brow at Nymphadora Tonks and folded her thick arms across her chest. Her scrutinizing gaze drifted down towards her arms and at the bruise on her cheek and brow, and finally, her sharp gaze settled on her hands.

"You have dozens of cuts and bruises on your arm, Miss Tonks. How did you get them? What was the name of the Death Eater who attacked you, did he tell you his name, where he was hiding, what he wanted with you? I'm here to _help_ you, but only if you cooperate and start answering me honestly, my dear sweet child."

Tonks felt the heat creep to her cheeks and she could no longer ignore the fiery, scratching sensation in her throat no longer and she shakily reached for the water glass, fumbling the glass as her wand hand trembled as she attempted to grasp onto, and only succeeded in splashing water over the table.

"I…" Her voice trailed off, and she knew by this point it was impossible to convince this maddingly frustrating woman that Barty Crouch Jr. had done this to her, that she, like all the others at the Ministry, probably, didn't buy it.

Tonks blinked back her tears and bit the inside wall of her cheek and exhaled a shaking, nervous breath.

"No. I…I was walking in the woods i—in the dark. I—I fell into a ravine when I attempted to Disapparate. Ran into branches, trees. I—I slipped. It was dark out. I couldn't see it. Rocks, trees, that's what did it…"

It hurt as hell to lie this way, even to Umbridge, but what was the point in telling this woman the truth if she had no refutable evidence with which to back her claim up. Tonks bit her tongue as Umbridge leaned forward slightly.

" _Oh_?" the older woman asked, narrowing her eyes until they were mere slits. As she leaned forward in her chair and reached out a short, stubby hand, the pads of her fingers grazed over Tonks's neck, to which she immediately shirked back from the woman's surprisingly tender touch and glowered at her.

" _Don't_ ," Tonks pleaded desperately, inhaling a sharp breath that pained her lungs. Before she could even fathom what she was doing, she reached up and slapped Umbridge's hand away. "I—I'm sorry," she apologized as soon as she saw the all-too-familiar flicker of anger pass through Umbridge's slit eyes.

Though Dolores gave a curt nod and settled back into her chair, the older woman's lips pursed into a thin line, forcing an obviously fake smile, though Tonks could read the Madame Undersecretary like an open book.

It was in her eyes. Tonks wished she'd kept her trance at the spot on the wall behind her pillow. Tonks knew that deliberation was over for her by now. Umbridge had judged her words, declared them as wind, and Tonks knew the Ministry employee did not believe her story that Crouch was free.

"It's quite all right, dear, Miss Tonks," Umbridge breathed, feeling her broad shoulders sag as she settled back against her chair's headrest. "You are not in any trouble."

Tonks's expression, however, told Dolores that the young Auror remained unconvinced of her words.

Umbridge huffed in frustration and pinched her temples. " _Listen_ to me, dear. I need you to be completely _honest_ with me. Whatever the man who kidnapped you said to you to make you scared, forget his words _right_ _now_. I realize that you are the _victim_ in this little scenario. There's no point in trying to pretend otherwise."

Dolores seemed to understand, raking her stubby fingers through her short curly dark hair a moment and fixing Tonks with a cold glare.

Tonks shivered, biting her tongue, wishing that Lupin were in here with her.

She could not quite explain it, but the man exuded a pure aura of warmth and kindness, as though, despite what had obviously been a hard life for him, now that Snape had let slip the nature of his condition, the man behaved as though he had been unaffected by the evils of this world. His heart was pure and golden.

The young Auror winced as Dolores Umbridge reached over and grabbed Tonks's injured hand, her wand hand currently suffering nerve damage, and squeezing her hand a little tighter than was supposed to have been reassuring.

Tonks clenched her eyes shut as a spasm of white-hot pain licked up her arm and traveled down her spine.

A burning animosity was developing in Umbridge's orbs, and Tonks knew that she was the root cause of the problem.

But still, if Umbridge would refuse to believe her, then what was the point of conversing about it any further?

Tonks stifled a cry of pain as Umbridge spoke.

"You can _trust_ me, Miss Tonks. I'm on your side, dearie. It's my job to help those in the Ministry. So, you have to tell me what happened to you, and it has to be the _truth_ ," she growled, leaning over her chair and squinting her beady eyes at the markings that Severus's strong fingers had made around her throat. "Those are finger markings on your neck, Nymphadora, and that bruise under your eye was made by no tree branch, darling. It doesn't take an intellectual genius like Dumbledore to guess that whoever kidnapped you hit you with a Stinging Jinx or something equally nasty while you were cooped up, am I right?"

When Tonks did not answer Umbridge, she continued pressing the young woman.

"Protecting someone, a man who _hurt_ you, is just going to make things that much worse for you, my child. Especially if you're called to testify in a trial in front of the full Wizengamot, it's going to look _very_ bad, Miss Tonks. For your sake. _Don't_. If someone threatened you, then talk to me. Tell me who did this to you. There's no need for you to protect whoever did this."

At her words, Tonks felt her eyes go wide and round with shock. "But I _did_ tell you who did it!" Tonks yelled, feeling her tears well up in her eyes and threatened to pour-over. "You' re— _you're not listening to me_! I don't understand what it is that you want from me!" she cried. "What is it?!"

The cruel Undersecretary smiled, and Tonks inwardly shivered in revolt.

"How… _perceptive_ of you, dearie," Umbridge began smoothly, putting her fingertips together and clasping them together. "There are quite a few questions that surround you, Miss Tonks. Questions that I want to be answered."

"What makes you think I'll answer them?" Tonks asked defiantly, feeling panic rise within her.

This was _not_ a good situation for her to be in right now, and she could swear she felt her blood pressure rising. Why was Dolores Umbridge cornering her in her own room in St. Mungo's less than twenty-four hours after almost brutally being raped and beaten to death and treating her like she was the suspect?!

She hadn't done anything wrong!

Surely, Umbridge could realize that, as one of the top Aurors at the Ministry of Magic, she hadn't done anything wrong?

"What do you _want_?" Tonks croaked out in a pleasing mewl.

"If you do not start answering my questions _truthfully_ , Miss Tonks, then I will have no choice but to resort to other, less pleasant methods," Umbridge snarled, her phony grin sliding off her face quicker than Stinksap. "Talk. _Now_."

"And if I say _no_?" Tonks whispered, feeling the muscles in her face tense.

This woman was terrifying no matter what Umbridge did or said to her.

This was not a good position for her to be in right now, and more than ever before, as she felt the welling panic rise within her stomach, she wished that Lupin and Professor Dumbledore would come in and remove Umbridge _._

Dolores Jane Umbridge's Cheshire cat-like grin grew even wider, and the young witch felt her blood as ice in her veins and she shuddered in fear.

"Because, child," Dolores began, a quite smug and evil expression crossing her pudgy features. "I can make the _wolf_ suffer if you do not talk…" Here, she leaned forward, allowing her face to come within mere inches of Tonks's. "More than you could ever possibly imagine. Imagine having no access to Wolfsbane Potion at all for the rest of his miserable existence. The… _horrible_ tragedy, that would befall one of his poor, unfortunate victims were he to accidentally bite someone, would result in his lifetime incarceration in Azkaban. The fact that you would align yourself with a _disgusting_ half-breed _werewolf_ is beyond me…"

Tonks immediately shrank back against her pillow as far as she could go and bared her teeth in anger. "Don't _you_ dare touch him. You lay a hand against my partner, you'll regret it. _Don't!"_ The threat escaped her before she could swallow it back _. "Or I'll—"_

Umbridge interrupted her threat by throwing back her head and giggling. "You'll _what_ , dear? I'm sorry, _who_ is the one here who has extensive damage to their wand hand, who is the one whose other arm remains in a splint, child? Your threats mean _nothing_ to me, darling. That man outside, your _Lupin_ , he has no true understanding of the ways of the world as it is. He is ignorant of his happenings around him, my dear," Umbridge replied languidly as she rose to stand, and Tonks felt a chill of fear as she watched the stout, toad-like woman's stubby, short fingers curl into a fist tightly over her long wand.

"And who is responsible for _that_ , Madame Undersecretary?" Tonks spat back at Dolores, her glower, and her anger deepening as she swallowed back the worst of her temper. " _You_ are the one that's done that to him! _You_ were the one who signed the order to put the Anti-Werewolf Legislation into place! _You_ are the one who has made it _impossible_ for him and others like him to get decent jobs, and Wolfsbane Potion! None of them _asked_ to be bitten! Lift the ban, lower the taxes and cost of Wolfsbane Potion, and there's a market for it!"

Tonks was panting heavily now, and winced as a painful spasm lurched its way through her heart.

"My dear young lady…" Umbridge clucked her tongue in mock disappointment, as though she had expected better of the bright young witch. "Do you _honestly_ believe that _our_ kind, _normal_ wizards, would ever accept him as anything _but_? Our world is cruel and wicked, and his kind should be kept locked away in the cages like the _dogs_ that I know those wolves to be!"

Tonks barely had any time to react as Dolores Umbridge gave a curt wave of her wand, and Tonks felt a horrible constricting and hallowing on her throat, a terrible pressure like she'd never felt before as a force squeezed, and she immediately felt her air circulation cut off.

"P—please…" she choked out in a pained breath. "S—Stop!"

"If you will not _willingly_ tell me the name of your attacker," Umbridge growled, a muscle behind her right eyelid twitching, "I have _other_ methods."

The Madame Undersecretary's words rendered Tonks's blood to ice in her veins, and brick by brick, her walls came tumbling down as she felt the salty liquid drip from her eyes and down her cheeks and the walls that hold her up, made her strong, just…collapsed. Moment by moment, her tears fell violently.

Tonks stifled a low moan as she heard a high-pitched squealing noise coming from above her, and she heard Umbridge's terrified scream as Tonks realized a fraction of a second too late that her little Bowtruckle, in a valiant effort to protect his owner, had let out a squeak of outrage and had promptly launched itself into Umbridge's hair.

Boy, what a scream that was that Umbridge let out. It made the hair stand straight up on the back of her neck. It was the loudest most piercing scream Tonks had ever heard.

It sounded like a scream of wild panic. A scream of hysteria and disbelief, bordering on terror, and Umbridge's face reddened and flushed as she wildly grasped for the little Bowtruckle taking refuge in her curly hair, her short, stubby fingers wildly trying to grasp onto the little green creature.

"Ngh...Don't...hurt...him..." Tonks pleaded, still struggling to breathe, wishing that if Umbridge wished to just kill her, that she would just do it already and end her suffering.

Apparently, she let out a choked, hoarse scream of surprise, but Tonks couldn't quite recall that part. Only the black swirling mists dancing in her vision.

An angry shout rent the air on the other side of the closed door that rendered Umbridge frozen to her spot, though she made no move to take her wand off of Tonks's throat.

If anything, her ironclad grip only tightened further and the tip of her wand pressed even deeper, and as such, whatever Choking Jinx Umbridge was using on her only intensified.

"Tonks?" came Remus's voice, quiet at first, but quickly escalated into a yell of surprise, sounding concerned upon hearing Umbridge scream again, and Tonks's ears perked up as she heard the soft sound of his voice that was…unexpectedly comforting—her partner's voice.

When she did not answer (she couldn't!) his voice grew even more concerned.

"What's going on? Are you hurt? This is—this is _ridiculous_ , Albus, I—I need to get in there, Headmaster, this has gone on long enough, Tonks, Madam Undersecretary, open the damned door right now or I'll break it down," he snarled, his voice sounding fainter, and though Tonks could not be certain, it sounded as though Lupin were addressing Albus, and Remus's voice became fainter, and she heard the sound of the doorknob unlock as Lupin murmured, " _Alohomora_!"

Umbridge furrowed her brows into a frown, though still, she did not relinquish her grip upon her wand, nor did she lower it from Tonks's throat, not even when the door flung wide open and Remus barreled in through the doorway, almost tripping over himself in his haste to appear at his partner's side.

He straightened his posture, Dumbledore following close behind, and once the man's gaze lingered and landed upon Dolores Umbridge's wand pressed tightly against Tonks's throat, Remus's face drained of what little color there had been left in it, to begin with, and he strode towards her.

Tonks could not be certain, but she could have sworn she saw the shadow of the wolf cross his pale features, and the low growl and snarl that escaped from the man's chest as a low rumble sounded more wolfish than Tonks had ever heard.

It frightened her, to see Remus in this new light. He looked imposing and almost predatory as he bolted towards Dolores, his lips pulled back in a vicious snarl.

His wand clutched tightly in hand, closing off the gap of space between himself and Umbridge as Dolores quickly removed her wand from Tonks's throat, and standing upright at his full height of around 6'3, he towered over her.

Tonks coughed, one hand on the column of her throat, black spots swimming in front of her vision and she was only barely aware of Professor Dumbledore coming to stand by her side. She lifted her chin and blearily tried to focus her gaze a few feet in front of herself. Tonks could hear Remus shouting.

She breathed a shaking breath and a sigh of relief as she watched Ptelea leap out of Umbridge's hair and back towards Tonks, her shaking palm outstretched to retrieve the little Bowtruckle, and Tonks allowed the faintest ghost of a smile as the ornery little twig-like creature blew several raspberries Umbridge's way.

"She could have killed you," Tonks whispered hoarsely, still coughing and gasping for air, though forcing her attention to return to Umbridge and Lupin.

Umbridge was speaking to Lupin, and there was no mistaking the flicker of fear that darted through the short, stout witch's voice.

"One more _move_ , _monster_ , and I can promise you, that you will regret it, you filthy half-breed!"

Lupin, thank Merlin, did not seem at all fazed by the Madame Undersecretary's poorly veiled threats.

" **HOW** **DARE** **YOU**?! _What is the meaning of this_?!" Remus bellowed, curling his hand into a protective fist over his wand, pointing it directly at the stout woman's chest, glowering directly at Dolores. "Can't you see my _partner_ has been through _enough_? She's lucky to be _alive_ after the ordeal that Crouch put her through, and you want to traumatize her even more? How _dare_ you lay a hand against her, and you _dare_ question her without _me_ present. You're questioning and treating her like she's a _criminal_ ," Lupin snarled, baring his teeth, and leaning so that the tip of his nose was practically touching Umbridge's. "Miss Tonks is a member of your _own_ Auror Office, Umbridge, and to see you treat one of your own this way is despicable. How _dare_ you?!" he snapped, and it did not escape Tonks's attention that Remus had abandoned any sense of proper edict around Dolores Umbridge.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, had chosen to occupy the very seat in which Dolores had just vacated, hands folded neatly in his lap and smoothing the creases in his robes.

Tonks could not prove it, though she was sure that the man was smiling by the way his beard twitching and his cobalt eyes twinkled mischievously.

_He's enjoying this_ , Tonks thought wildly, biting her bottom lip in anguish. _I don't believe this… He wants to see what Remus is going to do_.

"Remus, please...don't." Her desperate plea escaped her as a whisper, and she could see the man's resolve falter as his head whiplashed sharply up to regard her.

Professor Dumbledore exchanged a concerned glance with Tonks and when he spoke to Remus, his authoritative voice seemed to echo and reverberate off the walls.

"Professor Lupin, you will _kindly_ quell your rage and conduct yourself in a _civilized_ , _respectable_ manner, less you wish to upset your partner even further, Remus."

Lupin felt his blood ignite in his veins like wildfire, his nostrils flaring in anger. As Remus glanced towards Tonks, what he saw in her eyes broke his heart, several times over, as a matter of fact.

There was such paleness in her face, and fear and terror and apprehension lingered and flickered in her light gray eyes.

Dolores Umbridge took a faltering step backward and made to head towards the door, her own wand raised in defense, never once averting her gaze from Remus's hard, stony stare.

"With all due respect, _you filthy_ _dog_ , your _partner_ , is covered in cuts and bruises. I know another wizard did this to her, but she refuses to tell me the truth and instead seems content to spout such slanderous nonsense that none other than Bartemius Crouch's own _son_ was the very man that did this to her. And as a result of her current mental and physical state, I've no _choice_ , Miss Tonks, but to place you on three months of paid administrative leave pending an official Ministry investigation into your _ridiculous_ claims," she added, casting a falsely sympathetic gaze towards Nymphadora, who was looking on the brink of tears. She sighed.

"No, please," Tonks begged pitifully, swallowing back tears, a hand over her throat as she wildly coughed for air.

But Umbridge was not fazed by her plea. "You are not to take _one_ _step_ through the Ministry's doors until you pass a physical and mental evaluation, and even once you are permitted to return to work, I am afraid that I _cannot_ allow you to return to fieldwork, and as such, you will work at your desk in the office for at _least_ six months, until such a time when I see fit to deem you able to return to fieldwork. I will _not_ entertain the notion of stupid _lies_ currently circulating meant to discredit our Minister and the Ministry's efforts."

Dolores ignored Tonks's rapidly paling face and turned towards Lupin, who was looking outraged and as though he had several things he wanted to say to her, but she didn't give him a chance.

"The Ministry of Magic will get to the bottom of whoever attacked her, Mr. Lupin, and having _other_ _people_ present in the room during an interrogation leads to witnesses and the victims alike withholding vital information that will allow us to catch the individual responsible for this and put him behind bars in Azkaban for good. That is why I requested this appointment _privately_ , and _you_ need to _leave_."

Tonks, at Umbridge's words and her demands that she not be allowed to return to fieldwork as an Auror, the area in which she most excelled, burst into tears.

That one sudden shift in his partner's attitude was more than enough for Remus to act. Madame Undersecretary to the Minister or not, this woman was _harming_ her. _Hurting_ her.

And that, he could not allow it. Lupin felt a burning rage ignite within his veins so hard, that he did not properly have enough time to sort through the emotions he felt, and he snarled as the witch took another step forward, as though to head back towards Tonks.

"You will _not_ touch her again!" Remus barked sharply.

When he swiveled his head sharply, all the while keeping his gaze trained fixedly on Umbridge's equally cold glower, as he spoke to her, his words were cold enough that Tonks let out a shudder.

"And I'm not leaving, Madame Undersecretary. Just _look_ at her. She's in _no_ condition to answer _any_ questions right now, and not for the next several days or weeks. You will _not_ talk to my partner like this, Madame," he growled.

Without even waiting for Dolores Umbridge to respond, he strode to the door and flung it wide open so hard that the door swung all the way back and slammed against the wall and pointed his wand squarely at the woman's broad chest.

"You _cannot_ corner her and threaten Tonks and demand she tells you what happened. She claims that she already told you. I believe her, as does the Headmaster. I saw Crouch with my own eyes at the abduction site. It's up to you to regard her statement as _fact_ , and since you do not want to, this interview is _over_. My partner's wounds are healing, and her condition is causing her a great deal of stress which the aggressive methods that you _dare_ to call _questioning_ will only exacerbate them. You've done more than enough," he snarled. "Now, _get out_ , and don't make me say it a second time. I really _hate_ saying it a second time," Lupin growled, keeping his wand trained on Umbridge.

Dolores, for her part, pursed her lips into a thin, rigid scowl, though her gaze did not waver from Remus's wand, which remained pointed at her chest.

" _Get_. _Out_ ," Remus snarled, baring his teeth and not bothering to stop the low threatening warning growl as it escaped from his chest.

He felt the edges of his lips curl upwards into a twisted smirk that more closely resembled a grimace as he briefly saw the flickers of fear and uncertainty dart through Umbridge's eyes.

"You—" Umbridge started to say, but Remus wasn't hearing any of it.

Remus raised his wand half-threateningly, intentionally slowing his movements, holding his free hand up to effectively cut Dolores off from whatever she was about to say next.

"Do _not_ make me say it again. I won't ask a second time. _Get_. _Out_. Madame Undersecretary, you are positively _high_ on Giggle Water if you think you're coming _back_ into this room," Remus growled angrily, standing in the doorway once Umbridge had steadily been backed out of the room by Lupin. "Not a _chance_ after what you just attempted to do to my partner. I don't _think_ so, Umbridge. If you take _one_ step into this room again or come anywhere _near_ my partner again, _Umbridge_ ," he spat venomously, spitting her name with such a trace of bitterness as though a disgusting poison had settled and lingered on his tongue, and with no small amount of venom in his piercing, stony gaze. "I'm going to tell the St. Mungo's security staff that there's an insane woman in a pink dress and cardigan harassing and threatening to _murder_ my partner and have you promptly removed from the premises."

Dolores felt her mouth drop open in shock. _No_ one had _ever_ spoken to her this way, _ever_. She bristled, and parted her lips to speak, though the _wolf_ did not give her a chance.

Remus felt his blood boil in his veins, igniting hotter than any dragon could ever flame.

"This," he snarled, gesturing with one of his hands currently blocking the door, "is _my_ room now. That out there," he snapped, gesturing towards the hallway which led out to the main visitor lobby and reception area of St. Mungo's, " _Is your_ area. That area down the hall and to the left with the vending machine with the Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Botts's Beans? That's _your_ area. This is _my_ area," he growled, pointing back towards Tonks's room with a slightly shaking finger as he gestured and genuflected with his hands to differentiate the difference between the 'areas.'

The way the half-breed was behaving was quite possessive and territorial, and if the man were a dog, he'd have been growling and foaming at the mouth.

Still, even Umbridge knew it wouldn't do to cause a scene like this in the middle of the hallway of St. Mungo's and plastered a forced, fake smile upon her features and gave a shrill cough. She had her own reputation to think of.

"I understand how you feel, Mr. Lupin, but this is not _up_ to you, sir…"

But Lupin ignored her threat and airily brushed away Umbridge's statement with a wave of his hand.

"This is _my_ room, that hall down there that is _your_ area. Stay in _your_ area, stay _out_ of _my_ room, and Merlin's beard, _back off_ or the next time you come within fifty feet of Miss Tonks, I swear to _God_ I'll bite you myself, Madame Undersecretary, and I can personally guarantee you that it _will_ hurt," he snarled viciously. " _Get_. _Out_."

Remus didn't bother to quell back the second wolfish growl that escaped his throat, and there was a savage part of the Mad Beast within that relished in the dawning look of horror growing on Dolores Jane Umbridge's wretched face.

Umbridge's face was pale as if hit by a blizzard, and as her lips parted open to fire back a retort, Lupin, upon hearing the tiny muffled sobs coming from his new partner as she coughed and gasped for air and Dumbledore's low murmuring tones attempting to soothe the distraught young Auror, furrowed his brows into a frown and he snarled, the edge of his lip curling downward, and he was pleased to see Dolores Umbridge take a step backward.

Lupin lowered his voice so that only Umbridge could hear him. "You think that just because you put the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act into effect means you can control my kind, but you are _wrong_. As long as I remain a personal close friend of Albus Dumbledore's, I have complete immunity over your regulations for people like me, and whatever crimes I might commit against _anyone_ if I find out that my partner has been mistreated in any way, that as long as Dumbledore is alive, you will not win. You will not control me. We'll _never_ be controlled, Madame Undersecretary, and you have _no_ power over me or any other wolves. For _years_ , I've been dying to tell you what I think of you, Madame Undersecretary, and given what you just attempted to try to do to Tonks, there's no question in my mind that you _deserve_ to hear what I have to say, but…well, my partner does not need to hear me speak such _foul_ language while she recovers, so for _her_ sake, I can't say it!"

Umbridge felt herself bristle and her chest puffed out in indignation. "The _idea_!" she squeaked. "Sir, you will find that the word 'fear' is _not_ in my vocabulary."

Lupin snarled in response and did not bother to bite back his tongue and hold back his retort. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"Perhaps not, Madame Undersecretary," Lupin remarked coldly, narrowing his eyes as he glowered at Dolores Umbridge. "But it's in your eyes. Now, if you will _kindly_ excuse me, I need to go check on my partner that you emotionally traumatized and almost _killed_ ," he spat poisonously. "A very _good_ day to you, Madame Secretary."

Without waiting for Dolores Umbridge to respond, Remus slammed the door in the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic's outraged, pale face.

If only he could have known that was perhaps one of the _worst_ mistakes he would _ever_ make in his life...

* * *

**BOO TO THE YA! Take THAT, Umbridge, you witch, you old hag, you filthy pink-loving crone! This chapter felt sooooo satisfying to write, guys, you have no idea! It felt like I WAS Tonks in this one. Well, technically I WAS because a part of her personality is based on mine with a combination of the books. I know, I know, so many do, but I regret nothing!  
**

**Ooh, I still have excessive amounts of adrenaline coursing through my veins! TAKE THAT UMBRIDGE, YOU SHORT OLD TROLL, YOU HAG!**

**Unfortunately, this is NOT the last we see of that miserable old toad, and you'll just have to stay tuned to find out what becomes of our main characters and their encounter with the Madame Senior Undersecretary to the Minister :)**


	20. Not Leaving You

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

Remus stifled a growl of frustration as he slammed the door to Tonks's private room in Umbridge's face, not bothering to look back over his shoulder to see the old witch's stunned expression. He could tell by the unusually somber look on Professor Dumbledore's face that there would be seven shades of hell to pay for the words he'd dared to utter in retaliation against Umbridge, but he would deal with that later.

"I _do_ hope you're quite _pleased_ with yourself, Remus John Lupin," grumbled Professor Dumbledore from the chair that he was now seated in, the very same that Dolores Umbridge had sat in, sounding uncharacteristically annoyed with the way Remus had chosen to respond in kind to Umbridge. "A fine _mess_ you have created for yourself, Remus, by losing your temper and speaking to the Senior Undersecretary for the Minister of Magic. Dolores Jane Umbridge is going to _remember_ your words, Lupin. I take it that I need not remind you the Madame Undersecretary can make your life a literal living nightmare if you are not careful? I would have expected that kind of rash behavior from James or Sirius, perhaps, but from _you_ , I'd have thought you would have kept a more level head about you, Remus," Albus protested wildly.

Professor Dumbledore heaved an exasperated sigh as he watched the poor young witch in the bed practically tremble in fear over what had just happened to her, and no doubt, at seeing her new partner's temper implode.

Albus detected copious amounts of unbridled fear and uncertainty and confusion in the young witch's steely gray eyes, and clearly, it was evident that Nymphadora Tonks had no idea what to make of Remus Lupin's protectiveness. The old wizard's cobalt orbs darkened to a cerulean hue in color as they grew painfully sad and he raised one of his lined and withered hands to ghost over the features of his tired face and stroke his beard in contemplative thought.

He could tell by Nymphadora Tonks's body language, the way she was attempting to retreat within herself, knees brought close to her chest and arms wrapped around her knees, and how she could not seem to look him in the eyes, that the vibrant young Auror was not the same woman as she had been.

Tonks bit her tongue, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to leave her eyes. And that was when she could no longer hold them at bay. First, one small crystal bead escaped from her right eye. She could feel its warmth, sliding down her pale cheek and rolling off her chin. And another.

Another. And another. Until her eyes practically flooded with them, coming like a rainfall. Every ten seconds they fall out of stress, and she let them.

Lupin growled in anger, adrenaline still surging through his veins as the memory of barging into Tonks's room and finding the Undersecretary for the Minister of Magic himself attempting to strangle Nymphadora by use of her _own_ wand—in _St. Mungo's_!

"Oh, I hope _so_ , Headmaster! If she forgets, then I'll just have to remind her again, won't I, Professor?" he snapped, not in the mood for another lecture on his behavior the last few nights. "How _dare_ she lay a hand against Tonks?! St. Mungo's is meant to be a place of healing, not violence and murder! Is no place sacred anymore?!" he yelled, seizing tufts of his hair and tugging on them in anguish, as he continued his restless pacing, growling, and throwing scathing, venomous looks at the door.

"I—I am _fine_ , Remus," Tonks offered, her voice soft and worried. "R—really, Lupin, please don't get so worked up over this. She… She's evil, but…"

But Remus did not hear the rest of Tonks's statement as her voice trailed off and she murmured something lowly, too quiet for Remus to make out what was said. He let out a low warning growl of frustration announcing his mood.

 _Let the old bag threaten you all she wants_ , James piped up. _Her words are wind_. _What's she going to do? You're under Dumbledore's protection, remember? She cannot touch you as long as Dumbledore's alive_. _You ask me, that wretched old toad can take that twig she calls a wand and shove it up her—_

 _JAMES!_ Lily's voice sounded much more thoroughly put off than that of her husband's. _You should not have spoken to the Senior Undersecretary that way, Remus,_ Lily scolded _. She is an incredibly powerful and influential person of interest at the Ministry of Magic, and she could make your life_ _and_ _hers hell_.

He carded his hands through his tuft of light brown hair and raked his bangs away from his face and glanced towards Tonks, a hand still on her throat, and her face was still much too pale, chalk-white. Remus emanated a tense exhale through his nose and felt the worst of his anger at the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister quickly evaporate.

 _Breathe, Rem. Nice and slow_ … Lily's voice chimed in like a gentle bell, signaling a warning to him that he needed to regulate his breathing back to normal, or he'd have an outburst. His anger quickly replaced astonishment as he cast his eyes towards her and saw that his partner was crying.

Oh, he should have _never_ lost his temper! That insufferable woman had deserved every bit of his black, putrid words of hatred that he'd had the gall and audacity to spout at her, but he should have waited! He should not have…he should not have let her see it. Remus could see in Tonks's eyes, that she would now blame herself, though the fault lay not with her, but with him. This was all his fault. _His_.

"You…are you hurt?" he managed to gasp out, noticing the sheer terror in Tonks's eyes as her gray orbs widened in shock and surprise at seeing his rage. "Did she do anything to worsen your injuries? Did she…that—that _witch_!" he snapped. I—I apologize that you had to hear me talk like that," he said, a pained expression on his face. "It's not often that I lose my temper…"

"It's _not_ your fault, Remus," Tonks offered quietly, her fingers curling into a fist over the heated blanket that Albus had gratefully re-heated for her with a simple Heating Spell while Lupin had been preoccupied talking to Dolores Umbridge. "She had no right to…to behave the way that she did."

It pained Tonks to see her new partner in such a horrible way, restlessly pacing the linoleum floor, back and forth he went in constant motion, seeming to become more agitated as the seconds passed and turned to minutes. She bit the inside wall of her cheek, thinking that his anguish towards what he had just done was entirely misplaced. Umbridge deserved every bit of what was exchanged, and even more, and she tried to say as much. "She deserved it."

 _Sit with her_ , Lily advised. _Just on the edge of the bed. Keep her calm_.

Ah, but Merlin Above, Remus did not think that he could. He did not dare meet Nymphadora's gaze, for he knew that if he did, he would only see the fear and disgust in those pale gray eyes of hers, and he didn't think he could bear it if that was the case. He did not deserve this woman as his new partner.

He had _no right_ to even call her a friend one day, as evident by the _horrible_ way that he had failed her twice in the span of not even twenty-four hours yet. First, he had failed to arrive in time to save her from the worst of her injuries, and now, he'd failed to protect her from suffering at the hands of _her_.

"Sit with me?" Her soft, shy voice broke through his dark haze of thoughts, and Remus felt his eyes widen and his head whiplashed so sharply upward that he winced, clamping a hand to the back of his neck as he felt a swell of heat travel from his neck down to his spine as a muscle gave a tug.

Lupin flinched and ground his teeth, though seeing the slightly desperate and pleading look in his partner's eyes, and he was able to gauge for himself Tonks's reaction. She did not appear to be disgusted with his behavior just now towards Umbridge, if anything, she almost looked… _impressed_. And, as he dared to meet his gaze, Tonks offered him a small smile and her face changed, as if by a spell.

It immediately lifted his mood, and Remus felt himself let out a soft smile in return, albeit a rather crooked one, and he gave a curt nod and moved to sit on the edge of her bed, opposite Dumbledore. His gaze drifted down to her wand hand, which had, at least since he'd thought to check on her this morning, had not ceased its violent shaking.

He wondered if poor Tonks would always have some small bout of the tremors and if the nerve damage was permanent. He was suddenly strongly tempted to see what he could do for her and was hit with an almost overwhelming need to touch her hand that began as a strange fiery warmth, first in the pit of his stomach, moving to his chest. The need became a desire until he wanted it so badly that it _ached_. Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and dared to scoot his hand a little closer.

Though he immediately stopped when he saw the familiar flash of vibrant green dare to re-emerge from underneath a lock of her hair and he found himself staring into the black, beady, narrowed eyes of her Bowtruckle.

Professor Dumbledore chuckled as the woodland creature poked his head out even further and blew a raspberry at Remus and was eyeing the man with no small measure of distrust and apprehension towards his owner. "He likes you, it would seem," Dumbledore offered by way of an attempt to break the tension in the room.

Tonks offered the Hogwarts Headmaster a weak smile, though even she knew it did not mask the worry and tension in her eyes as Dumbledore was regarding her with no small measure of relief and disappointment in his eyes.

Albus regarded the young Auror over the rim of his silver half-moon spectacles and sighed, lifting his glasses slightly to pinch at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, as though fighting off the beginnings of a migraine.

"What you did, Miss Tonks, was incredibly reckless, going off on your own without informing Severus of your intentions ahead of time. I am rather disappointed in you. You are an Auror and a member of the Order, though we have regulations that we follow. You are incredibly smart, and therefore, smart enough to know that what you did last night was dangerous and foolish," he began hesitantly, careful to mind his verbiage around her. "There is a reason I cannot condone vigilante justice. You are lucky to be alive, and you could have gotten yourself killed last night, Tonks. You almost _did_."

Tonks felt her face flush in shame, and she lowered her head in submission and a sign of respect for the Order's founder. He was, as usual, right.

Snape had said something similar to her earlier, though coming from Albus, it wasn't quite as harsh, but in that regard, she almost thought this worse.

For the immense disappointment in hurt in Dumbledore's tone, as though he'd clearly expected better of her, was worse than if he had shouted. "I…" she stammered, struggling to think of an apt response, but it was Remus who immediately came to her defense, and he sounded almost angry.

Albus stared at Tonks, his cobalt orbs a muddle of qualm and assurance. He calmly placed a rough hand over top his lap and smoothed a crease in his set of gray wizard's robes, the tip of his lip curling into a slightly reassuring smile.

Tonks was incessantly curling her nerve-damaged hand's fingers into a fist and gritting her teeth in both anger and embarrassment for her past actions.

 _This is all my fault_ , she thought despairingly, biting her bottom lip, and blinking back salty tears. _He's right. If it weren't for me, this wouldn't have happened_. And then, his voice cut through the silence and came to her defense.

" _Professor_ ," he started hesitantly, his gaze flitting between that of Tonks's lowered head as she turned her head to the left and refused to meet his gaze. "Perhaps this conversation could wait until later, Headmaster? Headquarters?"

"Indeed," Professor Dumbledore answered airily, and the elderly man winced and stifled a groan at the stiffness in his joints as he rose from the chair. "I look forward to continuing this conversation another time, perhaps back at headquarters when you are much better rested. We shall continue our conversation, Miss Tonks, another time. I apologize profusely for Madame Undersecretary Umbridge's behavior, Miss Tonks. Remus, you will keep me apprised of your new partner's condition, and alert me to any changes, please."

And he truly did sound sincere, for which Tonks was immensely grateful. She could practically feel Remus give a curt nod of his head in response.

"Thank you, Headmaster," Tonks whispered hoarsely, watching as the man gingerly opened the door, and to her great relief, Dolores had seemingly gone from the front door, and Tonks could hear Lupin breathe an audible sigh of relief.

Dumbledore chuckled and turned back to regard the pair of them before making his way down the hallway, his robes billowing with his movements.

"I do not believe that Dolores will trouble you any further, Miss Tonks, but if she _should_ , well…" his voice trailed off and his blue eyes twinkled slightly mischievously as his gaze shifted to regard Remus. "Let's just say you're in good hands with a partner like Remus by your side, wouldn't you agree, Tonks?"

His gait straightened and he paused before continuing to speak again.

"Rest then, Nymphadora. You will need it more than ever. The Order needs you back on your feet at some point. May the Light of Merlin and the guidance of your new partner provide you with an apt recovery. Let Remus take care of anything you need." Professor Dumbledore chuckled at the stupefied look on Tonks's face and offered a brief dip of his head and a smile to both Remus and Tonks before turning on his heels and gently closing the door to Tonks's room behind him. Tonks waited with bated breath, hearing the man's clacking footfalls as they became fainter as he walked down the hallway.

It was only the two of them that now sat within the walls of her room, and Tonks suddenly found that she could not seem to be able to look her new partner in the eyes, though she could practically feel his stare burning a hole in the back of her skull, no doubt when she looked in Lupin's eyes, she would see the emotion in his light brown eyes, that which she could only perceive as hate.

Tonks wasn't _stupid_.

Far from it. She'd achieved all 'Outstanding's in her OWL's and NEWT's during her time at Hogwarts, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Remus somehow perceived himself to be at fault here. That he did not, for whatever reasons that were unknown to her, think himself worthy of her partnership, or friendship.

But he couldn't have been more wrong. For _she_ was the one who did not deserve _him_ in her lonely life.

Tonks knew that she was wholly the one to blame for her predicament. Not Remus, not Severus. _She_ was. Tonks desperately wanted Remus to yell at her, to scream at her for what she had done last night, by putting herself at risk.

Not to mention, the disruption and worry she had no doubt caused the man by forcing him and Mad-Eye-Moody to come and rescue her last night!

But _Merlin_ , what Remus must _think_ of her. Tonks let out a muffled little whimper that was barely audible and blinked back tears threatening escape.

She wanted him to be angry, but at _her_ , not at himself.

"You can yell at me if you want. Scream if you have to but…talk to me." Tonks was surprised at how soft and barely audible her voice was now.

"Tonks." Remus's voice was gentle, and yet laced throughout his tone, there was a slight hardness, a firmness that told the young Auror to lift her chin and meet his gaze, but she adamantly refused to. She could not. She would not.

After all the pain and suffering that she had caused her new partner in just the span of one day of barely knowing the man, she did not deserve to look the man in his eyes ever again, much less dare to think she could call him 'friend.'

 _Or partner_ , Ollie's voice chastised her within her head, and she flinched.

How could she say that she, in her own way, was growing to become more tolerant of her partner, and perhaps even friendly towards Remus Lupin, when she had caused him such pain? By rights, he shouldn't even _be_ here.

"You—you shouldn't even want to _talk_ to me right now, Lupin…"

Remus felt his heart clench at her statement as it fled her dry and cracked lips. The sheer amount of pain and torture she had suffered at the hands of Crouch, recollecting how she had looked last night when he'd finally found her sent another wave of fury coursing through his bloodstream and igniting it.

"Tonks, _please_. _Look at me_." Now Lupin was practically begging her, his voice cracked as he asked, and her hold on the blanket she had curled her wand hand into loosened slightly, and then fell away entirely before her hand came to rest in her lap. "I—I need you to _open your eyes_ , Nymphadora. Look at me."

Still keeping them clenched tightly clamped and her jaw locked shut, she could no longer hold back her tears as the insurmountable stress from just the past two hours alone, combined with the harrowing ordeal from last night, was entirely too much for her already taxed body to cope with. Her body shook like a leaf with the sheer effort to remain calm, her pale knuckles bone white.

Suddenly, a strong hand with a firm grip had cupped her chin in it and was in the middle of gradually pushing it upwards, mindful to be gentle, until she knew without even having to open her eyes to look that her face was now eye-level with Lupin's. Tonks continued to keep her eyes squeezed shut.

Tonks heard Remus emanate a tense exhale in utter exasperation before speaking to her again. When he did, his voice was soft and quiet, not accusing.

"Open your eyes, Tonks. _Please_. I need you to look at me. _Trust_ _me_ ," he begged. Remus sounded exhausted as if he really did not want to push her to her breaking point, though she was quite well past the point of no return, and yet, he seemed to think it imperative that he attempted to make her see it.

"I…" Tonks winced at hearing her voice crack and falter, as did her resolve. "I _can't_. I do not _deserve_ to look at you after what I put you through! It isn't fair!" She turned her head sharply away, or tried to, at least, though Lupin's grip remained steadfast and he did not relinquish his hold on her chin. The last word left Tonks's lips as a pitiful, mewling, half-choked sob that sounded short of breath, though the young witch felt her eyelids flutter open reluctantly against her better judgment.

Her gray eyes darkened as she dared to meet Remus's gaze, and what she saw within the man's light brown eyes broke her already-fragile heart several times over. Such melancholy and heartbreak.

Lupin froze as her next words to him as he shifted slightly on the edge of the bed rendered him mute and at a loss for words. "Don't leave me alone…."

Tonks whispered her request and bit her bottom lip in nervous anticipation.

"You—you _cannot_ leave me alone in here, Lupin, _please_. What if Dolores tries to come back or Sn—" Tonks immediately caught herself and clamped her lip shut, silently cursing herself as she quickly realized that she'd accidentally almost let it slip that Severus had surprised her with a visit earlier.

Remus watched in astonishment as it looked as though the stunning myriad hues of grays that were the young witch's eyes looked as if an ocean right before a storm had been encased inside of small glass marbles, and then the smooth spheres of her orbs appeared to be cracked, for the stormy sea had started to leak, little water droplets streamed down her pale cheeks in tracts.

Lupin sighed, loathe to see his partner shed enough tears for the rest of their time together. His fingers of his right hand twitched and he raked them down the side of the leg of his trousers to quell the urge to reach up to his finger and brush away that last wretched tear that snaked its way slowly down her cheek.

Her bottom lip quivered, the same way that a baby pushed past endurance. Her eyes became mere ember flames, the last ashes of a dying fire, constant, yet allowing her tears to flow relentlessly down her pale cheeks.

Lupin paused for a moment, biting down hard on his tongue, and then timidly asked the one question that he was not sure that he wanted the answer to, but it had been burning on his tongue ever since last night when she'd thanked him in the St. Mungo's front lot. "Tonks, I…do you trust me?"

 _That_ did it. Tonks felt her eyes fling wide open and she gaped at him like a deer caught in the headlights of the Knight Bus. Did she _trust_ him?! What kind of question was that? He had—he had saved her life, of course, she trusted him! Perhaps more so than her own _parents_ , which said something about her family life.

In just shy of twenty-four hours, Remus Lupin had been the one who had shown her the most kindness during her healing, of which she knew was going to be a rather grueling and painful process, one she was not at all looking forward to, but as long as she had someone like Lupin by her side, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad and wouldn't hurt so damned bloody much.

She hoped. Tonks could tell by Remus's overall demeanor, his kind, quiet, insightful personality and a soft voice that held the same quality as melted butter, that she did not believe Lupin to be a man who would ever lead her astray as his partner, that he wouldn't doubt her words, and he certainly wasn't like Crouch.

Remus would never force her to do something she wasn't comfortable with. And so, for those reasons alone, she decided that she could trust Remus.

"Y—yes," she responded shakily, still trying to quell the tears that she knew were falling down her cheeks. "I do, Lupin. With my life," she said.

The second the words tumbled unchecked from her lips, she clenched her jaw in anger and inwardly cursed, and she felt the fiery heat creep to her cheeks as she flushed and hung her head in shame, and as such, as she allowed a lock of her pink bangs to tumble in front of her face and shield her eyes, she completely missed the smile that formed slowly on Remus's eyes and the igniting of an emotion that could only be described in his light brown eyes.

Oh, _God_! She hadn't meant at all to voice that out loud so soon into meeting Lupin, for what in the seven hells would her new partner think of her?

Tonks _did_ trust Remus, about that she had not been lying, but suddenly revealing that she trusted her new partner who had saved her life so much more so over anybody else in her lonely, somewhat miserable existence that she would dare to put her own life in Lupin's hands and trust him to protect her?

 _Well, shit. Now I've done it_ , she thought, not even caring that she cursed. This kind of intensity and raw truthfulness was enough to scare the hell out of even the calmest and collected soul, though she couldn't help but notice that Remus's hand still had yet to relinquish its hold upon her chin.

Tonks could feel her partner jump and give a start at her words, clearly not have anticipated that she would say such a thing to him.

 _This is my fault…_ She barely heard the tiny moan that escaped past her lips and she felt Lupin's grip on her chin loosen slightly. G _reat. Only one day into your new partnership and you've royally screwed things up. Now he'll pull away and…_

Tonks could not bring herself to finish that thought as her eyes fluttered open slowly and she dared to meet her partner's piercing stare.

But something about the intensity in Remus Lupin's gaze was rendering her unable to tear her gaze away, and at that moment, in seeing her own reflection in the werewolf's light brown eyes, she understood the depth of pain that had been sitting just below her skin.

Her eyes shifted to the side again and became glazed with a glossy layer of fresh tears.

As she blinked, they dripped from her lids and slid down her cheeks. Tonks bit her bottom lip in an attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from her mouth, and Lupin's heart sank to the pit of his stomach. Her lower lip quivered as words slowly made their way out of her.

"It's…he…y—you…you saved me, Remus," Tonks began, yet what followed after that was engulfed in the tremors. A tightening of her throat as it hallowed and constricted, cutting off air to her passageways and a short intake of breath forecast the explosion of her emotions, which to date, she had managed to keep buried deep inside, never letting anyone (not even Ollie) see them.

Not anymore, though, for that image of things shared with a friend once which were never again to come to fruition thanks to her horrible lapse of judgment when she was twenty-two, was too powerful and compelling and energetic to be contained, and gut-wrenching to ever be kept in check again.

The vision of herself and the man sitting on her bedside next to her with such a look of concern on his handsome, lined face, for her, she who was nothing but a murderer, a vile excuse for a human being, began to swim in front of her as tears welled from deep inside, flowing down her cheeks, and just like that, the dam burst and her floodgates burst open without any warning.

 _Damn_. Remus ground his teeth in anger as he looked away for a moment in shame. He should not have pushed her over the edge and to the brink. Though he quickly shoved aside thoughts of his own self-deprecation for now and forced himself to focus on the needs of his partner for right now.

He was hardly aware that his body was no longer taking direction from his mind and his hand came up to rest on her uninjured shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. "Please don't cry, I—I'm not angry with you, Tonks, I just want to _help_ you. I need you to get better. You're due to come home. Sirius and I can _help_ you, but you _must_ learn to trust me," he begged, hearing the desperation in his tone. "But…it is all right," he murmured lowly, feeling his chest vibrating slowly and rhythmically as he spoke. "I understand. You were reacting out of fear, and fear makes people do terrible things, but if you and I start fighting amongst ourselves, then our friendship will never work. You have to learn how to trust me and trust me _now_. Please. I beg you. Let it go. Let me _help_ you. Please don't make me ask it a _third_ time, Tonks. _Please_."

This helpless despair Tonks felt at her current predicament at the state of her physical condition was almost too much for the young witch to bear, feeling like a heady blackness swirling as a mist in the confines of her heart.

The ways forward towards a new and better life for herself someday, if the world would be kinder to someone like her, have vanished completely, not blocked, but like they were never there for her at all, to begin with.

The notion of hope to the young Auror had become meaningless, and if her mind ever lingered on such ideas, they started to feel like a cruel and unusual trick, as cruel as any desert mirage and she was bereft of water in this metaphor. The bond she had with people like Moody, Ollie once, and hopefully in time, Remus, and now, that kept her heart beating and gave her a reason to continue living, for if she didn't have the Order, the guilt at what she'd _done_ , what she _was_ , she would have perhaps slit her own wrists or found some other means of taking her own life long ago. Though, her heartbeats felt so thin, like a burden.

To like another, to even, dare she think, love someone, was to care for Moody, Ollie, once, and now, Lupin's future, and for them to care for hers.

Yet what was to come by her pushing people away and keeping them at a distance would bring no comfort to either one of them. Not her, not Moody.

And especially not Remus, who had saved her life now at least twice. First from the woods, when she was sure to die, and then again from Umbridge, the old toad. Tonks blinked back briny tears, quite certain that the salty wretched liquid would flow, and she was correct in the assumption as the fresh onset of tears that Tonks had been so desperately trying to hold back finally released themselves and a shuddering little half-choked sob escaped her.

Tonks let out a muffled whimper as she felt something strong latch itself onto her right shoulder, gently pulling her forward. She let out a yelp as she felt herself being pulled out of the confines of the sheets of her bed and fell into something hard.

Her eyes flung open as she quickly realized that he was hugging her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, gently rubbing her arm.

Despite the heaviness in her stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of her body pressed against his. She sunk into the warmth of his side, appreciative of the simple gesture. Remus's touch made the room warmer somehow, her future within the walls of St. Mungo's seeming a little less bleak.

"It is all right," he murmured lowly, practically whispering it into the shell of her ear. "Let it go. Allow yourself to feel it. I won't leave you alone."

His soft words sent an unexpected wave of warmth that flooded her entire body. Tonks had been hugged before, but never like this since he passed.

There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. She let her body sag; her muscles become loose. Remus Lupin gave her the respect of an equal but cradled her like a cherished child. In that embrace, she felt her worries lose their keen sting and her optimism raised its head from the dirt.

Tonks allowed herself a few moments to just…let it out, and when she was finally able to regain control of her emotions, she reached up to her trembling hand and to the best of her ability, flicked away the last tear with her finger.

"Sorry," she murmured, her voice escaping her lips a mere croak. By now, Lupin had strangely rested one of his hands in the back of her hair, pressing in softly, entangling his fingers in a few stray wisps of her dark pink pixie cut.

She knitted her brows together in a quandary as she suddenly felt something wet and the young witch's blush deepened as she came to the realization that her tears had soaked through his black sweater.

Ashamed of this, she reluctantly parted from his unexpected embrace, and as she pulled away, she could have sworn that she heard the man utter a low, angered growl from his throat, and she saw the briefest flickers of anger and disappointment dart through the man's darkened orbs as he studied her face, scrutinizing her tears.

 _He's angry with me for pulling away. Did he—did he actually enjoy that?!_ Tonks blinked, not at all sure how to respond to Lupin's sudden shift in attitude. "I—I am sorry," she apologized in a faint whisper. "I apologize for all that," she croaked, her blush reddening even more as she clasped her fingers together and fidgeted with her knuckles, glancing down at her lap in shame. "I—I didn't mean to lose control like that. It's not like me at all. It's _stupid_ …"

" _No_." The word escaped from Lupin's chest as a low, vibrating growl, and he must have realized it came out perhaps harsher than he meant to upon seeing the young woman flinch and shirk away slightly as his brown eyes narrowed and darkened in color. "You are _not_ stupid, Tonks, and neither are your thoughts," he snapped angrily. "I don't want to hear you talk about yourself like that anymore. As your partner, I exercise that right. You hear me?"

Something in Remus's expression softened as his gaze lingered and settled upon her still-bleeding collarbone. He turned away from his perch on the bedside, his back towards her, and Tonks felt her body instinctively lean forward, preparing to haul herself out of bed and follow Lupin if she had to.

Given what had just happened with Umbridge, and earlier with Severus, she could _not_ be left alone unattended, and wherever he went, she went too.

However, Remus did not allow this as Lupin reached out and gently grasped onto Tonks's shoulder, carefully pushing her back against the mountain of pillows. "Be _still_ ," he commanded, and his tone hardened and became curt.

Tonks flinched as she reluctantly collapsed her head back against the pillows, wondering what the bloody hell her partner was up to and the young Auror got her answer a moment later when Lupin turned back around to face her, his wand in one hand, a bottle of disinfectant and bandages in the other.

"Now," Lupin growled, his tone hardened and on the last vestiges of his patience with her, as he resumed his seat on the edge of the bed, scooting as close as he possibly dared. " _Let me see it_ , Tonks. I have to stop the bleeding."

Tonks scrunched her nose and grimace as he laid out all the supplies necessary to treat the gash on her collarbone and waved his wand with a flick of his wrist and the disinfectant rose up off the bed, pouring a little into the wooden bowl, and she could not help but pull a face at Lupin's insistent smirk.

This was going to bloody hurt by the Light of Merlin, she just knew it, and she wasn't going to enjoy what was about to come next, she could tell.

"Ngh—can't I just leave it as it is? It's _fine_ , Lupin, really," Tonks begged pitifully, biting her bottom lip, and sticking out in a slight pout and frowning.

Her attempt at placating him didn't work, and Tonks felt her shoulders slump in defeat as Remus lifted his chin slightly and gave her a pointed look and scowled.

"No, I _can't_ , Nymphadora," he said by way of addressing how annoyed he was becoming, and he ignored Tonks's look of daggers she shot his way at the use of her first name in full. "If we do, it will become infected, and it will be of no help to either one of us, or I _can't_ let that happen. I made a promise to Professor Dumbledore that I would look after you, and I aim to keep that promise, Tonks. Now let me see it. We can do this the easy way, where you cooperate with me and allow me to treat it, or the hard way…."

Tonks let out a reluctant little whimper, grimaced, and albeit reluctantly, she pulled down her white robe the St. Mungo's Healers had given her and allowed her partner to carefully examine with an accurately well-trained eye.

Tentatively, Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown as he prodded the slash markings as gingerly as he could with the pads of one of his fingers, and he cocked his head to the side as he reached for one of the bandages, waving his wand and allowing the wand to guide the flow of the disinfectant's liquid to the bandage, and Tonks let out a hiss of pain as his fingers ghosted along with the slash.

"That _hurts_!" she squeaked, biting the inside wall of her cheek, though a question found its way to the tip of her tongue and was burning, dying to be asked. _It probably stems from his condition, but I can't let on that I know of it_.

But still, the query begged an answer. "How do you know so much about medicines, Remus?" she asked curiously, tilting her head back and to the left so as to not obstruct Lupin's light so he could see while he tended to her.

"Books." His answer was curt and suddenly sounded distant, and Tonks could not help but believe that there was an underlying meaning beneath the surface. "I—I…. _injured_ myself quite a bit during my time at Hogwarts, and what I couldn't learn from the library at Hogwarts and teach myself, Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing was kind enough to share in her knowledge."

Tonks nodded, careful to ensure her expression remained neutral. However, he had learned them, his medical skills in this regard were much appreciated and highly undervalued, for her partner had a more steady and firm hand than that of the Healers who had been assigned to monitor her condition.

Though, the young Auror could tell that Remus was troubled, for his expression was strained and Tonks could tell her partner was battling some internal conflict within his mind. Something that was making it difficult for the man to remain calm, for when he had finished bandaging her wound and tossed the basin on the small wooden night table by her bedside, his hands shook.

Tonks swallowed nervously. "What's wrong, Lupin? You look…troubled. I'm your partner, Remus. You can tell me anything, and whatever you say does not get repeated, I give my _word_. What is it?"

Lupin heaved an exasperated sigh and glanced back towards the now-bandaged wound on her collarbone. "They will scar, I'm afraid, Tonks," he began, and Remus almost sounded apologetic, though he had no need to be.

Remus stifled a growl of agitation and trying not to think about whatever it was that was bothering him, and he began nervously fidgeting with his wand.

Of this, Tonks was certain. It was a moment or two before he spoke up.

"I…" Lupin paused, as if unsure of whether or not to continue. "When I came in and saw Umbridge attempting to…to hurt you, never before in my entire life have I ever felt so… _enraged_. Th—there was another time, but it's not a pleasant story, I'm afraid," Remus quickly explained, the heat creeping to his cheeks.

Lupin hung his head in shame, allowing that one stubborn lock of his hair to fall in front of his eyes, shielding her no doubt horrified gaze from him. He wasn't sure if he could tell her of how violently he had reacted towards Snape and Crouch upon learning that she was very much real and alive.

Though Tonks, now that her curiosity was piqued, longed to hear what this 'other' story was, the young witch knew that she could not press the issue.

She emanated a tired exhale through her nose and lifted her chin to better look Remus in the eyes. "You were…under a lot of pressure. Were it not for me, then you would not have had to yell at her like that…it's only natural, the emotions that you were experiencing when she…"

She swallowed nervously and instinctively her hand drifted towards her throat without even realizing it.

"You did not hurt Umbridge, Lupin, and in the end, that is what matters, Remus. She's an old toad and the literal definition of the word _witch_ ," Tonks snapped. "You did the right thing by telling her off, giving her a piece of your mind."

"But I _could_ have _hurt_ her! If I wanted," Remus growled, arguing with Tonks, his normally soft and quiet tone had risen slightly. "And I _wanted_ to, for what she did to you…" he snarled, glancing at the red markings on her throat.

But Remus did not get a chance to complete the rest of his thought as he felt the bed suddenly become lighter and his head whiplashed sharply upwards and his brown eyes narrowed as Tonks shakily rose to her feet and stood up.

"You should be _resting_ ," Remus snapped, unable to stop the prick of fear from tugging at his heartstrings as he could not help but notice how the young witch's equilibrium was still off-balance, and Tonks staggered forward.

Tonks did not look at Lupin, not even when he immediately bolted from his perch at the edge of her bedside, and she could feel the man hovering behind her. She felt her temper bristle just slightly, though she bit her tongue.

She was careful to choose her words carefully, so as to not further stroke his agitation. The last thing she wanted to cause Remus was more strife. "That is where you're wrong, Remus. I'm afraid I have to correct you in that regard."

If Lupin was surprised by her words, he said nothing as he moved to stand in front of her and effectively block the doorway, preventing her from leaving.

"I don't believe you would have harmed Umbridge, Lupin. No matter what kind of rage you found yourself in. You are a _good_ _man_ , Remus, you would not have risked your own life for me last night otherwise. I only wish that… that you could see that for yourself, my friend…" Tonks whispered.

He startled at her words, feeling as though she had just slapped him, though she did not see it as Tonks reached out and clutched onto the wall for support as she inched her way closer towards the door that Remus was still effectively blocking.

She let out a tiny, disappointing squeak as she felt Remus's strong hands pull her away from the wall and he gingerly offered her his arm, without even waiting for her to accept it, Tonks could only watch as he reached over and gently intertwined her arm with his.

"Thank you," she murmured lowly. "It's getting damned stuffy in here. I—I could use a walk and get out of here. Join me?" she questioned, biting her bottom lip, and wiggling her brows at him, hearing the hope within.

Remus frowned, furrowing his brows into a frown as he glanced at how her equilibrium still seemed off, and she couldn't control the shakes in her hand. "Are you sure that's _wise_ , Tonks?" Lupin asked, concern laced throughout his voice as he glanced towards her ankle, bound in a black boot. "Your—your ankle is still injured. I don't think it's smart to put pressure on it."

Tonks scowled as Remus opened his mouth to protest both her desire to go for a walk so soon, perhaps too soon, pushing her body well past its limits, as well as her viewpoint on the matter of his unbridled rage towards Umbridge.

Tonks drew in a breath that pained the wound at her ribcage, sending a fiery swell of pain up and down her spine. She thought if she had to linger for another second, then she would surely die of boredom. She had to get out.

Tonks, without waiting, and still using the wall as a brace, gingerly sidestepped Remus, ignoring his light protesting under his breath and flung the door to her room and made to head down the hall.

There was someone given the scope of everything that had happened to her last night, that she needed to see, though an incredibly strong vice grip pulled Tonks back, catching her by her wrist and almost violently tugged her back into her private bedroom.

"What….?" The young pink-haired Auror blinked owlishly up at Lupin in surprise. Tonks wasn't sure at all that she liked the growing look of anger and discontentment in Remus Lupin's normally kind light brown eyes, and she didn't know what to make of his sudden shift in his attitude. "What's wrong?"

"What's going on, Tonks? Has something…happened? Why are you so dead set on _leaving_ this room when you are still injured and need to be _resting_?" Remus demanded, a low growl of agitation escaping his lips, pausing, seeming as though he was uncertain of himself. He sighed in agitation and looked towards his partner with no small amount of concern in his eyes and etched on his face. And then what happened next, he felt his face pale rapidly.

She looked away from him, one hand on the doorknob to steady her wobbling gait, purposefully keeping whatever expression was forming on her beautiful features out of his wretched, wolfish sight, and Remus didn't like it.

This wasn't exactly a promising first sign in their new partnership.

After a long, awkward pause that seemed like it hung in the air, Tonks managed to regain control of her voice again. "There's…something I need to do before I— _we_ ," she corrected herself quickly and bit her bottom lip in anguish, "go home. I—I have to do this, please," she whispered, her voice soft.

Tonks chose to harden her gaze as she stared fixated at the door, not wanting to explain her reasoning for what she was about to do to Remus.

She shot a quick prayer to Merlin above. _By Your Light, give me strength enough to do this_. Tonks winced as she felt Remus's body stiffen.

Remus narrowed her eyes in suspicion. This…was _not_ Tonks's voice. The tone was not hers at all, for her voice was much too faint, and numb.

 _Listless_. She spoke those words to him as a shield, to keep him out, to shut him out, and retreat further within herself. Remus felt a myriad of emotions hit him squarely in the chest all at once, ranging from incredible hurt, confusion, anger, and an unnerving sense of betrayal for her choice to shut him out.

Lupin thought it strange, and somewhat frightening how, in the span of just a few short hours of knowing this bright young witch, the She-Stranger from his nightmares, a few precious, and oddly wonderful hours, save for the incident with Umbridge about fifteen minutes ago, how the young witch could quickly leave such an impression on him.

Nymphadora Tonks was an uncommonly kind and gifted witch, and if truth be told, perhaps one of the most beautiful witches he had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. She was petite compared to the other witches in the Order, and her high cheekbones and jawline made quite the impression on any wizard fortunate enough to look the young Auror's way.

Her now-reverted pink hair, while cut short in a neat pixie, a look that reminded him somewhat painfully of Alice Longbottom, or it had when he'd stumbled into the room and her hair had reverted to a dark chocolate brown color, for Neville's mother and Frank's wife had worn her hair the same way during the First Wizarding War when he was first inducted in the Order.

Though the look suited Tonks, and Remus liked the look on the young witch.

It suited her pale, heart-shaped, slightly oval face, and brought attention to her glistening gray eyes, which were currently purposefully looking away from him, fixated on the oaken wood of the door, at anywhere but to him as her face flushed red in shame and embarrassment, and a cold dismissal of him.

A flurry of emotions wracked their way through his chest, more notably that of hurt, betrayal, and devastation. Considering that he had, three times now, in fact, in the span of one day, managed to save the young witch from a terrible fate, and considering how rapidly the two of them seemed to be becoming friends, perhaps against his better judgment, the least Tonks could do for him was confide in him and tell him whatever was bothering her so bad.

Tonks was blocking him, keeping him away, at arm's length, on purpose.

And it hurt as _hell_. He had never felt such horrible pain in his chest since he'd learned of Sirius's innocence, that he hadn't murdered Peter Pettigrew.

What could such a celestial-like creature like Nymphadora Tonks possibly be hiding from him? What was going through her mind that she wasn't saying?

Tonks visibly cringed, clenching her eyes shut, a hand on the doorframe to steady herself, as her equilibrium from her broken ankle and the taxing events of both last night and this morning surrounding the interrogation with Umbridge were still spiraling through her system. Remus was right. She ought to be resting.

 _But I have no choice. I—I have to do this_. Tonks just could not bring herself to tell her new partner the truth. About her, what she had done.

Who she was. What she was. _A filthy liar. Temptress. Murderer…_

That by Dumbledore pairing the two of them together, though she was admittedly glad to be relieved of having to pair up with Severus on future Order missions, that she was only going to be forced to keep him at distance to prevent history from repeating itself. She could not— _would_ not—lose this partner too.

Tonks supposed it would have been easier to lie to Remus, make something up.

That would be better for both parties involved to tell him the truth, but it wasn't. Tonks simply couldn't tell him. She did not consider herself a good liar and was in fact, a terrible one. Remus Lupin was such a kind and gentle soul and had been nothing but incredibly helpful and selfless towards her.

When she did not deserve him. The young Auror bit the inside wall of her cheek and turned around and felt her lips part open to speak. _What do I say?_

If she were to tell him the truth about her, who she was, what she had done with her life and the royal mess she'd made of her life, this confession would go over so swimmingly well, and if she had to hazard a guess as to what Lupin's reaction would be, then she figured the man would just tell her to leave him.

To never come near him again and find a _new_ partner to torment. As kind and good and a man of pure and noble heart as Remus Lupin seemed to be, there was not a chance in the seven hells below that he'd take her news well at all.

 _But maybe he would_ , her conscience chimed up at the back of her mind. Remus genuinely seemed like a man and wizard who understood how her mind worked. Thus far in their interactions with one another, Lupin seemed to genuinely care about her thoughts, her feelings, about what she had to say to him.

Lupin was a man who saw things from a perspective that no one else, not even Ollie at the time, could ever have. Remus was _kind_ , and a _good man_.

True. Honest. All of the things that she was _not_. He was someone who had helped her through a truly frightening ordeal and seemed to have no intention of letting her leave this room without her revealing what ailed her.

"Are you _sure_?" Remus's devastated, soft, quiet voice startled Tonks out of her ravaged mind and forced her to return to the present harsh reality of her situation.

It was like hearing a wounded dog yelp in pain after their master had kicked it. At the sheer amount of hurt that was evident as it laced its way throughout his quiet and reserved tone, Tonks immediately knew that she had wounded her new partner even further by not being straightforward and honest in her answer to him just now when he subtly asked of her to tell him the truth.

But why she needed to leave and go one floor up was not exactly something that Tonks could openly discuss with Remus, considering that it concerned her well-being. For perhaps the first time in her young adult life, her partner and a man who could hopefully become a friend to her in time could have no prior knowledge of her plight or the hand that she had been dealt with here.

Her throat felt hallowed as it constricted and cut off the air to her passageways as she swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat.

"Remus, I…" Her voice trailed off as Tonks turned to face Lupin, and immediately found that that was even worse than hearing his injured, solemn tone with the clipped, hardened edges that suggested he was offended and hurt.

For there was such a look of anguish on Lupin's face that the young witch thought she could not bear it. His head was slightly lowered, and a lock of his brown bangs had tumbled forward in front of his eyes, acting as his own personal shield from the hurt that was evident in those haunted light brown eyes of his.

Tonks felt her heart plummet to the white linoleum tiled floor that lay beneath her bare feet. "I…there's someone here that I'd like to visit, Lupin, but…I should like to go _alone_. Come with me if you want, but I need to see…"

 _Her_ is what she wanted to say, though Tonks blinked back tears, and found she could not bring herself to say the young witch's name.

She just couldn't. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and reached out a hand to place on his shoulder, though as if the man had already sensed her intentions, he moved and stood away from her. Tonks felt a stinging in her nose begin to form, and her throat continued to tighten until she thought she'd pass out from lack of air.

Remus gave a curt nod and she heard him emanate a tense exhale through his nose, and she was relieved when the man clutched onto her arm. "I'm here."

Though there was no mistaking the disappointment in the man's voice, as though he were still hurting that she could not even confide in him who it was that she wished to see. Tonks could feel the bitter, acidic bile rising in her throat.

"And I _hate_ to disappoint you, Tonks, but I cannot abide by your request. I'm _not_ leaving you alone, Tonks. I've seen what happens when I do. I can't leave you alone on your own for less than five minutes, can I, Tonks? Look at what happened to you just now with Umbridge. No. I won't leave you alone, Tonks. I _can't_. so don't ask."

Tonks couldn't quite be sure as she took a half-step backward and allowed Remus to open the door for her, but she could have sworn she saw him smile.

"No," she murmured, offering the man a shy smile before quickly glancing down at her bare feet and wiggling her toes, hating that she'd be stuck in this damned clunky black boot while her broken foot healed for at least a few weeks.

Magic could truly work wonders, though even it had its limitations, and broken bones and allowing the injury to recover naturally, to an extent, was one of them. Childbirth was another where magic could be of no help to witches.

 _Though it's highly unlikely that will ever happen for me_ , she thought, and repressed her urge to roll her eyes, for what man would want to be with _her_?

They did not speak much as Remus carefully escorted her down the hallway, though it did not stop Lupin from occasionally glancing at Tonks out of the corner of his eye, all the while trying to make sure she did not hurt herself.

"I'll be just outside if you need me. Who is it that I'm taking you to see, Tonks?" Lupin asked, his curiosity getting the better of him as she requested the elevator take them to the floor that held the ward of Permanent Spell Damage.

It seemed to take Tonks an eternity to find her voice, and when she finally found it again and uttered the name, there was such anguish and heartbreak laced throughout, and her gray eyes had alighted and glistened with unshed moisture, that Remus thought he could not bear it, and if he'd not already been hanging onto the young witch's word as she uttered the name, he would have missed it.

"Alice. Alice Longbottom."


	21. The Vulture and the Auror

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE **

Tonks hadn't anticipated her new partner would keep his word, for she had seen that strange look of melancholia in his eyes when she had requested just outside of the door to Alice and Frank Longbottom's room, that she be allowed to enter alone, and there was a look of longing etched on his face, though, he merely nodded and honored her wishes and stayed guard just outside of the door.

True to his word, Remus did not enter the room for Permanent Spell Damage with her, though he had promised he would be just outside if he needed her. She did not know exactly what to expect when she first laid eyes on Alice, but she had no idea that the extent of the damage would have been…like _this_.

The young Auror felt tears brimming in the corners of her eyes and she blinked and looked away for a moment to compose herself. The corridor's of St. Mungo's were stuffy, and the air in here had an undertone of weird Muggle cleaning solutions mixed with the benefits of magic, almost smelling like bleach.

It was an assault on her nostrils and on her throat. The walls were a horrible, blinding white, and were scrapped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that had bumped into them, most carrying medical supplies that the Healers in their lime green robes used, or in other cases, a witch similar to the one that walked the Hogwarts Express train baring sweets would occasionally shuffle slowly through the corridors, with the patients' meals, hot and fresh for those that still possessed the ability to eat on their own. It broke her heart, to see her this way. The floor was a horrible slate gray and the walls a nasty dove looking color.

Various memos folded into little paper airplanes flickered through the hallways, reminders to the Healers of each ward, notices, and slips had been enchanted to drift, almost lazily so, through the hallways until they found their intended recipient. They were memos to the Healers, appropriate dosages to give the patients, notifying them when their patients have visitors, that sort of thing.

They used to use owls, but the mess was unbelievable and wasn't up to their health codes, so they switched to these. Tonks let out a heavy sigh and turned her attention back to the listless shell of a woman lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, though Tonks highly doubted Alice Longbottom could see a thing.

She wondered if perhaps when Lupin took her back to headquarters, _my new home_ , she reminded herself bitterly, biting the inside wall of her cheek, if Mrs. Weasley would have a fresh cup of tea brewed for her and waiting when they got back. Tonks could not shake the feeling she was going to need one after.

Tonks felt her gaze drift upwards and above the ceiling was made from those polystyrene squares laid on a grid-like frame. The light was too bright for her eyes after the darkening gloom outside on this dull gray Saturday morning.

The young witch found it almost abrasive, enough to bring on another one of her wretched migraines that she had unfortunately inherited from Dad.

There were commercial posters on the wall, the pictures magically enchanted to move, the posters themselves colorful in their own way, to brighten the place up a bit as best as they could, Tonks guessed. Tasteful in the dull kind of way. St. Mungo's wasn't at all run and managed by risk-takers and Tonks guessed she should find some small measure of peace and comfort in that fact.

The ward for Permanent Spell Damage was so neat and spotless, that suddenly, Tonks began to feel self-conscious as she spotted her battered and bruised face's reflection in a hanging mirror on the wall opposite her and flinched.

"I need to—oh, excuse me! I was not informed nor was I told for my son and his wife to expect a visitor today, so this is...quite the surprise, dear." An aging woman's voice from behind her spoke up, startling Tonks in her chair that she had pulled up to sit next to Alice.

Tonks let out a muffled yelp of surprise, not having anticipated anyone would sneak up behind her and turned around to regard the new arrival with a slightly furtive, guilty look in her eyes and blinked up at the old witch before her.

A little winded, the much older witch had pressed a gloved hand over her ribcage, her red handbag swung over her arm. Tonks furrowed her brows. This must be Neville's grandmother, she surmised by the way she was looking at Alice.

She'd heard more than a few tales of the formidable old witch, but Tonks wasn't at all fooled. Not for a second. At her age, Augusta Longbottom should have had one foot in the grave. Her gait should have been wonky and tottering with arthritic joints and eyesight failing faster than Ron Weasley's school grades.

Tonks suppressed a snort and fought back the urge to laugh as she and this other witch continued staring at one another, each surprised by the other's presence by Alice and Frank's bedside.

Were it not for the lines in Augusta's face, she would think the old witch maybe sixty at most, given her sharp mind and easy motion, but they were so deep and saggy—like the skin no longer had a connection to her skull underneath.

In a photograph, you'd clock Augusta Longbottom as ninety, maybe even more. Tonks wondered if that's where she was. Not that she would ever dare ask Augusta this unless she wanted to be on the receiving end of a Tongue-Engorging Charm for her blatant rudeness. It was her litheness and articulate speech that got most people, an echo of youth in someone so old. Tonks felt her gray eyes widen in shock and awe at her appearance.

Augusta Longbottom stood quite tall and slim, her short grey hair neat and likely styled with old fashioned rollers, the kind Muggle women used to sleep in.

Her face was well made up with discreet make-up, except that her lips were cherry red. If she were any paler than this, her mouth would be garish, but against her slightly sun-kissed skin, it looked right, Tonks guessed. Her bright green dress and large green hat complete with a stuffed vulture on top of it and her bright red handbag definitely stood out in a crowd, drew attention to her.

Something that Tonks was desperately hoping to avoid during her visit.

Tonks blinked as she realized she'd been asked a question by the old witch, and she flushed, embarrassed at having been caught staring at the woman's unusual choice of clothing, her eyes drawn to the vulture hat. "I—I beg your pardon?" Tonks asked meekly, feeling the heat creep to her cheeks as the old woman scowled and plunked her garish red handbag at her feet at sat in the chair on the opposite side of the bed, next to Frank, whereas Tonks sat near Alice.

"I _said_ ," she began, huffing in frustration and stomping her foot, still heaving and gasping for breath as she clutched at her side, and Tonks severely hoped the old woman wasn't about to keel over and have a heart attack on her or anything, "that I don't recall ever meeting you or seeing you here before, dearie. Are you a friend of my son and his wife? How do you know them both?"

The piercing stare that Mrs. Augusta Longbottom was currently giving Tonks reminded the young Auror of that of a hawk's, or better yet, a vulture.

_Just like the one on her hat. I bet if she were an Animagus, she'd turn into a vulture_ , Tonks thought momentarily, feeling it was rather inappropriate to think. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as she struggled to formulate a response. What on earth could she say to Mrs. Longbottom?

That she had come here after almost being brutally raped and beaten by Barty Crouch Jr., that she wanted to see for herself the very face of the woman whom she had been told not just by Crouch, but by others in the Auror Office, that she bore a striking resemblance to whenever she opted to turn her pixie cut's color dark chocolate? That she was here to see the face of the one that her would-be-rapist was so obsessed with?

Oh, _yes_ , that would go over _swimmingly_ well with this woman, who Tonks could tell immediately, was not about to be fooled by mere half-truths.

When the young witch did not immediately respond, Augusta Longbottom rose her eyebrows at the pink-haired young witch and looked around the room. "What? Is there an _echo_ in here?" she snapped hotly. "Am I talking to myself, or did I not just ask you a question? How do you know them?"

Despite her frail appearance, she knew what truly lay behind that facet of wrinkles. Stubborn and headstrong like that of a wild, savage boar, with a tongue so sharp, one could very nearly be sliced into two if the woman believed you to be worth her time at the very least, let alone bothered to utter a word to you at all.

"I…yes, I know them. Alice is a…." Tonks's voice cracked and trailed off as she looked back towards the unresponsive witch laying in the bed. "A friend."

To her relief, Mrs. Longbottom nodded, and Tonks breathed an audible sigh of relief as she felt her shoulders slump and stared around the room. Its walls were a simple cream color, not peeling or dirty, just…cream. There were minimal decorations on the walls, save for the enchanted posters and the limp curtain that could separate the Longbottoms' area from the chairs and coffee tables set out should the pair of once-respected, high-ranking Aurors ever have any visitors.

No one seemed to have brought any kind of flowers or cards, given everything was inspected upon your arrival in the main entrance visitor's lobby.

Tonks could tell by the way Mrs. Longbottom sniffed and kicked aside her red handbag just slightly out of the way with the edge of her brown boot, that she had more than likely put up quite the screeching fuss when the guard demanded her purse, and something in her intuition told her the guard had more than likely promptly returned it to the witch upon hearing her start to screech.

The room smelled horribly of bleach, and the linoleum tile beneath their feet was a horrible, blinding white color. At the far end of the ward were windows in brown metal frames, enchanted only to be opened by an authorized Healer, only able to be opened at the very top of with a wand. Tonks swallowed past the lump forming in her throat as she glanced around dejectedly at the open ward.

"I—I did not e—expect anyone else to be here today," Tonks murmured, a light pink blush speckling on her cheeks, and she rose from her chair to stand, thinking that if Mrs. Longbottom wished to visit her son and his wife, then she should be allowed to do so in peace, and she had half-risen from her seat when the formidable-looking witch shot out an arm and gingerly lowered her down.

"No, no, please, child," Mrs. Longbottom said kindly, something in her hardened exterior softening as she regarded the young Auror. "Please do not leave on my account. It has been so long since my son has had any visitors, dear."

"Is there any change?" Tonks asked, hearing the note of desperation that crept into her voice as her gaze drifted back towards Alice, who was staring up at the white ceiling above them and had yet to make eye contact with anyone at all.

"None, I am afraid what was done to them, is, as you know, permanent, or else they would not currently be residing in the ward for Permanent Spell Damage, though that does not stop myself or my grandson from holding out hope that perhaps someday, there might be a cure to reverse what's been done," sighed Mrs. Longbottom wearily, reaching a gnarled hand as she peeled off one of her gloves to take Frank's hand in her own and give it a reassuring but firm squeeze.

She puffed out her chest and regarded Tonks seated in the chair opposite her with a slightly scrutinizing gaze as her gaze briefly drifted up towards her pink pixie cut, though Tonks could have sworn a flicker of admiration crossed the old witch's dark brown eyes. "My grandson's parents were quite skilled Aurors, you know."

Tonks stuck out her bottom lip in a slight pout and glanced towards the door. She couldn't see Remus, though she could hear low murmurings as he talked to Molly Weasley, and she'd seen Mrs. Weasley poke her head in earlier.

Mrs. Longbottom, sensing Tonks's reluctance to leave, felt the corners of her red-painted lips turn upwards in a sardonic little half-smile. "Stay seated, dearie. It's quite a story, and you might as well get comfortable since you took the time to visit my son and his wife," Augusta Longbottom sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, and Tonks caught the glint of a bright ruby red ring the old witch wore on her left finger.

_Quite the spectacle_. Tonks pondered this and bit the inside wall of her cheek as she regarded Mrs. Longbottom in silence, not know what to say to the old witch.

"Make us a cup of tea, won't you do? It's the least you could do for me. I am an old woman and I cannot continue to keep climbing all these blasted steps. Not good for my lumbago or arthritis in my legs at my age," Augusta said.

"Oh, Mrs. Longbottom, I—I am terribly sorry, madame, but I—I can't," Tonks murmured apologetically, gesturing towards her wand hand and lifting it slightly so the older witch could see the uncontrollable tremors, and given the other arm rested in a sling, it was up to Augusta to make the tea. "My…hands."

Though the old witch grumbled indignantly under her breath, Mrs. Longbottom mumbled a quick incantation and gave a sharp tapping of her wand, and a tea kettle appeared in mid-air, along with cups and saucers for both of them.

Augusta gave a mock little salute to the kettle when it had finished and raised the now-piping cup of hot herbal tea, chamomile, to her lips and drank.

It did not escape the young witch's attention that Mrs. Longbottom was carefully studying the young Auror over the rim of her slightly chipped flowered teacup, her sharp, piercing gaze that of a hawk's, drifting from Tonks to Alice.

"You really _do_ look like her, you know. Except for the hair, my dear."

Tonks froze, her teacup almost halfway to her lips. _Crouch said the same thing to me just before he tried to…no. Don't think of that now_. Suddenly no longer thirsty, she grimaced and promptly set her mostly full teacup on its sauce and gingerly pushed it away. "I—so I've been told," she murmured lowly, ashamed.

The old woman let out a tired-sounding sigh as she noticed Tonks's gaze had drifted back towards Frank and Alice. Alice was mumbling something.

"They cannot understand you, dear," Augusta Longbottom spoke up softly, though Tonks recognized that hardened edge to the old witch's tone.

She was beginning to lose her patience, but still, Tonks continued murmured her silent prayer to the Light of Merlin for Him to ease their suffering.

Tonks could have sworn that as she clutched onto Alice's limp hand, that she felt one of the older woman's pale fingers give the slightest twitch in response.

She pursed her lips into a thin line, her pale and slightly gaunt face careworn and crestfallen as Tonks looked upon the face of the one that she looked so much alike, Barty Crouch Jr.'s past obsession, and she was now his current.

Alice Longbottom lay back in her bed, her open eyes not focused but moved randomly. Her dark hair, which Tonks knew from old photographs that had been brought in and randomly scattered throughout the room to make the place more cheerful, had once been cut into a stylish dark brown pixie cut, similar to the way Tonks wore hers whenever she was confined to desk work at the Auror Office, had unfortunately been butchered into a buzz cut after Alice had one day gotten upset over her son and mother-in-law leaving, at least according to Mrs. Longbottom as she noticed Tonks staring at it, and, unable to articulate her anger in words, had banged her head against the wall so hard, Mrs. Longbottom could have sworn she'd heard a horrible crack.

Needless to say, the lead Healer assigned to care for the Longbottoms had been forced to cut the woman's hair to make sure there was no hidden contusion or anything invisible underneath Alice's hair that could be causing her trauma. That had been a month ago, and it was slowly but surely beginning to grow back, almost a kind of peach fuzz now graced Alice's head, and flecks of her original brown color started to show.

Even in the dark, you could see her, like some kind of shining beacon of light. The white creamy, yet the slightly ashen tone of Alice Longbottom's skin reminded the Auror of whipped milk. She couldn't help but wonder sometimes if she reached out her hand to touch the former Auror, would she graze only the air.

As if she and her husband Frank, were nothing but ghosts. Waves of heat seemed to course through Alice's bloodstream, a cold sweat glistened on her gaunt features, her cheekbones sunken in and hollow. She'd lost weight since Augusta and Neville's last visit, and it showed in her form.

Her dark brown eyes sunken in and her skin sallow and clammy, it looked as though everything ached, everything sagged, and Alice couldn't even move. The glass of water Mrs. Longbottom had conjured with a rather lazy flick of her wand stared at Frank and Alice from the bedside table, prompting her to take a sip. She did so, rather clumsily and splashed water onto the cold linoleum tile, which earned a guttural sounding groan from her husband, who was displeased.

Though whether it was because she'd spilled water on the floor or if it were because Frank could sense his wife's discomfort and couldn't properly vocalize it and was getting frustrated, Tonks couldn't ascertain which it was.

_Probably both if I had to guess_ , she thought tiredly and sighed. Tonks rose from her chair which had been situated across from the bed and quickly excused herself to see what she could do for Alice.

Mrs. Longbottom watched the pink-haired witch work in silence, and though the poor dear was incapable of using magic due to the scope of her injuries, that did not stop Tonks from clutching onto Alice's hand tightly, as though afraid to let go, as if she did, then Alice would vanish right before her eyes.

It was such a simple gesture, and yet, it touched Mrs. Longbottom greatly.

"It's really quite a tragedy, what happened to my son and his wife, you know," began Augusta, sounding thoroughly exhausted and on the brink of something even Tonks wasn't sure she wanted the answer to. "As I'm sure you know by now, my son and his wife were tortured into insanity by Voldemort's followers." The old witch was amazed when the much younger witch did not flinch at the use of the Dark Lord's full name.

"Fear of a name only increases the fear of the thing itself. It's just a name, Mrs. Longbottom. It does not frighten me," Tonks mumbled under her breath. "We can say his name." Perhaps realizing her voice sounded colder than she initially meant it to, Tonks flinched under the typical stern gaze of Frank's mum and immediately took another biscuit, stammering to correct herself.

The last thing she wanted was a fight to erupt here during another visit and upset Remus even further, who was seemingly still on edge from the mess with Umbridge earlier, and she did not want to tax the poor man's stress levels even more on her account.

Tonks leaned forward in her seat, curiosity growing, despite herself. "What happened to them?" she breathed; her gray eyes curious.

August Longbottom chuckled, setting her teacup down on its saucer and folded her arms across her lap, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair. "I hope you brought a quill and parchment," Augusta chuckled. "Therein lies a tale, and it's a bit of a lengthy one. Are you sure you have got the time, dear?"

Tonks nodded eagerly, anxious to hear more. "I do," she whispered. Tonks shuddered involuntarily as she felt the candles in the hospital room flickering, briefly showing Augusta Longbottom in the dim light.

For a moment, the Auror thought she had done that as she glanced down and realized her wand hand was gripped painfully tight, though she realized Augusta was doing it. She could not see the laughter in her brown eyes or a smile twitching at her thin lips. Instead, Augusta Longbottom appeared skeletal, deranged. Her sockets lay as inky pools, the weak yellow glow illuminating enough to make her look even more spooky than darkness could ever be.

Tonks frowned, knowing this was the woman's idea of a good story, of her idea of fun, in her own twisted way, and perhaps, reliving Alice's life would be.

The story of Frank and Alice Longbottom was legendary, after all.

Though, by the time she had finished, tears welled in the corners of her eyes that she could not contain, and Tonks's silent weeping was worse than a tantrum or a screaming match. The painful suffering Alice and Frank had endured at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange and Barty Crouch only made her hate Crouch even more, and a powerful hot, fiery anger ignited in her veins.

Tonks's eyes welled up with a sadness that Mrs. Longbottom believed that her young years should not possess. They showed this young woman's soul, aged by a hard life as an Auror, though for one so young to qualify, she must be an extraordinarily gifted witch, and the poor dear really _did_ look like her Alice.

The silence of Tonks's crying was eerie, like…she'd been _forced_ to learn how to do this, and Mrs. Longbottom wondered if it stemmed perhaps from an abusive background or a hard life of sorts, though it was not her place to ask.

What would it take to mend a soul as damaged as that and who would even _want_ to try?

But little did Mrs. Longbottom know that person for Nymphadora Tonks was standing guard just outside of the ward for Permanent Spell Damage.

Her crying was both ferocious and noisy. Tonks blinked briny tears from bloodshot eyes, her thick lashes stuck together in clumps as if she'd been swimming.

The tears made wet tracks down her ashen face and dripped from her chin. Her hands open and closed, rhythmically clenching as if there could be some violent solution to her pain if only, she could find out what that was.

Mrs. Longbottom politely excused herself, gathering her red handbag in hand, pulling her gloves on, murmuring a half-hearted thank you to Tonks for coming to visit her son and Alice Longbottom, and Tonks did not move from her spot in the chair, continuing to clutch onto Alice's hand, squeezing it.

"I—I'm sorry, this…This should not have happened to you. To either of you, Alice, Frank," she whispered hoarsely, coughing once to quell her tears, though it did little good. "Look at you. Both of you. What's he's _done_ to you."

As she closed her eyes, she felt tears well in her eyes, burning and stinging her vision, and before she could get a grip on her emotions, her walls, the walls that held her up, made her strong, made her a true Auror and protector, they just…collapsed.

She was assigned to protect the rest of the wizarding world from the very scum that had done this to Frank and Alice Longbottom, but who would protect her from them? No one would save _her_ life from something like this if it came down to it, and she would be on her own.

Moment by moment, her tears fell. She felt herself growing hollow as her life crumbled in her fingertips and she cried herself beyond the point of no return, completely unaware that Lupin was listening outside her door.


	22. Mulling with Molly

**A/N: _'Loneliness, though a heavy burden, has a weak shell, one easily shattered by the soft smile of a woman and the cool touch of her hands.'-Peter Ramirez_**

**One thing I've always wanted to explore more about is Molly and Remus's relationship/friendship. I like to think both he and Tonks would have probably gone to Molly at some point for advice/solace, so this is mostly a Molly chapter, with a little Remadora at the end :)**

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**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

Molly Weasley shook her head in amusement and exasperation before catching sight of Remus Lupin's familiar towering form as he stood guard outside of a room in the ward of St. Mungo's for Permanent Spell Damage Injuries.

Dumbledore had sent a Patronus to Headquarters intended for Molly, biding her come at once to St. Mungo's and keep Remus Lupin company, as well as a watchful eye on the man, and had gone into rather hasty detail over the encounter with Dolores Jane Umbridge in Nymphadora Tonks's private room.

If she had not heard it straight from Dumbledore, his recounting of events, she'd not have believed it possible of Remus to say such things to such a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Magic, though given the volatile way he had behaved towards Severus last night, she supposed she shouldn't be too surprised.

Professor Dumbledore had given Molly permission to escort both Nymphadora and Remus back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, maintaining a staunch belief that Headquarters was the best place for the wounded witch to heal, given that it was seemingly more homely than that of the St. Mungo's ward.

Molly supposed she could make the argument that it wasn't quite up to receiving more guests at this time, given that wretched little house-elf, Kreacher, hardly cleaned, though if Remus was comfortable staying in the upstairs guest bedroom, then Mrs. Weasley supposed she could make up the space just opposite his.

Dumbledore had wholeheartedly supported this idea when she'd mentioned it, and that it was of his belief that as long as Lupin remained by the young woman's side, then she could not be in more capable hands.

Molly was inclined to agree and barely stifled her smile as she finally found Lupin after a bit of searching.

The matronly witch could not help but notice the strange look of apprehension and longing that the younger man would cast over his shoulder as he occasionally checked in on his new partner and their newest recruit to the Order of the Phoenix.

Who Nymphadora could possibly be visiting in this particular ward, Molly had no idea, though admittedly, it was not her business to learn whom.

_Her business is hers_ , Molly thought, a little sadly as she offered a slight wave of her hand and pulled her shawl tighter around herself as she moved to stand next to Remus, who momentarily looked surprised to see Molly here, though the man did not look entirely displeased, and she could tell that the lonesome man who was often so melancholic and depressed was grateful for her company.

Molly murmured a brief hello under her breath as she moved to stand next to Remus, carefully studying the man's light brown orbs, which were slightly red-rimmed and irritated, glistening with unshed moisture that was not exactly tears, per se, but rather an emotion, one that he did not precisely know what it was or how to process it, who she could tell, might give off the appearance of maintaining his solemnly sworn duty to protect his partner and guard the ward, though what the man wanted more than anything else, was to go inside and be with _her_.

With Tonks.

At that thought, Mrs. Weasley's mouth twitched, the corners of her lips curling upwards and she did not bother to fight back the beginnings of a genuine smile.

The young man standing before her, an _extraordinarily_ talented wizard, and an even kinder and gentle soul, had spent entirely too much time alone and had taken quite a ridiculous stance on his life.

More specifically speaking, his love life. Or rather, his _lack_ of a love life. Something of which, when Molly had recounted the full version of events last night to Sirius, Remus's best friend was only too happy to provide suggestions of his own as for what to do about the man's 'problem,' which she had shot down.

Molly knew that Remus would undoubtedly take the stance, just as Sirius knew, that he was 'too dangerous' to ever risk meeting a young woman and daring to form a connection that was more than friendship out of an unbridled and severely misguided fear that he would be putting the woman's life at great risk.

Though he did not seem capable of realizing that life for people afflicted with his condition had improved, in small ways here and there, at least for _him_.

For with Dumbledore as the lead founder in the Order, and with Severus Snape, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, one of the stipulations, the agreement between Albus, Severus, and Remus, was that the two men would put aside their personal feelings of immense dislike for one another and cooperate.

And it did not hurt matters either that Severus, under Albus's orders, provided Remus with an unlimited supply of Wolfsbane Potion faithfully every single month.

What hurt Molly even worse to see Remus so self-deprecating and wounding this way, was that despite the rest of the Order accepting him as one of their own, most of the rest of wizardkind did not view his condition in that regard, and as a result, whenever Remus was out in public, the poor man chose to focus only on the sole few that occasionally whispered horrible things behind his back, once someone learned of his affliction and could barely speak to him or look him in the eye.

Something which Molly aptly tried to discourage him from focusing on, as did Arthur, Sirius, Emmeline, Hestia, and Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Molly sighed sadly as she regarded Remus out of the corner of her eyes, brushing a lock of shoulder-length, wavy ginger hair back behind her shoulder.

She had a feeling she could ascertain exactly what was happening to the poor man because she had seen the same process time and time again for herself in past.

There was a growing look of intrigue, anger, and…something _else_ , something that Molly had an inkling in Lupin's eyes regarding his new partner as to what this 'feeling' might be, but she was more worried for Nymphadora for the time being and the extent of her wounds, though Sirius had been more interested in learning of Remus's fascination of this 'fantasy woman' from his best friend's dreams, and the unbridled enthusiasm when Molly had let it slip that the young woman of the man's interests was in fact, his own cousin, he was only too _eager_ to attempt to set the two up, claiming it was high time Lupin had a woman in his life, something which Molly vehemently disagreed on.

For if there was 'something' between the two, and Dumbledore fully suspected it, it was only natural to allow their feelings to progress _naturally_ , not rushed. It had worked for her and Arthur, after all, and after much grumbling on Sirius's part, the man reluctantly agreed.

As Remus quietly filled Molly in on the extent of Tonks's wounds and what had happened, including the encounter with Umbridge, Molly knew that Tonks faced a rough recovery road ahead of her, and given the young witch's personality, she did not strike Mrs. Weasley as the type to be content to lay idle and rest.

By keeping busy, by remaining focused on her work at Grimmauld Place, once she was hopefully well enough to aid her and Sirius in the grueling, daunting task of making Sirius's parents' house habitable enough for them to live in, then the poor dear would have less time to feel the pain of being away from loved ones, the loneliness that accompanied someone with the extent of her type of injuries, injuries that, unless she was surrounded by a positive network of friends, family, people who cared for her, then she would retreat within herself, wither.

Though judging by the look on Tonks's face, what little of it she could see as the young witch had previously been kneeling by someone's bedside, though the pink-haired Auror moved to stand closer to the unidentified occupant's beside, Molly could tell that the young witch had no real home to call her own, despite her parents being well and alive, Tonks had mentioned to Molly on a few occasions via owl that she did not necessarily get along that well with her mother.

According to Kingsley and Alastor, the incredibly intelligent witch had little friends in the Auror Office, so Molly's first thought was that Dumbledore's assumption for pairing the two of them together, Remus and Nymphadora, was that the two souls, in their own way, were kindred spirits, and perhaps would find solace and comfort in one another. Molly blinked as she heard Lupin emanate a tense exhale through his nose and cocked his head to the side and sighed again.

"Is everything all right, Remus?" Mrs. Weasley angled her head, sure to face the despaired young wizard whose back was resting against the wall and his head bowed, that one stubborn lock of hair once again falling into his eyes, shielding his expression from Molly's view, and she could discern Lupin was unhappy.

Molly blinked owlishly at Remus, feeling quite certain that she was hallucinating this. He should be happy, that Dumbledore had assigned him not only a partner in the Order, of which he'd never been paired with someone before, but it was also this very same mysterious 'She-Stranger' from his dreams.

And Tonks, if she knew of Lupin's condition yet, remained a mystery, though Arthur informed Mrs. Weasley that Nymphadora was incredibly intelligent, having received all 'Outstanding's' in both her OWL's and NEWT's.

_She has to know of his condition by now_ , Molly thought, furrowing her brows. _If she is as smart and bright as Moody and Arthur say that she is, she must_.

Though Molly could sense that with Lupin, this was not necessarily the case, that something else was waging a vicious war within the confines of his troubled mind.

Mrs. Weasley let out a sigh and pocketed her wand into her cardigan pocket.

She had at this moment neither the grace nor the propensity to smile. Her brown eyes, somewhat dull and somber, searched Remus.

"All right," she sighed, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she shivered, wishing they'd turn up the heat in the building, clutching her shawl tighter around herself for warmth.

Remus said nothing, though the man's slight two-day stubble of his light, rough beard twitched without prompting, which only succeeding in annoying her.

Molly furrowed her ginger brows into a frown and pursed her lips. "Tonks said something to you, didn't she. I know this look quite well. What happened?"

Mrs. Weasley flinched visibly as the words tumbled unprompted from her mouth. Her voice sounded… _crude_.

The matronly witch felt the taller, young man shy away slightly in hesitation, fidgeting with his wand and twirled it in between his fingers, but then Remus Lupin lifted his chin slightly to regard Mrs. Weasley with what she could only perceive as anguish in his light brown eyes.

A myriad of other emotions danced and flickered in the man's eyes as well.

Hesitation. Uncertainty. Apprehension, all read as glistening moisture within them.

Molly felt her frown deepen as Lupin continued this rather unnerving and unusual behavior of simply staring at her yet offering no response to her query.

"What? Why—why are you _staring_ at me like this, Remus? Have I said something I ought not to have?"

This horrible silence gnawed at Molly's insides like a starving rat desperate for a morsel. It hung in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shattered on the ground in pieces. It was a gaping huge void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything to break the silence.

Remus's lack of response was poisonous in its nothingness, cruelly underscoring how vapid their very much one-sided conversation had become. Mrs. Weasley licked her lips to moisten them and swallowed nervously. By this point, she fully expected Lupin to grow fangs and dig them onto her neck.

Yet, as she looked into Remus's brown eyes burning bright with worry and apprehension, she saw a strange revolt in the man's face.

And Lupin's eyes were new for Molly to take sight of. The brown within the man's orbs seemed darker. Which no words or oil painting could ever dare to compare with.

Molly could not recall ever seeing a time where Remus was this aghast, save for perhaps the other night when the distraught man had confided in Molly of his nightmares.

That strange look of self-loathing in Lupin's eyes almost seemed to cast a shadow over the man's troubled light brown eyes, which had darkened in anger.

He promptly looked away from Molly, and this offended her. " _Fine_ ," she answered stiffly, unable to conceal the frustration that seeped into her tone as she too followed the younger man's gaze, and didn't stifle her chuckle as her inquisitive eyes landed upon the open doorway to the ward for Permanent Spell Damage, where his gaze lingered upon that of his new partner, at her pink hair.

" _Don't_ talk to me then," Mrs. Weasley sighed, swiveling her head back around and resting it against the wall. "I can't help you, Lupin, if you won't talk."

"Tonks is an extraordinarily gifted witch, Molly. And unfailingly kind…."

Molly paused, biting on her tongue as she immersed in Remus's words and felt no shame in her growing curiosity as a small spark of hope ignited in her chest. There was a hint of affection in the younger man's voice. Longing.

_He likes her. It's in his eyes. I see that now..._

Perhaps Dumbledore had been onto something bigger when he'd thought to pair the two of them together, and that this clever young witch was 'the one.'

Though, there it was yet _again_. The all-too-familiar tinge of melancholia in his sweet, somewhat reserved, and kind voice.

Mrs. Weasley thought it obscure for the young wizard to have such a murkiness laced throughout his sweet tones.

Remus having been known for his charming, sweet, somewhat shy, and reserved disposition, Molly thought it incredibly strange for Lupin to behave in this manner that was so unlike him.

Very, very new to have seen and heard Lupin speak to her in this regard. Molly might even go as far as to describe Remus's current expression he wore as anxious…glum…sad…perhaps even… _afraid_.

This was…new.

Remus was not a man who was afraid of much, save for the full moon, though these days since Severus was supplying with the Wolfsbane, that founded fear was significantly less so, for which Mrs. Weasley was grateful.

Lupin broke the silence by exhaling slowly, casting a strange, longing look towards the open doorway, into the room where his new partner knelt at the bedside of someone, his face an alloy of constraining want and restraint and desire.

Mrs. Weasley watched in silence as Remus furrowed his brows into a confused frown, and she heard him sigh. "Do I even deserve her as my partner, Molly?"

"Yes." Molly's answer was immediate and left her lips without any semblance of hesitation. The matronly witch bit down on her bottom lip, hard enough to cause bleeding as she toyed with her wand as she struggled to formulate a thoughtful and apt response to Remus's question, elaborating on her answer.

So many unanswered questions were swirling around in her mind, but only one that she desperately wanted the answer to, and right in this very moment.

"What happened?" Mrs. Weasley asked, trying one last time to reach the man who was a friend to her, and she considered him much like one of her own family members.

When Remus still did not answer her, instead favoring silence as an apt response and turning away from Molly and lowering his head in shame, allowing that one stubborn lock of rough, thick light brown bang to hang over his eyes, she sighed and merely proceeded to reach up a hand and tuck it back.

More questions rushed through Molly's mind like a river in spring. Though she dared not give these queries a voice.

Not this morning. Not today, or even over the course of the next several weeks while she helped Miss Tonks adjust to her new life and living situation in Grimmauld Place with Remus and Sirius.

Instead, she merely watched Lupin as he stared numbly at a spot on the wall opposite them, waiting as a host of ill-concealed emotions receded from the surface of his lined but still quite handsome face.

The sight of Lupin struggled in silence was distressing, despite Molly knowing nothing of what words were exchanged between Remus and Tonks, though Dumbledore had his suspicions.

Molly watched as Remus's face paled considerably, even more than was usual, and for a moment, the matronly witch became concerned, wondering if he was ill, though he quickly brushed away her hand as she moved to feel his forehead.

"Earlier…if…if Tonks would not have spoken up a—and if Dumbledore would not have said something to the Madame Undersecretary, I—I think I would have _killed_ her for what she tried to do to Nymphadora, Molly. I do!"

Mrs. Weasley cringed as she heard the distraught man's voice rise in pitch the more upset he became the longer he dwelled over the unpleasant encounter.

She pondered over a Muggle saying that Arthur had once spouted to her in a fit of excitement, and she thought that the quote in this particular instance had merit.

_'Loneliness, though a heavy burden, has a weak shell, one easily shattered by the soft smile of a woman and the cool touch of her hands.'_

She could not recollect for the life of her the Muggle that had said this quote, but it applied here.

"Remus. _Listen_." Mrs. Weasley felt herself shift slightly at the waist as she reached up a tender hand and placed a reassuring hand on Lupin's shoulder, and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and let out a sigh as she assessed Remus's tattered-looking brown jacket, thinking that she would have to mend it for him soon.

"You did not harm nor did you kill Dolores Umbridge, though from what Professor Dumbledore told me and I drew my own conclusions, that I think we would both agree that one day, that miserable old cretin is going to meet her own fate. The Madame Undersecretary is alive and breathing for now, though it is so much more than the witch deserves," Molly snapped meanly, her own features darkening as she recollected how angry Dumbledore's face had looked in his Patronus message to Molly and Sirius.

Sirius had agreed to stay behind and prepare a place for his cousin to sleep, and Mrs. Weasley had purposefully ignored the mischievous look Black had gotten in his eyes when she had told him to prepare quarters for Tonks in the bedroom just across from where Remus was staying.

Exhaling a shaking breath through her nose, Molly paused to consider her choice of words, and then offered the man a small smile, though she had to crane her neck upwards slightly to do it, given how much taller Lupin was than her.

Remus Lupin was a clear head taller than most people Molly would consider 'tall.' He was lanky and gaunt, and Mrs. Weasley for one inappropriate moment wondered how many jokes and comments the man got from Sirius and the others back at headquarters about his stature he got daily, jibes about 'the air being thin up there.'

He let out a groan of frustration and raked his fingers through his hair.

Molly sighed and offered the man what she hoped was a comforting smile.

"You were merely protecting your partner, Remus. As any good man would do. That is what matters, and as her partner and a member of the Order, it is expected of you," Mrs. Weasley added, almost as an afterthought. "Dumbledore informed me that the Madame Undersecretary would have likely strangled Tonks to death had you not intervened when you did. And had you _not_ acted in the manner which you had, could you honestly stand here and tell me to my face that Tonks would still be alive?" Mrs. Weasley pressed urgently, sensing the man's hesitation when he promptly looked away for a moment to compose himself.

Molly bit the inside wall of her cheek as she quickly came to the realization that Remus did not quite believe her words, and she resisted the urge to scream in frustration and seize tufts of her hair and pull them out in agitation over this.

Lupin ducked his head away from Molly's piercing, inquisitive gaze and began to clench his hands into fists and bury his hands in the pocket of his brown jacket.

"No." Remus's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, and Molly smiled.

"Then I see no reason to trouble yourself over this, Remus. You acted accordingly, and were your roles reversed, there is no doubt in my mind that Tonks would have done the same for you," Mrs. Weasley reasoned, daring to poke her head around the corner and peer into the open doorway of the ward.

Nymphadora was still crouched into a kneel by a mysterious person's bedside, apparently speaking to them, though what was being said was too soft to hear.

Molly knitted her brows in confusion and swiveled her head back around to regard Remus, who had followed her gaze, though his face quickly flushed and he too forced his attention to return to staring at the portrait-covered wall opposite them of the various Healers, witches, and wizard throughout the ages.

Mrs. Weasley shivered as a cold chill wafted through the drafty hallway and she clutched at her shawl and wrapped it around herself.

"Sweet Merlin, it's freezing in this corridor." The matronly witch heaved a heavy sigh as the inexplicable breeze kissed her ginger hair and pinked her cheeks slightly. "But don't try to change the subject. The girl. Your _partner_. We were discussing Tonks and your behavior towards Umbridge," she commented, as much to remind herself as to keep herself on topic. "You were willing to take another's _life_ if it meant protecting her. I think that she is already proving to be someone who could be close to you, if you would let her in, Remus. Just give her some time, Lupin, and I think that Miss Tonks will prove to be an invaluable person and influence for the better in your life, Remus," Mrs. Weasley offered coyly, a gleam in her dark brown eyes.

Molly all the while pretended to be interested in studying the painting of Gunhilda de Gorsemoor, though all the while discreetly shooting Remus a quizzical look out of the corner of her eyes.

The poor man had such a look of shock on his face intermingled with awe and admiration for the young witch, that was this under different circumstances, Molly might have teased him a bit.

_I don't even think he realizes the true extent of his feelings_ , Molly mused. _He's smitten all right. Sirius is going to tease him mercilessly when the man finds out about this, no doubt_.

Somewhat hesitantly, Molly reached over and rested her hand on his forearm, which seemed to break Lupin out of his stupor and whatever memory he'd been revisiting.

Remus blinked as he glanced down at Molly's hand, resting idly on the sleeve of his brown jacket, and then up at Mrs. Weasley, his brown eyes beginning to grimace as he struggled to read the matronly witch's emotions.

"I am happy for you, Lupin," Molly replied quietly. "She's a cute woman, isn't she, Lupin? You've never had a partner before. You'll take good care of her. I know that you will, and that, in your own way, you are growing to care for her." Mrs. Weasley could feel Remus stun at her compliments but was good at hiding.

When Lupin blushed and looked away, her smile broadened, and Molly took that as her sign to continue.

"I know that you might not be able to see it for yourself, but I think that one in there," Here, Mrs. Weasley gestured with a jerk of her head towards the room where Tonks had disappeared mysteriously into. "Likes you, whether or not she is aware of her own feelings, and I think that once she returns home to Grimmauld Place with you and Sirius for company, the two of you will become…quite close," she murmured. "You'd be an utter fool, Lupin, to let this girl walk out of your life. Don't push your partner away. You should give Tonks a chance, Remus. You deserve that much at least, Lupin. I tell my sons and Ginny this all the time. Don't for a second lose sight of what's important to you. And I think… _she_ is, isn't she?"

Whatever breeze was wafting through an open window somewhere down at the end of the corridor picked up, lightly pushing the man's bangs off his face.

Molly held Lupin's gaze, determined not to shy away from the scarred flesh that, even she had to admit, at times, even after a few precious years of knowing the man, still sent a pang of pity through her heart, as though someone had taken a dagger and stabbed her with it, for such a kind and gentle man to be cursed with a horrible affliction when he was but five years old was an utter tragedy.

The fact that no cure had been developed for werewolf bites yet either was troublesome to Molly, but more so especially for Remus, who wanted what every other witch and wizard had and took for granted every single day of their lives. To be normal. Someone to love, and be loved in return, children of his own one day.

When Molly refused to avert her gaze and did not look away, Lupin returned her smile and his smile was like that of a warm sunset, lighting his face with a warmth that she had not admittedly seen on the young wizard before. It was _her_.

"Thank you, Molly," Remus spoke up after a long silence, sounding pained.

"You're welcome, Remus." Molly let out a tired little sigh and pulled herself a little bit closer, and she was relieved when Lupin did not protest when she rested her head a moment against the man's shoulder. "Don't let your condition define who you are, Lupin. It does not, and you would be a fool to think otherwise. With the Wolfsbane Potion at your disposal, you're the only one standing in your own way, dear. You can have a _good_ life, you know. There's someone out there for you. It takes more than looking to see. When you're ready, you'll find her."

Mrs. Weasley could practically feel Remus's scowl of disbelief at her words, the heat he emanated, and when she reluctantly removed her head from its resting place against his shoulder and pulled back to study his face, she was not at all surprised to see him scowl.

He gestured towards the three-lined scars on his face, a mixture of jagged pink, harsh against his pale skin despite their age, even after all this time. He tugged on a lock of his light brown hair in anguish as he raked his fingers through his hair.

"As much as I want it, _how_? What _else_ could I possibly be, Molly? There is no point in trying to deny what I am. There is no changing it," he snapped bitterly, disgust in his tone.

" _Who_ ," Molly promptly corrected her friend and fellow Order member, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she watched the younger wizard's face whiplash so sharply up to regard her that she had to quickly move her head back to avoid connecting with it. "You are _not_ a monster, Remus Lupin. You are a man, with thoughts and feelings of your own. You like your new partner, and don't try to wiggle your way out of admitting it," she chastised lightly," reaching over and giving him a playful poke on the arm. "She has made quite the impression on you, hasn't she? And you've not even known her for a full week yet, Remus."

"She—she has. She's an extraordinary witch and young woman, Molly," Remus heard himself admit it, and was surprised to hear himself confess it. "But I don't think that she ..." he started to say, but Molly held up a hand and cut him off from whatever it was that he had been about to say to Mrs. Weasley next.

" _No_. I don't want to hear anymore. You are a man, Lupin. You are no beast, not a monster. It's time you saw yourself as a man and the extraordinarily gifted young wizard that we all know you to be. I don't want to hear this kind of talk."

Mrs. Weasley felt her voice hardened as she at first looked appalled at Remus's sudden shift in attitude.

He had looked so hopeful for a fraction of a second, and then, as if by witch's curse, it was replaced with such a look of melancholia, that she knew that she had to at least attempt to make him see her side of the view.

Her expression softened at the look of abject horror in the young man's eyes.

"You are a _man_ , Remus John Lupin," Molly sighed, reaching up and tossing her hair back over her shoulders. "Yes, you have your condition, but it does not define you. You're a man first and foremost, my dear. You are someone who has a good, _good_ heart and an incredibly kind and selfless disposition and goes out of their way to help others when there is nothing in it for you. You are right. You could have _killed_ both Crouch and Umbridge for what they both did to Nymphadora, but you _didn't_ let that happen. Dumbledore told me this morning what happened, dear."

Remus felt his eyes widen in terror and suddenly, if it were not for the fact that he felt as though it were completely justified to remain right by Tonks's side and keep an eye on the vibrant, young, pink-haired Auror who'd just had everything ripped out from underneath her by Umbridge, then he would have quit the scene entirely and Disapparated back to Grimmauld Place and would have been content to remain in the shadows of the decrepit house of Sirius's parents, where he knew a creature of the darkness like himself belonged, like it or not.

Fear began to overtake him completely for at least the fourth time in the span of almost twenty-four hours.

Molly…Did Molly _know_ about this?

What would the woman who he sometimes thought of as a paternal mother figure in his life think of him now? Had Dumbledore divulged all the details of how he'd lost his temper, both with Crouch and with Umbridge?

Would she believe of him to be the monster, the Mad Beast, that he himself had always known that he was?

"You _heard_ that?" His query escaped his lips as a horrified, hushed whisper.

Molly nodded slowly, a grim expression overtaking her kind, weathered face. "I did, Lupin. _All_ of it. Dumbledore spared no detail. And you did not kill Crouch. Or Umbridge, though no one would have complained too much if you had done away with that old toad," Molly added, crinkling her nose in disgust.

Lupin pursed his lips into a thin line though he made no remark at her comment. "You _could_ have though," Mrs. Weasley emphasized, reaching into the pocket of her house dress and twirling her wand lovingly in her fingers for something to do as she recognized she was growing restless and wishing for nothing more than to return to Grimmauld Place.

She was afraid that in her absence, Sirius and Kreacher would have burnt all of the headquarters down while arguing among one another, as the disgruntled little House-Elf did not particularly respond in kind to his master's demands, nor did Sirius treat him well.

"And yet, you did not kill either one of them. But you could have, and I would be the first to admit that had you chosen to, you certainly would have had just cause for doing so, for what protect what we love."

It did not escape Molly's attention that the poor man practically jumped out of his skin and startled when she'd dared to utter the word 'love.' She sighed.

"I must confess…I don't know what I would do if another witch or wizard tried to kill anyone that I cared about. I don't know what my own reaction would be, so to that end, I don't blame you, Remus, nor is it your fault, for the way that you reacted. You were merely protecting Tonks, and she is safe. Because of _you_."

Remus blinked owlishly at Arthur Weasley's wife.

This was…not exactly the answer he had been expecting from Molly, for he had fully anticipated that Mrs. Weasley would have one of her classic outbursts towards thoughts of his fears. One of anger or fear, but not of _understanding_.

She—Mrs. Weasley was attempting to reason out and rationalize why he'd almost _killed_ a man for a young witch who, for reasons he himself could not explain, had wormed her way under his wretched skin and she was already leaving a lasting impression on him now.

Mrs. Weasley understood why Remus had felt the way that he did and acted accordingly towards his emotions that he was feeling for Tonks's well-being at the time.

She understood, and yet, it was evident on the older witch's face that she did not think ill of him and harbored no resentment towards him for his despicable and somewhat violent behavior over the last twenty-four hours.

She—she did not think of him as a monster. Remus felt as though his mind were reeling. And that was all Lupin could ask for in Molly, really.

For someone like Mrs. Weasley, and hopefully, in time, his partner, to accept him as he was.

Another gust of wind whipped its way through the already drafty hallway and tousled Molly's ginger hair off her forehead and away from her face. She rested her head against his shoulder, and though the man was incredibly warm to the touch, she shivered.

Remus noticed the slight movement in Mrs. Weasley and furrowed his brows into a slight frown as he swiveled his head to the left to regard the matronly witch.

"Are you cold?" he asked but did not give Molly any time to answer before he shrugged out of his brown jacket and draped it over the witch's shoulders.

They stood together guarding the ward to Permanent Spell Damage and did not say a word at first, for it was too precious a moment to ruin by speaking.

It seemed to take Mrs. Weasley an eternity to formulate her thoughts before she spoke again. "I am happy for you, that Dumbledore has given you this opportunity, Remus. You deserve a good life. Your _own_ life. Not what you think you deserve, but what you _want_." She bit the inside wall of her cheek.

If her suspicions were correct, and when she followed her hunch, she usually wasn't wrong.

After raising six boys and one girl, she could tell when someone had but one thing on their mind and Molly knew the next question she was about to ask of the man was about to cross a threshold, but she had to know.

"What is it that _you_ want?" she asked at last, watching Remus with wide eyes.

"It's—it's _not_ that simple, Molly," Remus protested hotly, to which Mrs. Weasley responded in kind by promptly cutting the man off.

Molly let out a groan of frustration in bit the inside wall of her cheek, stomping her foot, a release of agitation, and folded her arms across her chest as she turned to look.

"Yes, it _is_ , Remus. Just answer the question. What do you _want_?" she demanded hotly, putting her hands on her hips and scowling.

Remus blinked rapidly at the matronly witch, startled by her sudden shift in personality at the insistence that he provides an apt response to the question that she had just posed to him.

Words seemed to have temporarily fled the man. Molly frowned as she stared into those bright brown eyes burning with the briefest flickers of confusion, anger, self-loathing, sadness, and a sense of betrayal.

His heart seemed to have fallen silent. His eyes were wide and blank as he stared at Molly in horror and Mrs. Weasley felt her eyes desperately search his.

He just had to answer her! But he could not leave her question hanging like this. Mrs. Weasley could practically see Lupin's mind searching for something reasonable to tell his friend, that would make sense and explain away the slip in his ability to aptly respond. Molly scoffed and turned away, growing impatient.

She shivered and wrapped Lupin's jacket he'd draped over her shoulders tighter around her shoulders, her only barrier against the cool breeze, no doubt wafting in the corridor through an opened window somewhere to provide the Healers and their patients with fresh air.

She made to head back down to the visitor lobby, murmuring she would be waiting for them when Tonks was finished when the soft tones of his quiet and reserved voice wafted towards her, and she was quite certain she had misheard Remus as his heart seemed like it was answering her question for him, and he wasn't making any excuses this time.

" _Her_. Her acceptance. Her friendship. One day, maybe her... Just... _her_."

His voice was barely audible, and if Molly hadn't already been hanging onto Lupin's every word, she would have missed it completely.

Mrs. Weasley barely succeeded in stifling the small victorious smile that graced her features as she slowly turned back around to regard her fellow Order member.

This confession was all that Mrs. Weasley needed as a truly wonderful, and yet horrible plan began to form in her mind.

One that she thought for certain Sirius might have come up with instead of her.

One that might anger Remus.

For it would involve the man stepping out of his comfort zone, though if Mrs. Weasley (and with the help of Sirius, for he had expressed interest earlier in doing whatever he could do aid in seeing his best friend happy again), though if she were to be successful in helping Black bring Remus and Tonks together, then he was just going to have to get used to the idea of taking a risk every now and again.

_What's life without a little risk?_ Sirius's words echoed inside of her head. _Moony's been alone in his life too long. The love of a good woman, that's what he needs. I'll help however I can_.

She realized that, in his own way, Sirius was right, reckless, and careless though he could sometimes be. Molly bit her tongue as she came to the realization that Remus Lupin had opened his heart and mind to her, and this woman, this Metamorphmagus, Nymphadora Tonks, had, according to Dumbledore earlier this morning in his Patronus message, already started to accept Remus for who he was, the choices and actions he had made in her company regarding her.

That was good enough for Molly.

And now, she was going to do the same. Molly did not even bother attempting to conceal the small, playful smirk that graced her features, pulling the corners of her mouth upwards into a soft smile.

"You are not lying, Remus?" she asked. "You truly want her friendship and in time...?"

" _Yes_." Remus's answer was immediate, and his brows knitted together as he frowned, and folded his arms across his chest and regarded Mrs. Weasley contemplatively.

Now, the man merely sounded put off and offended at the thought that Molly would even consider that he was not being completely honest with her.

She gripped onto Lupin's shoulder tight enough that the man swayed a little bit, though he did not falter in his stance as they continued to stand to watch outside the door.

Molly bit her tongue, hoping that Tonks would be finished up soon. The quicker the two of them got her back to Grimmauld Place, the more comfortable she would be.

And hopefully, she and Lupin would get closer.

"Don't worry, Lupin," Mrs. Weasley reassured him kindly, averting her gaze back towards the portraits of the various Healers throughout the ages. She gave Remus an affectionate pat on the back. "I don't know all of what was said down there between the two of you when you were… _tending her wounds_..."

Here, she carefully peeked at Remus out of the corner of her eye and was more than a little amused to see a light pink blush speckling its way along the man's pale cheeks, flushing them with a little color. Molly chuckled and shook her head in bemusement.

"But if I'm to help you, dear, then I'm going to need copious details. She said something to you, Lupin."

Remus furrowed his brows into a frown and scowled. "Are you sure this is wise, Molly? How could you possibly even think of beginning to help me? What if she…when I tell her the truth about what I am, what if she doesn't see past the nature of my … 'unfortunate' condition? Would she leave?"

The note of bitterness and anguish in his voice was almost too unbearable for Molly to hear.

It was not Molly's place to admit this next part, but Dumbledore had confided that, as a skilled Legilimens himself, he had dipped into Miss Tonks's mind during her 'interview' with Dolores Umbridge, and the man was not at all surprised to discern that somehow, perhaps given the nature of how smart she was, Tonks had already learned of Remus's lycanthropy, and was choosing to wait for him to approach the subject with her when she felt more comfortable.

"Somehow, I do not think that will be a problem for you, my dear. I think that the best relationships, friendships especially and even romantic relationships , are forged with honesty and trust in one another. I think the best thing you can do to ensure your partnership and your friendship gets off on the right foot is just to be open and honest with her, and she might surprise you. Merlin knows you've certainly surprised me over the last year or two. I think Tonks will understand, Remus. All you can do is talk to her. She'll listen."

Remus opened his mouth and had been about to argue with her, on the basis that when most other witches and wizards knew of his condition, they could barely speak to him, let alone look him in the eye, and he could feel the color drain from his face as Molly had started to ask rather personal and intrusive questions regarding his new partnership with Nymphadora Tonks, when the witch in question re-emerged from the Ward of Permanent Spell Damage, her eyes red-rimmed, and the pair of them promptly put an end to their conversation.

He did not like how pale Tonks was looking, more so than usual, and it didn't take an intellectual genius like Albus Dumbledore to see that she had perhaps taxed her body beyond its ability to cope, for he was not at all surprised to see her beginning to lean forward, and he was internally relieved when he instinctively reached for her arm and looped it around his and she did not protest.

"You don't look well, Tonks. You are all right?" he murmured lowly, doing his best to ignore the swell of warmth that seemed to shoot up his arm, as he felt the heat of her skin pierce as fire through his sweater sleeve. "Is there anything Molly or I can do for you?"

Tonks, for reasons unknown both to Molly and Remus, kept her head bowed, the thick bangs of her dark pink, almost maroon pixie having fallen in her eyes.

"E—everything is fine, Mrs. Weasley," she stammered, and Lupin noticed her fingernails had dug tightly into the material of his thick black woolen sweater.

"Molly, dear, Molly! Please call me by my first name, dear. No one in the Order, especially not friends, calls me Mrs. Weasley. We're all friends and equals here. I cannot even imagine what you are going through, dear, but since you'll be staying at headquarters with us, if there is anything you need during your recovery process, anything you want to talk about, then you will not hesitate to come to me. I'm here to support you through this difficult time, just as Remus is," Here, she glanced upward and saw Lupin give a curt nod that Tonks missed. "Especially given your…special circumstances, dear," she murmured, taking hold of Tonks's other arm, and curling her hand into a tight fist as they walked her back down towards the elevator to head for the main visitor/reception lobby.

Tonks startled and lifted her head and regarded Molly in silence.

Lupin flinched as he could see the evidence of dried tear tracts had run down her cheeks.

He loathed seeing her shed any more tears and wondered if there would come a day in the hopefully near future since he was taking her home to recover if he would ever get to see his new partner's dazzlingly white smile ever again.

"Oh," stammered Tonks, unable to form a coherent reply as the three of them got into the elevator, and Molly pressed the button that would take them to the lobby. "I…"

Her voice cracked and faltered as it trailed off as she stared at Mrs. Weasley, who stood on the other side of Remus regarding the young witch in silence, her dark brown eyes, just like Lupin's, full of unfailing tenderness.

Tonks had not anticipated Mrs. Weasley to be so kind. As the elevator continued its descent, she listened quietly while Molly quickly explained the premises of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, where she would be staying, and how to take extreme precautions not to wake her cousin Sirius's mum's oil portrait.

Mrs. Weasley did not strike Tonks as a witch who minded repeating herself as Tonks listened and struggled to process her words, her mind still reeling from her brief visit with poor Alice and Frank Longbottom, that had left her shaken.

Molly did not seem as though she got angry or impatient much, and the older witch was extremely maternal and generous, having opened headquarters for Tonks to stay in, which Tonks felt moved by.

Rudeness, brazenness, impoliteness, these were all concepts that Tonks could very easily deal with. But in her current physical state of healing, unease, and vulnerability, such unexpected kindness from anyone felt to poor Tonks like a stab in the heart.

She could feel her eyes beginning to tear up and she turned away.

"Well, thank you for your kind words and concern, Molly. I—I will take them into consideration, but…I'm sure that I will be just fine," she murmured, not looking at either one of them, her tone coming across as perhaps a little too curtly and harsh than she would have liked, before bending her head and looking away.

"Of course, dear," Mrs. Weasley replied warmly, not blaming Nymphadora in the slightest for not knowing how to react to her words of compassion or seeming to give a rather cold response.

"You will be. You're not alone, Tonks. Not for a second," he promised, the edges of his voice hardening just slightly. "You'll have Molly and Arthur, Sirius, and…me," Remus reassured quietly in what he hoped was a neutral tone, though Molly's sharp ears perked up at hearing the faintest note of hope lacing through his tones.

Tonks felt her eyes widen as she felt his grip on her arm tighten just a fraction. Not enough to hurt, but enough of a reassuring firm squeeze that indicated to Tonks without the man having to speak another word that he would not leave her alone during the grueling recovery process ahead.

Tonks nodded, blearily lifting her head as the elevator finally brought them to the bottom level and the three of them wasted no time in stepping out into the fresh air and Tonks flinched as a blast of cold air immediately hit her face, which she thought odd considering it was mid-July, though the skies above promised rain, and soon.

"I think we're in the clear to head back. Sirius knows to expect you both, and…we're going to go get Harry soon," Molly offered after a second. Molly could not help but notice how Tonks briefly perked up at the mention of Harry Potter, though her momentarily cheerful expression faltered

Remus nodded, not flinching as Mrs. Weasley Disapparated with a turn of her heel and what followed was the usual loud crack.

"You're not strong enough yet to Disapparate on your own, much less fly, Tonks. If you were feeling up to it, of course, you could come and collect Harry with the rest of us from his aunt and uncle's, but you _aren't_. You only just got out of St. Mungo's, and as your partner, I cannot allow you to risk further injury. You'll stay at Grimmauld Place with Sirius." Lupin spoke up softly, careful to keep his voice and facial expression neutral, though there was no sensing the disappointment on the young witch's face.

Tonks heaved a heavy sigh as the cold morning London air licked at her face and crept underneath her set of white St. Mungo's robes. "My—my clothes?"

Lupin nodded. "Mrs. Weasley had your mother pack some of your things. Your belongings are already waiting for you in the spare bedroom. It's just across the hall from mine, so I'll always be close enough to keep an eye on you, Tonks."

Tonks could not be certain as she had glanced down at the ground and offered a shy nod just then, but she could have sworn she saw Remus Lupin smile a little.

"I'm counting on it. I—I'm dead clumsy, even without this damned boot," she sighed, glancing down at the heavy boot her broken ankle rested in for at least a week or two. "Don't let me fall. You'll have to catch me if I do. _Partner_ ," she joked weakly, and she could have sworn he stood a little taller than before, prouder, more confident at her words, and he returned the smile as she offered him a faint smile.

She exhaled a shuddering breath through her nose as she felt Lupin's hand curl tightly around her forearm, the other hovering slightly near her waist, ready to catch her if she felt faint or sick.

"Oh, I'd catch you. I'd never miss, Tonks, I swear. And even if I did, I'd sit by your bedside and nurse you back to health, I am your partner after all. Though I'd rather you fall from a height I could catch you from, that way I'd never miss. We look out for each other," he answered solemnly, not a trace of joking in his quiet voice or in his eyes, and Tonks blinked, startled at the man's words. "How are you feeling? Are you still feeling ill? Do you feel ready?" Remus asked, a somber expression etched on his features as his grip tightened.

She knew he was referring to the Side-Along Apparition, and that he was hoping she would suffer no ill side effects as he took her back to Order of the Phoenix headquarters.

Tonks nodded shyly, allowing her fingernails to dig into the material of the man's brown jacket sleeve. She could almost feel him draw in a breath, though whether or not that had to do with the cold morning London air, or the unexpected urgency that she was clutching onto his arm with, she didn't know.

"Take me back, Remus. I've had enough of St. Mungo's to last me the rest of my life," she whispered, shooting him a shy, soft smile.

Remus was kind enough to send another reassuring smile this way and murmured something reassuring to her just before the pair of them Disapparated.

Though Tonks completely missed it, as she was too focused on her partner's eyes, and his face, thinking how kind he had been to her during this whole ordeal, and she'd known the man but a precious twenty-fours at best if even that at all.

Her first thought of her new partner, now that she was in a much more lucid state and better able to have formed the first impression of Remus John Lupin, was that he had sad and somewhat angry eyes.

Those angry eyes were his pain untold, and Tonks wished that he would speak of it and tell her, she really wished for it. She would be his partner, and he hers, but there was one condition for this new arrangement of Dumbledore's to work….

Remus had to keep her safe from them, these storms raging war within his eyes that reflected on the rest of him.

He had to let her all the way in so that he always trusted her, and Tonks only ever saw his kind light brown eyes, the ones that would one-day harbor friendship for her, she hoped, in time. Because she wanted their partnership to work out.

For him to stay with her, but Remus had to be good for her, too. She guessed that this was trust as she dared to meet the young man's eyes and not look away.

It had been so long for her, to trust another so completely, that the feeling felt new. Maybe it is. She guessed that was a pretty sad comment on the state of her life.

Tonks wasn't a _fool_.

The young woman knew that she had a purpose in this life, whatever that was to her, just as Lupin did, one that was compatible and unique. The Auror supposed this trust was developing much like a photograph does, needing the light to come when the picture was well-formed. She sighed.

Tonks could see it already. She wanted it already. Yet, she had no choice but to leave the timing up to the wisdom of the positive universe regarding… _this_.

"Wait." The plea escaped her lips before she could stop herself. Remus paused, furrowing his brows into a slight frown as he regarded his partner silently. "Please," she managed to gasp out. "I need to...wait just a minute."

"What is it?" he murmured lowly, grabbing her shoulder firmly to steady her. "Do you feel ill?"

"Before I…we go home…our—our _partnership_. There's...something I've been wanting to ask you, Lupin a-and I haven't had a chance to until now. Do you even _want_ this for yourself, Remus? I know this is what Dumbledore assigned us, but...has anyone asked you what you want? Because...if you don't want me, then... all you have to do is say it, and I'll leave," Tonks whispered, biting her bottom lip and sticking it out in a slight pout. "I just want to know...if you...want _me_ , and _who_ you want."

She cringed and bit her lip. But Merlin, how horribly, terribly _awkward_ this was for her!

It seemed ages beforeRemus spoke again. "I do. I'm right here where I'm standing, Tonks. I'm not anywhere else. I don't want you to leave. I...want you to stay with me." Lupin's tone was solemn, and he answered immediately without hesitating.

Tonks nodded mutely. "Because…if you and I…if we only get one shot at this, then…I want the _best_ one, and though the waiting is the hard part, for our—our _friendship_ , then I will do it if that's what it takes to get you and me right."

There was such a pain and Remus heard the crack and dip in her voice as it broke and she looked away a moment before turning her head back around to regard her new partner, and when she did, there was such heartbreak within.

That he could hardly bear it. Remus did not know what to say or do to make her feel better, so he favored silence as an opt response and instead felt completely justified in tightening his grip on the young witch's arm. "Let's go home, Tonks," he murmured quietly.

Tonks nodded. " _Home_. Home sounds nice… Take me there, Remus."

As the pair of partners Disapparated, Tonks was so engrossed in looking into the man's eyes that, if she would have looked back up at the front of St. Mungo's one more time, at the far left wing of the fourth floor for Permanent Spell Damage, Nymphadora Tonks would have seen the curtain flutter slightly.

And she just would have seen the pale face of Barty Crouch Jr. staring down at her.


	23. To Hold Alice's Hand

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE **

Barty stood watching as _his_ Alice Disapparated with that very scum of the earth who'd interrogated him the other night. His expression as he stood by the window was of one being forced to endure an unpleasant odor as he scrunched his nose in disgust. His gaze, even after the pair of them had vanished from sight, was unwavering and unabashed. Before she had vanished, his eyes did not travel up to this new and flawless Alice's face or down to her boots, but really, they followed her as if focusing on something a couple of feet further away. But he did not wave, made no gesture of recognition, no raised hand, smile, or stiff nod.

He let out a haggard sigh and turned away the moment his Alice Disapparated with the werewolf. He sneered, his lip curling downward as he thought of him.

Of the _wolf_. The man was admittedly going to become something of a problem for him, Crouch knew, but he would deal with the _werewolf_ later.

Crouch sighed and turned back around to see _her_. His Alice. Once his Alice.

Barty waved his wand and conjured a chair next to Alice Prewitt's bedside and sat in it, straddling the chair backward and resting his arms on the chair's headrest and watched Alice in silence for a good long while, feeling a pang of momentary regret for the part he'd had to play in the Longbottom's demise.

Not her husband so much per se, Crouch could watch Frank Longbottom choke on his own tongue and fluids for all he cared, but he had not wanted to hurt Alice. In her life, Alice Prewitt had given more of herself than perhaps was wise.

She had loved without boundaries and given so much of her time when she should have kept it for herself. And after what Bellatrix and Crouch had done to her… The pain would be with his Alice until the end, every day a tough battle. The mornings brought bed baths from strange Healers than she could not recognize, kindly though they were.

There was no dignity in this wretched life for his Alice.

When left alone, when her son and Frank's grandmother did not come to visit, Alice let her face, so deeply etched with the lines of laughter and love, fall with gravity, reserving what little strength was left in her failing body for Neville. Crouch furrowed his brows into a frown as his cold, hardened gaze landed on that of Frank.

Frank Longbottom rested in a chair next to the bedside of his wife, not that he knew who Alice or Crouch was. He sat in that damned chair, rocking, rocking, always in motion. His face is just the same as that fateful night when Crouch was only too happy to use the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom, buckling under the strain of the pain.

Every few seconds, his hand flickers to his face to swat invisible insects. _Probably Wrackspurts_ , Crouch thought and snorted, rolling his eyes. He scooted his chair closer to Alice and reached for one of her hands. Her hands were frailty and caution, shaking gently as her listless eyes looked towards Barty Crouch.

Crouch drew in an abated breath that was more of a hiss and wasn't even aware he'd held it. He could have sworn that, he was sure, yes, he was sure, that the briefest flickers of anger flickered through his Alice's eyes as she looked at him.

Barty let out a sigh as Alice looked away and let out a tiny moan, to which Frank Longbottom responded in kind with one of his own. Both of them had lost the ability to speak. Crouch glanced down and let his gaze fall on Alice's hand clutched in his own.

They were ashen as the garish light of the sun caught them, not ghostly like a white person, just…subdued and greyish. Crouch stared.

This was perhaps the first time he realized just how vulnerable his Alice Prewitt was and how much of a toll the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse had taken. Frank let out another moan and Crouch clenched his teeth in anger, growling. The woman's husband was testing the last vestiges of Crouch's patience.

One more moan and Barty swore he'd find an illegal use for his pillow.

Though even Crouch knew that it wasn't necessarily Longbottom's fault, and for the most part, neither of them were aware of anything they did anymore at all. The Longbottoms did not know the pair of them were in St. Mungo's or what had happened to them.

Their existence had become little more than an extended nightmare until the sweet shrouded figure of Death came to take them away.

But their damned bloody moans were so loud and unpredictable, each one coming just when Barty Crouch Jr. was relaxing into the idea he might have stopped and would be allowed to hold Alice's hand in sweet, blessed _silence_.

Crouch glowered as the moan from Frank Longbottom came again, and his hand instinctively drifted to the interior pocket of his brown jacket, his fingers twitching as he itched to pull his wand and send the last Unforgiveable Curse spiraling straight square into Frank's chest, though he knew it'd be an act of mercy, and that was not something he was willing to provide for the accursed thief.

The _thief_ of Alice Prewitt's heart, who'd stolen what should have always been _his_. His fingers twitched again and with great effort, by some miracle, Crouch managed to restrain himself and pulled his hand out of his trench coat.

When he spoke to Frank, though he knew the tortured man could not hear him, it was with a coldness that even he had never heard himself. He doubted that Frank could understand his words, but still, he spoke them to him anyways.

"I don't just want to _kill_ you, Longbottom, I want to put you in a dank, dark pit and add the shovels of dirt slowly until your mouth is full of dirt and you belong with the worms. I want to hear the suffocation of your stupid cries. I want to know the second you don't exist anymore, so that I may savor it," he hissed.

Crouch heard the venom drip from his words in anger as he whisper hissed it through clenched teeth and locked jaw. His fingers raked down the side of his black jeans. "I don't care if you're sorry anymore. I don't want to hear it, Frank."

Frank could only respond in kind with another pitiful moan and wide eyes.

Crouch sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and shook his head in disgust. "You took what should have been mine and this," he growled, gesturing towards Alice's mostly unresponsive form, "is _your_ fault. I hope you're proud, Frank. It's all _your_ handiwork, after all. This would not have happened if you'd simply left Alice _alone_. Prewitt is _mine_ , Longbottom. _Mine_."

Barty Crouch Jr. offered his trademark wide, white Cheshire Cat-like grin, his dark eyes wide and unblinking. He ran a hand through his thick tuft of dark hair, his lips turning up even wider as he grinned, and Frank moaned in response.

Crouch turned away from Frank, ignoring the insufferable man's moaning, returning his attention back to Alice, and clasped his hand over the top of Alice's.

 _So cold_ , he thought. Sometimes, the regret at what he had done to his precious Alice would come to Barty in quiet moments, such as when he was going to sleep. It would seep to the foreground of his mind and demand to be re-examined again. The regret of what he had done washed over Crouch like the long, slow waves on a shallow beach. Each wave was frigid, icy cold, and sent shivers down his spine as he dared to look into the listless pools of emptiness that were her eyes.

How he longed to go back and take a different path, but now that was impossible. There was no way back from this. There was but only _one_ way to make it right, and that was not to mess things up with this new, perfect Alice.

There was a small part of Crouch that envied the pebbles of that said beach, hard and lifeless, unable to feel the wracking torments, the hardships of this life.

But he was tired of thinking about it, what he had done to his Alice Prewitt. No amount of analysis was going to turn back the clock and reverse time. Crouch knew he had to get on with the here and now, make better choices the next time.

 _Starting with her_ , he thought angrily, biting the inside wall of his cheek as he thought of the new Alice, the pretty little thing that had somehow gotten away.

Insanity stole into his mind like a deranged thief, taking what was important to Barty, adding a new dangerous ideas, seeding a new personality, and muddling up the rest. New sparks of ideas that once he would have dismissed as bizarre started to grow roots, deep roots, and they started to make sense in one revolutionary eureka moment after another, cascading purely out of his control.

It lured Crouch further and further from the self that he once knew until he was so deep that Barty no longer recognized the dense, dark forest around him, paths twisted and turned out of his sight, so dense were these tree trunks in his mind. He followed one path wildly after another, making new connections in his new distorted reality, after a while, he had trodden the new paths so much that they formed an inescapable maze, a prison without walls, and he was trapped.

These painful memories of Crouch's, they were just the same as his nightmares. They vanished whenever Barty was awake, when he was really right here, in the present moment, with Alice. But once he really opened his eyes and let in the darkness of the moonlight, they had no choice but to leave once the garish light of day of the sun had set and dipped beyond the horizon, and he could let in the wonderful ideas around him.

Such as a new life with his new Alice. A second chance to make things right. Crouch glanced down at his hands, still clutching onto Alice Prewitt's hands.

The lines on the witch's hand caught Barty's attention, much as they did back when they attended Hogwarts together. They swirled on her hand like an unfinished drawing. Her hand fixed perfectly in his, her long and thin fingers, completing the space left in his. Smooth and pampered, just like the rest of her.

The Healers in this wretched place took care of her. Crouch could be grateful for that much, at least. Pianist's fingers, with cool white skin and a perfect manicure. To the touch, they were soft and cold, though they warmed instantly the moment Crouch lifted Alice Prewitt's knuckles to his lips for a chaste kiss.

As he did so, his eyes closed and he was flooded with the memories of their time together in Hogwarts, and he could not stop the rush of emotions that spiraled and sent a wave of cold and warmth as one in the confines of his chest…

* * *

Alice Prewitt was young, pale, and beautiful. Barty had to rip his eyes away from the young woman in her sixth year every time she walked into Potions or Transfiguration. There was a ray of strange sunshine in Prewitt's white smile, and her voice went right to his brain like a single shot of illegal Fire Whiskey, considering he wasn't even yet old enough to drink it, yet the Fawcett's had found a way to smuggle a bottle or two of it into the Slytherin Common Room, courtesy of a few hidden passageways that led into Hogsmeade.

Crouch let out a content sigh as the cool evening breeze of October, the week before Halloween, blew his dark bangs off of his forehead.

Their hands had accidentally brushed against each other's earlier in Potions when he'd calmly asked Prewitt to hand the vial of salamander tails, and the skin of his palm burned and tingled like eternal fire, and his heartbeats were so erratically pounding against his chest he thought it might fly out. There were damned lions in his bloody chest, and he couldn't shake it.

Crouch had needed a moment to clear his head of these infuriating thoughts that pounded against his skull like the back of a stone, and he had decided to try to take a walk to calm himself down, despite it was after curfew.

Barty came to the Forbidden Forest whenever he needed to clear his mind, for it was the one place in the entire bloody grounds of all Hogwarts that he could think without any of his friends or his teachers breathing down his neck, making him want to lash out at anything in anger and strike out at something. " _Frank_ …"

Longbottom, that wretched Gryffindor, also had his sights set on _his_ Alice, and that he could not allow. Barty closed his eyes and allowed the darkness of the Forbidden Forest to completely engulf him. This strange place of death and torment. A little piece of his own safe sanctuary, a bit of Heaven, right here at school. The one place where Crouch felt like he could just truly…let go. Be _free_.

Except that Barty was not necessarily alone in the Forbidden Forest on this night. He had not anticipated that anyone dared venture out into the depths of these dark woods, where creatures dwelled, and given how bloody cold it was.

So, he was surprised to see _his_ Alice, the more lovely sight that awaited him instead of all of these towering trees with their entangled, gnarly limbs and warped bark. Here she was, his beauty, Merlin's masterpiece. The prettiest girl in their year at Hogwarts.

Alice's emotions weren't easily hidden on her innocent face, her pains of life evident in the creasing of her lovely dark brow and the downward curve of her luscious pink, full lips, that Crouch longed to reach up with one of his fingers and trace the outline of them, to see if they were as soft as they looked. Barty could feel his fingers twitch as he curled them into a fist as he fought back the urge to reach up and tap her on the shoulder as she passed him.

She hadn't seen him as he had taken refuge behind the bough of a particularly thick tree. Crouch tore his gaze away from the divot of Alice's lip and up towards her eyes, those brilliant eyes. They showed the essence of her soul. Crouch swallowed hard down past the lump forming in his throat as it hallowed, effectively cutting off his air supply as he looked at his fellow sixth-year student, and his friend, this beauty with the dark chocolate pixie cut that showed off her elegant, almost swanlike neck and highlighted the glistening moisture in her eyes, the sclerae pristine and untouched by red veins.

Alice was the kind of young girl at age seventeen that the other girls in their class loved to hate, except for one. He had seen her infrequent company around Lily Evans more often.

When he had accidentally touched her hand earlier during Potions, something foreign and unfamiliar stirred not only within his chest, but it completely overtook Crouch's thinking. The only thing that mattered anymore was finding an excuse to keep Alice close by. To touch her more, to kiss her.

Barty Crouch felt his entire body stiffen in anger as Alice Prewitt began to walk back towards the castle, leaving the edge of the Forbidden Forest, talking in low murmurs to herself, and something that he couldn't make out what it was cupped in the palm of her hand. _A creature?_ Intrigued, Crouch leaned forward.

It was then that Crouch began to have wildly inappropriate thoughts of his classmate, his crush. He felt his blood begin to heat up in his veins as an insurmountable anger threatened to consume him at the thought of her dating Frank. Crouch felt his jaw lock and tighten, his dark brown eyes flashing indignantly as they stayed locked on Alice's retreating form, his gaze drifting to her backside. She really did have a petite and slightly curvaceous figure.

She was not a little girl anymore. No. At sixteen, her large almond-shaped eyes held such intelligence and serenity that Crouch felt like it was impossible for him not to be held prisoner by them. Which would explain his lapses of inability to form a cohesive sentence around Prewitt whenever they were in class.

Her cheekbones weren't especially high, and her nose was a tad too long to be perfect, but there was an undeniable symmetry to Alice Prewitt's features.

Like that of a pretty rose, just waiting to bloom, to fully become a woman. Perhaps that was what had Barty so captivated by his classmate. He didn't know.

Alice Prewitt's pale, smoothy dry skin despite the harsh winds of the October breeze that ripped through the air, was dotted with a light smattering of freckles about her nose. Her delicate eyebrows curved in swooping arcs over those bewitching eyes and her small button nose complemented her wide forehead and somewhat blunt chin. These features would not turn any heads.

Nor would they make anyone look twice, they were quite normal. No.

It was Prewitt's eyes and her smile that were the true prize, what held Barty Crouch Jr., son of Bartemius Crouch, so utterly captivated, unable to look away.

What secrets would he uncover, as he looked within them? He couldn't wait to find out. Her eyes were like the stars in the night sky, the way they drew unsuspecting men like Barty in to explore the swirling depths of emotions held in her depths. The black of Alice's pupil was surrounded by a ring of jagged silver fire swallowed by sapphire blue. At one glance, the girl's eyes merely shone, but if you dared to look closer like he had done so earlier, and just like he was doing now, shrouded in the shadow of the bush behind which he had taken refuge, Crouch could see the sadness of heartbreak, the joy of love (at that he scoffed again), the hope of a better future for herself, the pain of sorrow at losing not only her home but her family as well, and the fire of a spirit that even Crouch knew the girl would not give up.

At least…not willingly.

It had been all he could do not to ravage himself at her when he'd first laid eyes upon the fair-skinned beauty with the locks of hair that looked as though they had been kissed by chocolate. Alice Prewitt was a beautiful young girl. And after their wedding night when they graduated Hogwarts, she would be a woman.

It was rumored that the girl was still untouched by man, though he wondered if it were true, or if this was another falsehood encouraged by his father to provoke his son. Barty wouldn't put it past Father to try such a tactic. His father's lack of eye contact should have warned him over the years growing up in his father's shadow. It wasn't natural to avert your gaze from the one you claimed to love. _Love_.

At that thought, Barty felt his lips curl into a twisted smirk as he scoffed and rolled his eyes. A concept for women, that false emotion that Barty Crouch knew did not exist.

In his father's moments of quiet rage, Barty felt…dehumanized. Maybe it was why he was the way that he wasn't, he didn't know, nor did he care, really.

Barty's methods of torturing their prisoners and his mindless pursuits of the Dark Arts gave Bartemius Crouch Sr. the distance from Barty's heart and soul…if he even had one, to begin with. Sometimes he wondered if he did nor not, with the things that he'd done and derived pleasure from.

Things that would turn the stomach of any normal man. But no matter. He couldn't help how he was. It was far too late for a man like him to change.

Not now. Growing up, Barty had given Father everything a son could possibly give his parent, and only wished he could do more to please.

Now he had to know that the person he idolized never truly existed. That their life of the endless political Ministry of Magic meetings, wars against those who practiced in the Dark Arts, talk of marrying and producing heirs to keep the pureblood family lineage going was never what it appeared to be, that his father lived with festering anger in his heart like a wound.

Conversations were just talking to Barty, competitions to him. Nothing more, and nothing less. Bartemius saw his son suffering, his mental health in decline as a young lad and he had made sure that Barty had fallen into that pit, the only decorations in the pit his own godforsaken claw markings from his nails on the walls he could not scale.

Now Father had the gall—the audacity—to claim that his methods growing up didn't drive his son mad, that it was just 'how he was,' and there could be nothing in all of Great Britain that would cure of him of this so-called horrible affliction, this unquenchable bloodlust.

Bartemius Crouch Sr. liked to think of himself as Barty's savior, but his son knew the truth. How Father cycled from abuse to reconciliation and then back to abuse, to build him up just enough for the next stress-relieving power trip takedown that usually involved the flaying of a man in the dungeons.

But Barty had news for his father. His heart had long since been hardened, and the beating corded muscle within his chest had walls.

He had walls against Father and any other human within the kingdoms and there was no way to break down that wall. Knowledge can indeed be power if you so let it, and Barty Crouch had, in fact, let that be so.

Barty furrowed his brow into a frown at that rumor, wondering if it was in fact, true. He knew she had been approached by Frank Longbottom earlier.

 _That bastard. I'll kill him. I swear I'll kill him_ , Crouch thought and released a low growl from the back of his throat at the thought of that creature who was less than half a man taking this woman, this celestial-like being who had for reasons unknown somehow managed to snare him in a net of intrigue like one of those mystical sirens of the sea he had heard as a child growing up in the tales of old, and this had, unfortunately, Alice's ears perked up at the nose and she froze at the sound, though from which direction it had come, she could not quite tell. He would just have to make it quite plain and perfectly clear to any man with a pair of wandering eyes that Alice was no longer available. That _she_ was _his_.

And anyone who would dare try to take Alice away would find themselves at the mercy of the end of his wand and in the Hospital Wing before they could blink.

"Get a hold of yourself," he whisper-hissed through clenched teeth as he watched the Prewitt girl resume her a rather leisurely pace through the courtyard, seemingly making to head back towards the Gryffindor Common Room tower.

His mind felt as if a stone were coursing through his veins instead of blood. Barty glanced downwards once the Prewitt girl had vanished from his line of sight completely. He was half of a mind to follow the girl, to corner her in some decrepit hallway of the castle the smelled of dank mold and old parchments, and he caught sight of his reflection in a puddle of water from the rain earlier and blanched, looking caught off guard at the man he saw staring back at him.

The shadow of the caged monster within his eyes. He felt his stomach lurch and he thought he might vomit. There was the smallest fraction of Barty's mind that knew what he was and hated it. Disgust. Yes, that's what he felt for himself. Disgust. Total disgust with himself, at who he really was, what he represented. Barty felt his shoulders slump and his dark eyes cast downward in a mournful gaze, his handsome face held a forlorn, worn expression now.

His mouth was set in a semi-pout as he remained alone in the courtyard of Hogwarts, fighting against his urge to follow Alice. It would be easy enough to claim her for himself. A few sweet words whispered into the ear of his little lady wife—well, soon to be, that is, and he would slip her out of her uniform and let it fall to a crumpled heap on the floor and he would take her for himself and she would be his, and that would be that. Frank Longbottom would no longer interfere.

But…and this was the part he was struggling to accept the most, that he had seen something in the Prewitt girl's eyes earlier in Potions that could only be described as hatred. A look that he had not seen in a young woman before.

At least, not directed towards him. Most of the girls in their class were intimidated by Crouch, and it showed in their eyes, their movements, how they averted their gazes whenever they were forced to be in the same room as Barty.

 _But not this little dove_ , his conscience offered unhelpfully. _There had been that look in the courtyard earlier this afternoon when she arrived_.

Alice had been rumored to be quite the beautiful girl but seeing her up close and personal like this only reinforced that truth in Barty's mind.

The girl was of fair complexion, short wisps of her dark chocolate hair that always seem to gleam when they captured the light just right like her hair had been set ablaze.

She had the kindest pair of eyes, trimmed by long gorgeous lashes. Lovely eyes, innocent and pure, yet somehow gentle, that always held a tiny warmth within them, of which Barty knew he wanted it for himself. If it could be made possible to bottle that warmth and hoard it within a glass vial that he could keep in his pocket, then he would do it. Florid cheeks and flawlessly sculpted pink, luscious lips, as if crafted by angels and the gods themselves.

Standing this close to her as he had been only moments ago, he could see Alice's lips clearly, glistening attractively with a light salve coating that added a further sheen to her already healthy lips. Barty imagined biting her mouth until he drew blood and then sucking it from the wound.

All these features sat together on a delicate almost angelic face.

And Alice Prewitt would be all _his_. Oh, such _sweet, sweet bliss…_


	24. Seriously, Sirius

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

Tonks's first thought of her cousin, Sirius Black, was that the man had the kind of handsome and rugged face that stopped you in your tracks.

_Even after twelve years in Azkaban, he's still handsome, isn't he?_ Tonks thought as she regarded her cousin with a cautiously wary eye, feeling uncertain, and furrowed her brows as she pondered over how that could be, considering Azkaban's Dementors sucked the life out of their prisoners if they did not know how to keep their wits about them, though Black, Tonks knew, was smarter than he looked, given he was the first one in known history to escape from the guarded fortress.

She guessed he must have gotten used to that, the sudden pause in a person's natural expression when they looked Sirius's way, followed by overcompensating with a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile. Oh, he was handsome all right, but inside, Tonks knew he was beautiful.

Her cousin if anything, after twelve years locked away in Azkaban as Remus quietly made the introductions, was fitter looking than Tonks expected.

His face told of a lean body beneath his clothes, and his expression was serious but not necessarily unkind. Sirius's curls were dark, and his eyes, framed by graceful brows, were a glistening grey, not unlike that of her own, and that was the only indication given that the two of them were related.

Sirius Black's eyes were not merely gray; they were a sea. A stormy, treacherous sea that tore apart anyone who looked into them and dragged the onlooker down into their depths. The man had prominent cheekbones and a well-defined chin and nose, and two-day stubble had formed on his jaw.

Tonks blinked as she forced her attention to return to something Lupin was saying to her, and as the three of them stood in what she could only describe as the living room, an old-fashioned looking parlor, it didn't escape the young Auror's attention that Remus had yet to relinquish his grip on her arm.

"This is your _home_ now, Tonks." Remus's words to her hung in the air like a bitter poison, slowly suffocating the young witch inch by inch as she stood, swiveling her head this way and that, trying to take in the dank, unfamiliar surroundings. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and thought she would quite like to strangle Lupin, for Headquarters, Grimmauld Place, was _not_ home.

Her home was back in her own flat in downtown London. Not here. Home was a cup of freshly brewed coffee or tea in the mornings. Home was her own bed, her own mattress, and soft goose feather down blanket, home was allowing Ptelea to rest on the potted elm tree that she had planted for him.

_Not_ here. Number 12, Grimmauld Place, had none of these things. It was dark, damp, smelled of mold, and Tonks decided she didn't even want to see her prepared bedroom quite just yet. All of those. Nothing. Nothing in her cousin's parent's house resembled her flat. Tonks let out a barely audible sigh and cast a wary eye towards her cousin, who offered her an odd little half-smile that she wished so desperately that she could wipe that smug grin off of Black's face, and then Remus's.

For he had _lied_ to her. He had promised to bring Tonks home, and this…wasn't it.

The windows, what few there were, were gaping holes for the wind to rush in and out through and the front door hung on its hinges at a jaunty angle, although now it was little more than just a frame that looked like one good puff of wind would blow it away. It was a rotting dung heap, bowing down, subservient to the elements.

No wonder Mrs. Weasley had expressed Tonks's interest in her help in cleaning this place once she was well enough to stand up.

"Your room is upstairs, third on the left, just across the hall from mine," Lupin spoke quietly, completely ignoring or he had missed entirely the look of dawning intrigue in his best friend's eyes as Sirius's inquisitive gaze flitted from Tonks, who was actively avoiding looking at Remus, and then back to Lupin.

Tonks nodded mutely, not sure at all what else to say to Remus or Sirius.

If she was being honest with herself, her ankle was hurting, and she was eager to get off her feet for a while. She murmured something under her breath and dipped her head in acknowledgment as she heard Sirius and Remus talk about the other members of the Advance Guard who were leaving in five minutes to retrieve Harry Potter from his wretched aunt and uncle's house in Little Whinging.

Tonks scowled, pursing her lips into a thin line as she felt her face flush in anger. She spotted the couch on the opposite side of the room and thought that more efficient than standing around here with the two men until she passed out. "Excuse me," she murmured. "I—I think I'd like to sit down."

Perhaps more violently than was necessary, she wrenched her arm free from Lupin's, entangling it from his surprisingly ironclad grasp, and as she turned her back on both men, she did not see the look of incredulous anger in Remus's darkening brown eyes as she hobbled her way to the couch and took a seat on it.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and stifled a low growl of frustration, and was barely aware of Sirius laying a reassuring, firm hand, on his shoulder.

It was killing him to see his new partner in this way, so disconnected and angry, hurt. His hand drifted to the pocket of his black trousers pocket, where he'd pocketed the vials of Sleeping Draught that perhaps one of the Healers had left on her nightstand of St. Mungo's. No doubt Tonks was going to refuse it.

He knew her reasons and could understand them. He would support her. Lupin would not walk away because she had begged of him to stay, and he supposed that, in some small way, by being assigned to the Advance Guard to go and retrieve Harry from his miserable aunt and uncle, that he was breaking his promise to her.

Was _that_ it? Was that why Tonks was so sullen and hostile now?

The ambiguity of not knowing her sudden shift in attitude was almost killing him. Remus furrowed his brows into a frown.

Right now, what he needed the most from Tonks was honesty and a sense of cooperation. He deserved to know the truth, and soon.

For too long he'd pushed back against his pain if he could remember, medicating by leaning on his friendship with Sirius, but in times like right now, it returned to him in weaker moments, devastating his tired mind.

To keep repeating this pattern of viciousness would only prolong it, keep his pains hidden. When in truth, Remus knew he needed to deal with them.

Lupin knew that for Tonks, he'd fight for her. _Kill_ for his partner if need be, and he almost already _had_. Twice. He cringed and felt the familiar welling of that hot-fire seed of anger forming deep in the churning pit of his stomach as he thought of Crouch's escape, and knowing that sooner or later, Tonks was right.

The accursed wretch that dared to call himself a man would be back. For her. His blood surged and boiled within his veins, hotter than any dragon flame.

Though he quickly shoved aside his dark thoughts and chose to focus on Tonks's needs. He gave a sharp tap of his wand and a silver tray bearing a roll, an apple, a wedge of Brie cheese, and a glass of water appeared from Grimmauld Place's kitchen in front. He carried the tray over and set it on the side table by the couch.

"Tonks?" he asked gingerly. "Here. You should eat something. I know you've not eaten in almost a full day. Alastor told me. You need to eat. You'll feel better." Remus winced as he realized his voice was pressured with ire.

He just wanted to see her smile again, and for her to cooperate with him. He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and continued. "I didn't bring you all the way back home just to watch you _starve_ yourself to death. Now _eat_."

As she blearily lifted her gaze in front to regard her partner, there was a horrible dejectedness and a listlessness in her gray eyes. The circles underneath her eyes were more pronounced, almost purple by this point, and only succeeded in making her cheeks look thin and gaunt and hollowed. She looked like Death.

In the shadows cast by Grimmauld Place's living room as the curtains were drawn, though from the outside, the encroaching heady heat of a summer storm was vastly approaching as black and purple clouds billowed in from the east, Tonks remained unstirred, her arms folded across her chest as she looked away.

Were it not for the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders, the one thing that Remus inexplicably found his gaze drawn to, he would have otherwise thought his partner dead. At _that_ unpleasant thought, he felt his chest tighten like coils.

"I don't _want_ to eat, Remus. I'm _not_ hungry..." she snapped hotly.

"You haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours. I won't have you starving. Don't make me ask again. _Eat_." He tried again, biting the inside wall of his cheek, and he felt his temper threaten to implode as Tonks took one look at the tray of food and with one sharp flick of her finger, sent the tray and its contents flailing across the room.

" _Evanesco_!" Sirius barked out, waving his wand, and causing the upended food and tray to vanish just before the spilled contents of the food and its tray could cause a mess on the living room's carpet. "I don't think she's hungry, Moony," he murmured matter-of-factly, moving to occupy the seat next to her. "Don't _force_ her to eat, Remus. I'm sure when she's hungry, she'll eat. Besides, I think Molly's making meatballs tonight for the rest of the Order, so there's that," he offered, glancing at Tonks.

Tonks blinked owlishly at Sirius and shot him what she hoped was a brief look of gratitude, trying silently to thank her cousin for his intervention with her eyes.

Remus's head whiplashed sharply back to regard his partner, feeling his temper in grave danger of about to implode, wanting to scold her for such childish and stupid behavior, though he felt himself flinch as he watched Nymphadora Tonks stiffen and recoil as he laid out a gentle hand and gave her shoulder a tug.

He blanched and frowned, removing his hand and sighing. The lack of response was the sound of Nymphadora Tonks's silent breathing and lack of eye contact. This only added cinder to the fire that begun to curdle in his blood.

If he was being entirely honest with himself at the moment, Remus knew he had every right to be angry with Tonks, for she was _not_ cooperating with him.

Tonks wasn't eating. Did she have some kind of horrible death wish? Was that it? Or was she merely salty over the events of this morning with Umbridge?

_She might still be angry over the fact that she can't go with you to get Harry, Moony. Umbridge has stripped her of her duty as an Auror, the only job she's ever known. She's injured, and she might resent that fact, thinking it's her fault_ , James's voice piped up from the corner of her mind. _Go easy on her_.

_The poor thing has lost everything in the span of one night, Rem_ , Lily offered softly, and she sounded sympathetic to Tonks's plight. _Just be gentle_.

Remus clenched his jaw shut as he felt fires of fury and hatred towards Crouch for doing this to her smoldered in his light brown eyes as he weighed the pros and cons of discussing what exactly was on his mind with Tonks and Sirius.

Though he didn't know if there was an ever appropriate time to broach the subject of if Tonks thought that she could grow to like him as a friend one day. Lupin knew that what hides behind the lies and the secrets were truths that failed to get to the light. What laid behind Tonks's sudden sullenness and secrecy was a mystery to him. One that he fully aimed to get behind the truth of it.

Too many questions swirling in his mind, not enough answers, and he reflected back to what little of Umbridge's little interrogation that he could hear.

He hadn't been able to pick up much, but he could have sworn that Tonks had murmured his name once or twice and that she had…she had defended him.

But why? Had Umbridge made some threat? Was it out of fear for his life?

Remus furrowed his brows in confusion at that thought. He did not know how he could possibly be worth anything to Tonks, for he was nothing but a beast. A monster. The Mad Beast within that lurked in its cage, set free once a month. He felt so incredibly confused over this but had to trust Molly's words, that everything would come out when the time was right when she was ready to talk to him, and Remus would be there for Tonks whenever she was ready.

Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek in a sense of nervous anticipation as he watched Tonks's head whiplash sharply upward and her gray eyes narrowed.

Though she did not immediately look at him, instead she glanced towards Sirius, who shot her a sympathetic smile that he could have sworn the corners of her mouth twitched upward at, and for some reason, it invoked a foreign feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was not necessarily a pleasant feeling, this hot rage.

He shoved aside thoughts of how Tonks returning Sirius's smile but not _his_ was currently making him feel. Vexed. Angered. Hurt. Confused.

"I can't let you starve, Tonks," he murmured, lowering his voice, and rubbing the two-day stubble over his jawline in thought. "I'm your…" His voice trailed off and Lupin bit down on his tongue hard enough to bleed. What exactly _was_ he to Tonks? Oh, he was her partner, of course, but…

Certainly not a friend, though he could not deny that he wished for it. More than anything. He blinked, trying to sort through his emotions and clear his mind. Remus felt his left hand curl into a tightly clenched fist and he practically growled with the effort to restrain himself.

Exhaling a shaking breath and feeling his nostrils flare at his frustrations with his partner's animosity towards not wanting to eat, and the unfamiliar hot fire-seed of anger that came the very second that he saw Sirius's hand drape over _his_ partner's shoulder, he closed his eyes tightly shut.

He had no right to be so incredibly with his best friend, so why, then, did he feel this way?

Lupin took in several deep breaths, in and out, in and out, and when he finally opened them again, to his inexplicable great relief, Tonks had shrugged out of Sirius's grasp, and her attention still remained fixated on an old bookshelf.

"I…you need to let me help you, Tonks," Lupin heard himself plead to his partner desperately, reaching out a slightly shaking hand to brush back a lock of her dark pink pixie that had fallen in front of her eye and tucked it back behind her ear where it belonged. "I can't let you starve. Tell me what it is you need."

" _How_?" Remus flinched at hearing how flat and numb his partner's voice sounded. "How can _you_ help me, Remus? No one can help _this_ ," she snapped, lifting her wand hand, and attempted to flex it and make a fist, and she couldn't.

"I—I don't know, but I can try," Remus confessed, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice. He sighed and reached up his right hand to card back that one stubborn lock of light brown hair that never failed to annoy him by hanging limp in front of his eyes. "As your partner, Tonks, I have to try. _Let_ me."

Remus knew that even as he spoke the words to Tonks, they were hopeless and bounced off the young witch as good as hard rain. There was a silence to her soul and personality as she no doubt was still struggling to process everything that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours, like she was the fall leaves under a thick mountain of icy frost. She felt the chill in her blood, the coldness bringing the synapses of her brain to a standstill. And Lupin hated it so very much.

How he longed for nothing more than to put his arm around her and tell her that it was not hopeless, that there was still meaning to her life, but he knew that Tonks would not listen to his words in her current emotionally vulnerable state of mind. Lupin swallowed hard down past the swelling lump in his throat.

"I've got a few vials of Sleeping Draught to help you sleep tonight. I can promise…." Here, he glanced towards Sirius and saw that his best friend had an uncharacteristically somber expression on his handsome face, and he nodded, "that we aren't going to let Crouch come after you again, Tonks. _I promise you_."

Lupin glanced down and realized his hands had curled into fists without him realizing and they settled on his lap as he took the seat on Tonks's other side.

Though they shook, to prevent himself from striking out in anger over his worried state of mind for his partner's condition, and he was loath to leave her.

_Dumbledore's already assigned you as part of the Advance Guard tasked with bringing Harry home_ , though, James piped up unhelpfully. _You have to go_.

Emanating a tense exhale through his nose, Lupin shook his head vehemently and carded back that one stubborn lock of his hair, that no matter how often Molly tried to trim it for him, never failed to annoy him and get in the way. He stifled his growl of frustration and continued. "Doesn't it seem easier to accept the fact that Crouch won't hurt you as long as you're under my protection than it does to continue letting him do this to you, Tonks?" he asked.

"Maybe, but it's _not_ that simple, Remus, so why don't you just get out of here? The Order needs you. I would only slow you down, and I am keeping you from your duties," she answered flatly, a muscle in her jaw twitching, and Lupin felt himself bristle as she turned away and still pointedly refused to look Remus in the eye.

She was well aware she was being incredibly rude to her partner, who was only trying to help her, but he had done more than enough. She'd not asked of him to risk his life for hers, and she would bring Lupin no further pain tonight.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and checked his watch he wore on his right wrist.

"I'm afraid I need to leave with the others," Remus spoke up quietly, a pained look on his handsome, lined features, and he truthfully did sound apologetic as he raked his fingers through his tuft of light brown hair and shrugged back into his brown jacket, which he'd draped over his arm as he had escorted Tonks into Number 12, Grimmauld Place's living room. "But the Advance Guard will return with Harry, hopefully in an hour or two," he explained softly.

It did not escape Sirius's attention that Remus's gaze never left Tonks as he spoke. Tonks knitted her brows together in confusion, hurt, and betrayal.

" _Fine_." Tonks visibly winced as she recognized her voice sounded curt and clipped. "You need to leave, Remus. You have your orders. I have mine. Then _go_. I'll pray to the Light of Merlin for the Guard's safe return with Harry," she sighed, folding her arms across her chest and shrinking into her blanket sweater as much as she could for warmth, wishing for nothing more than to retreat inside herself and not talk to anyone else for the remainder of the day.

"Don't worry, Moony," Sirius piped up, his tone, which was usually jovial and humorous on a good day, now bore none of his trademark characteristics.

Lupin felt the familiar spark of anger ignite in the confines of his chest as Sirius reached over from his spot on the couch and gave Tonks's shoulder a squeeze. "I'll look after my cousin while you're gone," Sirius said somberly.

Remus nodded, his brows furrowed in a frown as he could not seem to quell the sudden uneasy feeling, and in his mind, an unwarranted and unnecessary feeling of uneasiness at the thought of leaving his partner alone with Sirius.

He cast one last longing glance towards Tonks as she remained still on the sofa, her arms folded across her chest, a heated blanket draped over her lap.

Lupin halted, one hand on the doorway to steady himself as he could hear Mad-Eye barking orders from just outside the door for the rest of the Advance Guard to go and retrieve Harry to assemble out front when her voice stopped him dead in his tracks. "I'll pray for the Guard's safe return. And Harry's…"

The question tumbled unchecked from his lips before he could stop himself. "And mine?" he asked, biting his bottom lip in nervous anticipation.

Lupin felt the sweat become trapped in between his clenched fists as he nervously awaited her answer, suddenly needing the truth from her lips more than he needed air to breathe. He needed to know if she trusted and cared for him.

Then he would know. His stomach shifted uneasily, and he noticed that his nails were digging into the wood of the door as his hand hovered over the knob.

It seemed to take Tonks an eternity to find her voice, and when she did finally answer Remus's question, her voice was so soft, he had to strain to hear.

"Yes." Her voice cracked and broke as she lifted her head, and Lupin had no time to dwell on the sudden and unexpected flood of warmth that spread like fire in his chest, and Moody barked out another order and he knew his time had come.

He loathed to leave her alone with Sirius, and he did not know where this sudden feeling of anger was coming from at seeing Sirius's arm draped around his own cousin's shoulder, _his_ partner, not Sirius's, but he had to leave, and now.

He let out a sigh and raked his fingers through his hair and regarded Sirius.

"I'll be back in an hour. She needs to _eat_ ," he commanded, hardening his voice slightly, and was internally relieved when his best friend gave a nod, signaling that he understood. "She'll feel better the sooner she does, Sirius…"

Lupin offered a small smile and gave a curt nod towards Tonks and Sirius, who returned the gesture with brief nods of their own before turning away.

Remus was getting used to the dryness of his mouth and the constant swallowing of nothing, though now as he thought of Tonks's one-word answer, there was the slimy sensation of something thick and the taste of iron on his tongue and in his palette.

He swallowed the blood that formed on his tongue from biting down on it too hard and his last thought as his smile faltered as he closed the door and tried to ignore the swooping sensation in his stomach as he moved to join the rest of the Advance Guard was that he hoped he had not made a mistake in agreeing to leave Tonks _alone_ with Sirius. He shivered at the blast of frigid cold air and shrunk into his brown jacket as much as he could for warmth.

He did his best to curb his pained breaths. It hurt as hell, to see Tonks this way, and to leave his partner _alone_ with Sirius.

She was _his_ responsibility. Not Sirius's. _His_. His hand curled into a fist in the pocket of his jacket.

_If Crouch ever comes back for her_ , he thought, fuming and seething as his jaw tensed and locked in anger as he blocked out Moody's barking voice as he went over again their plan to rescue Harry for what had to be the tenth time, _then I'll kill him. I swear to Merlin above as my witness, that I will kill Crouch…_

Remus almost swallowed his tongue, resisting his urge to roar like an enraged dragon at what Crouch had done to his partner. A single, wretched tear began to form and blur at the edges of his vision, rendering the rest of the outside world around him in a hazy blur, though thank Merlin's beard, no one noticed.

But the worst part was not the stinging in his eyes, but the simple fact that it was not enough to swap with the anguish over Tonks's condition that pierced his broken heart, and he could not quell the uneasiness he felt of leaving her alone with Sirius, who was admittedly, something of a womanizer when he was young.

Though he'd never settled down with a particular witch, the fact that Sirius had an opportunity to spend time alone with Tonks alone and he did not, did _not_ sit well with Remus and made the man feel incredibly uneasy as a result.

* * *

Poor Tonks was looking absolutely flabbergasted, Sirius thought, clearly not having anticipated the type of reaction Moony would have towards her well-being. He barely repressed his forming smirk as the corners of his lips twitched.

_Merlin's left testicle, Molly, and Dumbledore were right. Moony's developing feelings for her whether he knows it or not, but I don't think he does_.

His cousin let out a tired-sounding sigh and turned back away from her spot on the couch, where she'd poked her head behind the window's curtains and watched with no small measure of disdain as the rest of the Guard took off.

"Don't worry, I won't make you eat if you aren't hungry. Molly's cooking anyway, and I'm sure she'll take one look at you and call you a skinny little shrimp and force second and third helpings on your plate, and you won't be able to get out of that, cousin, so don't even think about refusing her food if you want to offend Mrs. Weasley," Sirius snorted as he rolled his eyes at Tonks, shaking his head in bemusement. "Remus means well, but he tends to hover sometimes and make you feel like you're being smothered. He did it to me and James all the bloody time during school. Don't be too hard on him. He cares for you, in his own way, I think…"

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice barely above a whisper after spending several long minutes that felt like an eternity in silence. "For opening your home to me while I…heal," she finished lamely, biting her bottom lip.

Sirius brushed away his cousin's concerns with an airy wave of his hand. "Think nothing of it. You're my cousin now, after all, so that makes us family."

Black fell silent for a moment, giving his cousin the once-over and chuckled. "I can see why Remus likes you," he complimented, snorting as a light pink blush speckled its way along Tonks's pale cheeks, and she knitted her brows together in a slight frown as she slowly swiveled her head and regarded Sirius.

"Oh?" she prodded, wiggling her brows, and quirking one Black's way.

"He does," Sirius continued, pretending to be interested in a book the girl was eyeing on the wall. His curiosity piqued, he retrieved it from the shelf, frowning at the immense amount of dust that coated his fingers as he wiped it off. "You're a Shakespeare fan? I wouldn't have pegged you as one, Tonks. No offense," he murmured, well aware he sounded surprised.

"Yes. well, appearances aren't always what they would seem, _are_ they, Black? You'd know all of the madness within, wouldn't you, cousin?" Tonks's answer was immediate, and if he wasn't mistaken, sounding slightly defensive. Sirius smiled as he turned back around and held out the huge compendium of Muggle playwright William Shakespeare's entire collection of tragedies and chucked it at her lap. " _Macbeth_ and _King Henry_ are my favorites."

He chuckled. Of course, this girl with the dark pink hair and an incredibly talented Auror would be drawn to the more macabre pieces of literature. "Here, then. Something for you to read since you'll be spending a lot of time in this bloody place," he sighed, collapsing back onto the sofa next to Tonks and practically sinking into the couch's cushions. He was silent for several long minutes as he watched the vibrant, pink-haired young Auror cradle the book close to her chest and flip through a few of the pages, an intrigued look in her eyes, though Sirius had a feeling that she wasn't exactly thinking of Shakespeare.

Finally, he could bear it no longer. "I can see it in your eyes, Tonks, so don't even try to bloody _lie_ to me. I'll _know_ if you're lying," he added warningly. "What do _you_ think of your new partner? I think it's evident how Moony feels about you, but I've not yet heard your opinion of the man, and I sense there's more than you're letting on, dear _cousin_. You have a strange look in your eyes."

_Damn_. Tonks felt her eyes widen and her already pale face drain of color as she promptly looked away. "How long has Remus been a werewolf, Sirius?"

Sirius felt his face blanch and he blinked owlishly at the young witch.

This was…new. It was but only one day into this girl and Remus's new 'partnership' and for the young witch to have already figured out the nature of Lupin's 'furry little problem,' with no prompting from anyone else that he knew of, was remarkable. He knew that Moony wouldn't have said anything to her as of yet.

Now it was his turn to stare at the young witch, who was, admittedly, something of a mystery to Sirius. Black bit the inside wall of his cheek as he swiveled his head to the left slowly to study the witch's rapidly paling face.

"I…ever since he was five years old, but…how did you figure it out?" Sirius asked hoarsely. His cousin had made her big declaration that she knew.

She _knew_. How in the name of Merlin's saggy left buttock did she _know_?

And now, the thick silence lay on both their skins like a deathly poison. It seeped into Sirius's blood and paralyzed his brain as he bit down on his lip.

Tonks's pupils had become dilated in the darkness of the living room and there was a horrible tremor in her hands. The young witch rolled her eyes at Sirius's dumbstruck look of awe and sighed. "It was easy to figure out, Black. The pieces of the puzzle were all there, I just had to put two and two together. The scars on his face. Too thick and jagged to be a dog bite. His…attitude towards me the other night when he and Mad-Eye, I—it was like…he was incredibly possessive and volatile, and once I figured _that_ out and put together the characteristics of his rather _monstrous_ behavior towards Crouch," here, she scrunched her nose in disgust, thinking that he had almost killed a man for her, though she swallowed hard and continued, "and the way he yelled at Umbridge earlier this morning, and given that it's…" She had to pause to tick off the number of days on her fingers since the full moon cycle's end, "now six days past the full moon, it's obvious."

Tonks's pale face was one of awkwardness as she waited for Sirius to respond to her claim that she had figured out Remus John Lupin's dark secret. Not even hurrying to save her feelings. Sirius picked his eyes up off the dusty hardwood floor of the living room, unable to detect any hint of animosity in the young witch's tone towards the unfortunate nature of Lupin's condition.

Merely, there was a certain trace of curiosity and a hint of pity in her tone.

She was resting her chin in her hands and had leaned forward slightly off the couch cushion, one leg crossed over her injured ankle, careful to mind that damned blocky black boot, one of her hands lowered and rested on her knee.

Sirius could tell by the way his cousin's brows were furrowed in contemplative thought that she was thinking of Remus's scars, how it must hurt.

Though there was an indiscernible expression on the young Auror's face, though he could tell by the curious way his cousin had spoken of Moony just now that this young witch had not flinched nor did she seem particularly bothered by the usually troublesome revelation that Remus John Lupin was a werewolf.

"He thinks too little of himself. I know that he sees himself as some sort of…of _monster_ , when he is not," Tonks growled, more of a whisper as her pale hands clutched into bone-white fists and scraped down the black fabric of her black leggings. "Remus should not talk about himself like that, Black. _Why_?"

To that statement, Sirius could not have agreed more and said as much.

"No, he is not," Black sighed wearily, looking towards Remus's new partner, wondering just what exactly the young Auror's interest in his best friend was, aside from their partnership, and he recollected on Molly's words from earlier. _He cares for your cousin, but I don't think him to be aware of it just yet_.

_And what about this one?_ He pondered, wondering if the girl felt the same.

But there it was again. That look. That strange, inquisitive look that suggested Tonks was not afraid of Lupin, nor his condition, for which Sirius was grateful. His best friend was such a kind man, who did so much for others and asked for very little, if ever anything at all, in return, and the fact that Moony might never know what it meant to love a woman, to know the simplistic joys of being loved and cared for in return was rather heartbreaking, Sirius thought.

Though if he and Molly had their way, this new partner was 'the one.'

"Now that you know what your partner _is_ , you aren't afraid of the man?" Sirius couldn't resist asking. "The man is very much my last surviving best friend when I have no one else in my life, and he's been alone all his life, with no one."

Tonks didn't respond at first, and Sirius thought perhaps his cousin had been struck dumb or was simply at a loss for words as to how to respond to him.

"You couldn't ask for a better partner, Tonks. Remus won't hurt you, would never betray your confidence, nor would I. He's one of the kindest men I think I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. He's…rather timid at times. Shy. And...even knowing the nature of his condition, you are not afraid of him? Of what he is?"

Sirius Black glanced towards his cousin again, well aware that the young Auror's expression most likely bore the look of disbelief, of doubt while he waited for her to answer him, and for a moment, he believed that Tonks would not.

"No. I'm _not_." Tonks's voice was so incredibly faint that had Sirius not already been hanging onto his cousin's every word, he definitely would have missed it. "His lycanthropy does not define his status. Who he is, as a man. I got all 'Outstanding's' in both my OWL's and NEWT's in Hogwarts, and I know exactly how to make the Wolfsbane Potion. I will make it for him every month if I have to," she snapped hotly, folding her arms across her chest, and picking at a loose thread coming undone on her black sweater. "If I have to slip the vials into his jacket pocket and keep what I'm doing a secret from him, then I will."

Sirius blinked, feeling his lips part open slightly to speak as if to ask a follow-up question, and the intelligent young witch caught the man's intentions.

Tonks shook her head and glanced down at her hands in her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. "Remus doesn't know that I know. And it _stays_ that way," she growled, a low warning growl escaping her chest as she fixed Sirius with an unusually somber glower as her glistening gray orbs narrowed slightly in mistrust.

"You don't _want_ to let him know that you know?" Sirius prodded gently. "Why is that?" He quirked a thick dark brow in his cousin's way and awaited her answer eagerly.

"Not yet," Tonks sighed, reaching up a shaking hand and raking her fingers through her thick dark pink pixie cut. She gave a shrug of her shoulders in a nonchalant manner. "His business is _his_. When he is ready to come to me and share it, then I will let him know that I know his secret. Besides…" she murmured, reaching down at the foot of the couch for her small black crossbody purse and dipping into the bag's main zippered compartment and pulling out two empty small glass vials.

No doubt she intended to brew Wolfsbane Potion for him and slip some in them, and possibly put them in Lupin's drawer in the night table by his bedside.

Tonks did not look at Sirius while she spoke. Instead, she fingered the little glass vials almost tenderly so between her knuckles, shifting them in between her fingers. "He needs help. What does it matter _why_? I slip this somewhere where he will find them in the morning, help him heal, and the next day, he helps someone up when they fall, because of what I have done for him," she said. "We aren't meant to be alone," she murmured, tucking the empty vials back into her purse's pocket.

Sirius furrowed his brows as he struggled to place his cousin's accent. Mostly English, a slight tinge of Wales, though he caught the soft susurrations of a French accent as well. Sirius felt like his mind was reeling. He hoped that in time Moony would realize just how incredible this young woman was, how selfless she was being.

"He's been alone for most of his life. Very little people to turn to," Sirius heard himself confess, a look of exasperation on his features as his beard twitched.

"He should not have to be, and he is not anymore, not as long as I'm his partner. I tire of the way our civilization treats werewolves. I always have, even before I knew of Remus's condition. Or anybody else for that matter that's _different_ ," Tonks answered shyly, lowering her head, and grunting with the effort to remove herself from the couch.

The young Auror gave a muffled squeak of surprise as she felt a strong hand grip onto her right forearm and very gently pull her to her feet, one of his hands hovering just over her waist but not touching it, just in case Tonks lost her balance.

"Thank you," Tonks murmured, shuffling towards the stairwell that led up to her new bedroom, a look of trepidation and exasperation on her pale, pretty features as she scrunched her nose in disgust and looked down at her black boot.

"Think nothing of it," Sirius retorted immediately without even having to think of his response. "I hope you know that Lupin is incredibly lucky to have someone like you in his life now. The man's my best friend. Take care of him."

Tonks blinked, startled at her cousin's words as she rested at the foot of the stairs, for the way Black was speaking to her just now, he was making it sound as though the man was already beginning to have...feelings for her, which was _absurd_ , and proceeded to blink owlishly at the former prisoner of Azkaban Prison.

She felt her jaw drop slightly in shock and her lips part open as she started speaking, but did not get a chance as a startled squeaking followed by the horrible yowling of a cat reached Tonks's eardrums, and she blinked.

Tonks turned her head sharply to the left as she watched a great big orange cat that looked half Kneazle more than anything else, scamper down the hallway, and she realized only a fraction of a second too late that damned monster was chasing Ptelea, and those squeaks she heard were little noises of terror, and she watched with a heavy heart and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as the little Bowtruckle scrambled up the wall and took refuge from the cat, squeaking in anger, inside of the house's air vent.

"Oh my _God_ ," she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head."Was that a bloody _cat_?! That was, wasn't it? Whose cat is it? I'll kill it!" she groaned, bringing her hand to her forehead and dragging her palm down along her cheek in anguish. She shoved her knuckles in her mouth and bit down to stifle her yell of utter frustration.

As if this day couldn't possibly get _any_ _worse_!

This was bad. If she would have known there'd be a _cat_ here at Headquarters, she would have made other arrangements for Ptelea, who was terrified of cats.

Tonks sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, hearing Sirius's startled shouts of surprise at the fact that he just witnessed a Bowtruckle of all creatures climb into Grimmauld Place's shaft.

"Damn," she swore under her breath and looked back towards the air vent before swiveling her head slowly back to regard her cousin, who was staring at the air vent shaft with a look of dawning intrigue and confusion on his face.

"Wha—was that a—a _Bowtruckle_?!" Sirius stammered, shaking his head in disbelief, as though the man was refusing to believe what he'd just witnessed.

"Yes," Tonks groaned. "That's Ptelea, he's mine. I—I'm _so_ _sorry_ , I—I should have kept a closer eye on him, I hadn't realized he'd gotten out," she groaned, glancing down at the open compartment of her black purse slung over her shoulder. She scowled and knitted her brows together in quandary.

_He must have gotten out to go explore when I wasn't looking_ , she thought and sighed. "This is all _my_ fault. I—I have to get him out of there. He can't stay trapped up there, Sirius, or he'll _die_. I might… I might need your help."

Tonks felt her face pale in shock as she watched as her cousin raised his wand and pointed it at the air vent, fully prepared to utter the Summoning Charm. " **NO**!" she screamed, shooting out an arm and prying his wand out of his hand and lowering her cousin's arm, to which Sirius looked utterly aghast. "Don't! He...he's afraid of magic!" she protested pleadingly. "You'll only scare him further and then I'll _never_ get him back."

The young Auror's outburst even caught her off guard, and she'd been in mid-step at the time, her black boot of her injured foot resting on the first step of the stairwell, and she slipped and felt her body begin to tilt and fall backward.

Sirius's strong arms caught her promptly around the shoulders and suddenly, leaning over her was her cousin. Sirius offered her a kind white smile, his gray eyes twinkling mischievously as he offered his cousin a furtive little wink.

Black must have sensed the sudden discomfort on Tonks's face, for he quickly set her upright, his hands hovering over her shoulder, just in case she fell.

"That was a close one, Tonks," Sirius joked. "Wouldn't have pegged you for being so clumsy, dear cousin. You might want to watch your step next time."

Tonks felt the heat creep maddeningly on her cheeks and she huffed in frustration and stomped her good foot in a moment of agitation and frustration.

She did not appreciate the fact that Sirius had blatantly voiced it out loud like this.

So far, in the few times, she'd almost fallen in front of Remus, he had never once said anything about it. He just told her to be more careful and hold onto his arm. He never pointed it out and made sly quips about her clumsiness.

Tonks scowled, pursing her lips into a thin line. She hated this aspect of herself, the clumsiness.

She was _always_ tripping or falling over herself in some manner or other. Though thus far, in the short timespan of her and Lupin becoming more acquainted, it had not escaped her attention that save for her visit to Alice, the man rarely left her side, and always seemed to be hovering over her.

The young witch could not help but wonder if he liked being around to catch her when she fell. "Yes, well, appearances aren't what they seem, Black."

Sirius's face became crestfallen as his cheerful laughter died in his throat. "You're right. They aren't. And Moony knows all about that. But…" His voice trailed off as he clutched his wand in his hand as he looked up at the air vent.

Tonks noticed where her cousin was looking and sighed. "He—he doesn't respond too well to magic, Black, so I don't use it around him. And he doesn't take kindly to strangers, I'm afraid. So far, the only ones he's responded well to are me and Dumbledore. I think it's best if I get him out, but Crouch destroyed my wand and, well I…"

She swallowed hard and lifted her trembling wand hand to Sirius's eye-level as if to prove her point, and his expression became even grimmer.

"So, if we can't use magic to lure your Bowtruckle out, and he can't stay up there forever or he'll die and starve, or get caught in one of the fans as you said, then what exactly do you propose that we do to get him out? He has to come out," Sirius challenged, stowing his wand.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as she looked towards the air vent. She could no longer see Ptelea and that could only mean one thing. That he'd gone further down the ventilation shaft. "Shit," she swore through gritted teeth.

The young Auror slowly swiveled her head towards Sirius, whose eyes had dawned in recognition and understanding. "Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not! You can't tell me _that's_ what you're thinking, Tonks! _No_. _Way_!" he protested, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Moony would murder me. You cannot _possibly_ tell me that you're standing there in that damned bloody boot of yours and thinking of…" Sirius gestured wildly with his hands towards the vent.

"I _have_ no other choice!" Tonks shouted hotly. "Were that I did, I would do it, but I don't see any other options, here, Black, do you? Without my wand, I'm pretty much powerless, so let's just go off the basis that for right now, I am completely and utterly powerless, Black. My nonverbal magic skills aren't all that great. I—I can do it, but it takes a great deal of concentration and this way is fastest. I have to climb in there and get him out. It's the only way to save him, Sirius. _Please_."

Sirius was silent for several long minutes before emanating a tense exhale through his nostrils and cocking his head to the side, a morose, unhappy expression on his face, he was very clearly _not_ happy with his cousin's little 'plan.'

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"What do you want me to do? We'll get your Bowtruckle back, Tonks. How can I help?" he asked, albeit reluctantly, after a long and awkward silence.

Tonks bit her bottom lip and stuck it out in a slight, pleading pout.

" _Don't_ tell Lupin…"


	25. The Problem with Ptelea

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE **

_Merlin's Beard, what have I gotten into now?_

This question was beginning to become the mantra of the young Auror's life, sadly. Tonks looked up at the opening of the air vent shaft with unease, finding herself in a bit of a dilemma.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and pondered her only option. She was the only one even remotely tiny enough to fit through the shaft and go up and coax Ptelea to return to her.

The poor thing was probably frightened out of his little leafy wits if Tonks had to hazard a guess. She stifled a groan and sighed.

Sirius was standing behind Tonks on the second most bottom step, sighing in frustration and rubbing his brow as if he thought it would help alleviate the tension.

"I _really_ don't think this is a good idea, Tonks, considering…but, something tells me that I cannot stop you, so what do you need me to do here?" Her cousin was resting a cheek on his right fist and looking rather put off.

"And you don't have to worry about me telling Remus. You are far too pretty to incur his wrath, I think," he chuckled. "If any one's going to bear the brunt of the blame, it shall be _me_ for this. You've my word, cousin, I shan't breathe a word of your admittedly _ridiculous_ plan to your partner. Something tells me if he were to learn I was letting you do it, he'd be the one jinxing me in a heartbeat and wouldn't think twice about doing it," Sirius sighed, glancing up at the air vent shaft with no small amount of trepidation in his light gray eyes.

Tonks nodded, not removing her gaze from it. "I don't even know if he's still up there, but it's the best chance I have of finding him since Moody's not here and I can't use that damned mad eye of his to see through the vent and I stand before you pretty much fraught of my powers without my wand," she sighed.

She felt a mad light blush speckling along her cheeks as she coughed once to clear her throat as she looked towards the vent and then back to her cousin.

Sirius noticed Tonks staring at him and blinked owlishly at the young witch and folded his arms across his chest.

"Let me guess. You need my help?" he smirked, and when the Auror nodded, confirming his suspicions, he snorted and rolled his eyes.

Black shook his head in disbelief, not anticipating that the evening would have come to this, though he supposed there were worse ways to kill an hour of time.

"You have…" He paused to glance at the clock on the wall, trying to gauge exactly when Moony and the rest of the Advance Guard had left.

But Tonks interjected before Sirius could offer his two cents. "Fifteen minutes to find Ptelea and get back out of the vent before the Guard comes back with Harry, I know, I _know_ ," finished Tonks irritably, jerking her head towards the vent. "Now are you going to help me up or _not_ , Sirius? If we keep standing here, and if I don't find a more efficient method to get my Bowtruckle, Ptelea is in _danger_ , Black. I'm just being realistic. I estimate that vent about being five minutes to traverse the entire length of it, which should take me approximately about five minutes to find Ptelea, assuming that he's hiding somewhere in a corner, given my…limited mobility issues,' she scowled, kicking at the sole of her black boot with her good shoe. "Which leaves me about five minutes to get out of the vent with Ptelea before Harry and the others arrive back," she huffed, reaching up a hand to swipe her bangs off of her forehead. She noticed Sirius openly gawking at her. " _What_?"

Sirius was staring at Tonks with such an incredulous look, you'd have thought she just sprouted antlers.

"Did you just do _all_ of that in your head. You are _such_ a nerd, cousin."

"I happen to be good with numbers, Black. I'm good at a lot of things, actually. Proud of it," Tonks snapped hotly, tapping her good foot in frustration, and folding her arms across her chest. "Now help me up. I need a boost, Sirius."

Her face flushed pink and she aptly tried to ignore Sirius's smirk as he bent his right knee and knelt to the floor, allowing Tonks to get up on his shoulders to pry open the vent.

The most she could be grateful for during this awkward encounter was that thank Merlin no one else in the Order was around to see this.

 _If Remus saw this, he'd forbid it and have a fit_. She bit the wall of her cheek and let out a tired sigh.

"Wotcher," she cautioned as she felt her equilibrium teeter, though she managed to pry open the ventilation shaft and with a guttural grunt from the back of her throat and with some help from Sirius, heaved herself into the air duct.

She crinkled her nose in disgust at how murderous all the dust in here would be on her allergies, wondering if this place's house-elf, Kreacher, had ever actually done any cleaning at all in his life, and poked her head back out of the vent to regard Sirius one more time before shutting the vent and going after Ptelea.

" _Not_. _One_. _Word_. Or I will carve your eyes from your head for this, cousin, the Muggle way, if he finds out at all that we're doing this—that _I'm_ doing this—he'll throw a fit, and I don't know about you, but I don't fancy being on the receiving end of Remus's temper, now that I've seen it firsthand for myself what that's like, and I don't want you getting in trouble on my account either, Sirius. So, don't say a word. And if he _does_ find out…"

At that unpleasant thought, she almost didn't want to think it, having seen his temper for herself now several times.

Tonks closed her eyes and blew a puff of air. "Then you will let _me_ deal with him, Sirius. I—I won't have you getting trouble on my behalf. _I_ can handle him. Understand?"

The warning escaped Tonks as a low threatening growl. The pink-haired young witch watched in minor amusement as Sirius Black made the sign of the Holy Mary across his chest.

"Cross my heart, hope to die, Tonks." He promised her and mock saluted.

Tonks let out a tired sigh and cast a wary glance over her shoulder and into the vent. "If I'm not mistaken, I think this leads out to your mum's library, doesn't it? Meet me on the other side of the house with a ladder. I'll need one to get down and out of this filthy old thing."

There was a beat. A pause. Tonks couldn't stop the dark little chuckle that escaped her lips. "You know, if you ever wanted to rid yourself of the house-elf that's causing you so much trouble, you could just send him to crawl up in here and tuck away in a corner and he'd just die."

Her suggestion earned a snort and a laugh from Sirius, though the man got an interesting gleam in his eyes that told the young witch he was at least considering her words.

Sirius gave a curt nod of his head and pursed his lips in a thin line. "Be safe. Because if you aren't, it's _my_ head that's on the line for this, _dear_ _cousin_."

Tonks nodded, though she did not speak, and taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, calmed her nerves, knowing that to find her mischievous Bowtruckle, she'd have no choice but to disappear like a phantom back down into the bleak darkness of Number 12, Grimmauld Place's air duct.

"Don't worry, Black. I won't let you take the blame for this. Not when this whole thing was my idea, to begin with. If Remus finds out, then _I_ will deal with him. No matter what you think," she grinned, sticking out her tongue before ducking back in the vent, and heaving a heavy sigh. "Damn it, Ptelea, you'd better bloody be up here or I swear to Merlin Above that I'm taking away your potted elm tree for a week and no tree lice for three days. Or any other bugs that you catch," she growled, murmuring to herself as she kicked open the shaft's door with her boot and army crawled on her stomach across the cold tin, wincing as the occasional creak and groan pierced the otherwise silent air, and she prayed no one but Sirius heard it.

Tonks continued the occasional grumbling to herself as she crawled her way through the darkness, ignoring the throbbing of her broken ankle in its boot.

The young Auror had thought she'd seen darkness before, everything a shade of gray. But up here alone in the damned air vent covered in dust and Merlin only knew what else that was going to be seven shades of holy hell on her allergies, this was the kind of darkness that robbed her of her best senses and replace it with a horrible paralyzing fear, as though she expected a boggart or something to round the corner and scare her.

In this darkness she crawled on her stomach, straining her ears, listening for any distressed squeakings of her Ptelea.

Her muscles cramped and she ground her jaw and locked it, letting out a hiss of pain and clenched her eyes tightly shut.

"All right, T," she murmured. "You can do this. Just…crawl through this bloody thing, find Ptelea and get the hell out before Remus finds out. Yeah. Easy enough. You can do this. It's not your first time _literally_ crawling your way out of a tight spot," she coaxed herself, crawling forward on her stomach inch-by-inch.

The silence was unnerving her if she was being honest with herself. Tonks snorted and growled in frustration.

"Hey Ptelea," she called out softly, hoping to placate the little Bowtruckle and coax the twig-like creature into revealing himself by telling the spritely creature one of her jokes, which he'd always responded to favorably, or at the very least, the hope in that he would hear her voice and it would entice him to reveal himself and they could both get out of this dusty shaft that was murder on her allergies. "Did I ever tell you the reason why Mad-Eye is such a bad teacher?"

Silence. Tonks scowled and furrowed her brows.

"Because he can't control his _pupils_ ," she snorted and allowed a light giggle to escape her lips, thinking if Moody were here to hear her joke at his expense, he'd give her holy hell for such a bad pun. Once again, the Bowtruckle did not respond to her joke. "Okay," she murmured. "Not a fan of that one, huh? All right, I'll try another one," she whispered, careful to keep her voice low as she stopped a moment, feeling a swell of white-hot pain lick at her entire right side, her ribcage.

"A wizard walks into a pub and orders a Forgetfulness Potion. He turns to the witch next to him and says, "So, do I come here often?" Nothing.

Her frown deepening, Tonks let out a groan. She tried again. "You really _are_ making this unusually difficult, Ptelea. These are quality jokes, and I don't even get a chirp from you? You love my jokes, twig. All right, let's try _another_ one at the expense of our favorite greasy-haired git. Why does Professor Snape stand in the middle of the road?" she asked.

Silence. Tonks pursed her lips into a thin line. "So, you'll never know which side he's on," she snorted, rolling her eyes as she imagined what Snape would say if he were here to hear her joke at his expense.

Probably nothing kind, she knew.

Usually, Ptelea liked her jokes and responded in kind by blowing his usual trademarks at her especially bad puns, but this time, she was met with just silence.

The young witch groaned in frustration and rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, _don't_ laugh, but I'll remember this!" she called out, careful to keep her voice low.

Tonks only knew her eyes were still there because she could feel herself blink, still instinctively moisturizing the organs she had no current use for now.

She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, trying to block out all other sounds. Tonks cocked her head to the side and strained her hearing, thinking that she heard the tiniest of squeaking sounds, were they Ptelea's? Or was it a rat?

Whatever it was, it was nearby and coming from her right.

Shooting one of her eyes open, she steeled her nerves and swiveled her head to the left, and cursed herself internally as she let a startled yelp of surprise and clamped her hand over her mouth and clenched her eyes as she heard voices coming from below, though it sounded as though Mrs. Weasley was talking to Sirius.

 _I hope_. _If that's Remus he's talking to and the others have made it back already, we're in serious trouble, he and I_.

Tonks blinked and forced her attention to return in front of her. Tonks found herself staring face-to-face with a dark brown rat, its fur matted and tangled as it stared at her with inquisitive beady black little eyes, checking its surroundings for immediately visible dangers as it huddled in the dark corner of the air vent shaft.

"Oh, _God_ , _rats_ , why did it have to be rats, I _hate_ rats," she moaned, clenching her eyes shut in disgust.

The rat just continued staring, which only further provoked Tonks's fear and wrath even further, and she was quickly hit with a sense of urgency to find Ptelea and get the bloody hell out of here before Remus and Harry and the others got back.

"Did _you_ eat my Bowtruckle? I'll _kill_ you if you did, you little… _worm tail_!" Tonks hissed.

The rat, un-answering, merely twitched its whiskers before letting out a squeak and scurrying off to some unknown corner before Tonks could shoot out her hand.

She emanated a tense exhale through her nose and she breathed a sigh of relief as yet more squeaking noises came from her left, and when she poked her head in the corner of one of the smaller shafts, just enough to fit her hand through, she saw tiny little Ptelea cowering in a dead-end corner of the shaft, though he seemed to perk right up at seeing her.

"I _knew_ that was you. Come here," she murmured lowly, stretching out her left index finger, doing her best to keep it steady, though it was shaking like mad from the cold. "Did that mean old cat chase you all the way up here? Well, he won't be bothering you again. If he tries to eat you, I'll turn the old beast into a tea cozy, how's that?" she crooned lovingly, stifling a small chuckle as she propped the little Bowtruckle as best she could on her should. "But _don't_ think this lets you off the hook! You know I don't like having to save your ass," she scowled, scrunching her nose, and pulling a face in annoyance at the Bowtruckle's antics.

Ptelea responded in kind to her comments by blowing a raspberry.

"The things I do for your love. _Look_ at the lengths I go to for you. Crawling in a disgusting, dusty vent, just to come to save your sorry little twiggy ass. Wotcher, Ptelea. Stay close to me and _don't_ wander off, you walking _twig_ ," she scolded, to which her Bowtruckle answered her remarks with what she could only assume was meant to be some kind of rude hand gesture in Bowtruckle. "You are _so_ in for it, mister when we get out of this bloody air vent."

Her first thought as her eyes squinted as they strained forward to see the faint light coming from the other end of the vent that had to lead to the library was that she did not think that her first night in Grimmauld Place would involve her crawling on her elbows and stomach in the bloody house's dusty air shaft.

Tonks breathed a sigh of relief as she could hear Sirius barking orders at Kreacher to get the bloody hell out of the library and not say a damned word.

She gritted her teeth and managed to pry the shaft open with her hands, despite the uncontrollable tremors in her wand hand, and poked her head out.

True to his word, Sirius stood in wait with the step ladder. "Did you find him?" he called up, having to crane his neck to look up to where Tonks was.

Black got his answer a moment later when the little Bowtruckle poked its head out from underneath his usual look of his owner's dark pink hair and waved.

Sirius blinked, momentarily startled, but quickly shook off his astonishment, and for a moment, Tonks's face paled as Sirius looked to the door.

"Merlin's Beard, hurry it _up_ , won't you?" he growled, his gaze flitting from the closed library door and back out into the hallway. "I think they're back."

"Damn," she swore through gritted teeth, and turned around at the waist, trying to ignore the throbbing in her broken ankle, and it itched in this damned boot something terrible, but she had no time to dwell on it now. "Gimme a second, I still need to get down there," she murmured, suddenly feeling lightheaded and dizzy, no doubt a direct result of the dust she'd probably accidentally inhaled while in the air duct. "It's not quite that easy, Black. Lock the door and stall if you have to."

The library Tonks now found herself in was murky, desolate, and quiet. It sent a chill of unease down her spine, and Tonks decided she didn't like it.

 _Almost too quiet. I would have expected Remus to come running the second he saw I wasn't at the door to greet Harry and him. No doubt he's noticed Sirius and I aren't in the living room anymore and will probably come looking for us. I'd better hurry if I don't want to get Black in trouble_ , she thought, slowly inching her way down the rungs of the ladder.

No footsteps rang in Tonks's eardrums that were headed their way, so she assumed that for the moment, she and Sirius were safe, and they might actually get away with pulling this little rescue mission of theirs off, which would truly be something of a miracle in it of itself.

"Will you bloody hurry it the hell _up_ , Tonks? I think I hear Remus coming," Sirius snapped, cocking his head to the side to better listen for him, glancing around the darkened library. No candles were lighted and as such, the pitch-blackness cast eerie long shadows all throughout the Black Family's library.

"Why should I hurry, huh, Sirius? Are you scared of the dark? Seriously, Sirius? Shall I bring you a night light to help light your way in the dark?" she teased, and shrugged her shoulders, wincing as a white-hot jolt of pain from her broken ankle almost missed one of the rungs and she slipped.

" _I_ wouldn't want to be up here at night either," Tonks weakly joked, trying to ignore the burning fire in her lungs. "Don't worry, Black, your little secret that you're afraid of the dark is safe with me. My lips are sealed."

Sirius, from his position at the bottom of the egregiously long ladder, rolled his head and shook his head, wiping a stray lock of dark hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, _very_ clever, cousin, but I don't think this is the time to—oh, _hell_!"

Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upwards to see what had caught Sirius's attention, for she noticed her cousin had become stock-still, and his ears had perked up like that of a dog's. She could hear it now. A voice, coming closer.

Though it did not necessarily sound like Remus's, either way, the fact that someone was coming closer and closer to the library, and if they were to open the door and discover this unusual scene, both of them would be in trouble.

The rest of the Order would undoubtedly ask questions, and Sirius would get in trouble on her behalf, and that she could simply _not_ allow. She wouldn't.

 _Bloody hell_. She swallowed nervously down past the lump in her throat and did her best to look down towards the floor, a terribly long way down to go.

Tonks was about halfway down the ladder when she heard a sudden squeak across the library. She turned her head in alarm as did Sirius towards the doorway on the other side of the library. "Hurry the bloody hell _up_ , Nymphadora!"

" _Don't_ call me Nymphadora!" Tonks hissed through gritted teeth, and she could feel the stray wisps and strands of her dark pink pixie cut change to crimson.

Though it quickly reverted back to normal when she heard the noise again.

Tonks squinted her eyes towards the door, trying to make out whether anybody else had come in, but the library was, as far as the young witch could tell, was utterly deserted except for herself, Ptelea, and Sirius.

"Keep your bloody shirt on, Black. I have to go slow because of my stupid broken ankle. This—this isn't as _easy_ it would normally be under the circumstances," Tonks snapped through gritted teeth as a swell of hot pain shot up and down her spine. "I just need another minute. I'm coming…"

Sirius scowled in frustration, casting nervous, skittish glances towards the door, and waved his wand at the door, breathing a sigh of relief as he heard the door lock. It wasn't much, but it would buy the pair of them a bit more time.

Though, as Tonks gingerly climbed down another rung of the ladder at a snail's pace, careful to mind her damned blocky black boot to not trip over herself, she could not help but let out a muffled whine of terror at how dizzy she felt.

She bit the inside wall of her cheek as she gingerly lowered her foot clad in the heavy black boot down another rung, and right at the moment, she did so, a brief beam of moonlight fell atop her head, and her two inquisitive gray eyes stared down at Sirius in astonishment as Sirius suddenly felt his throat hollow and constrict all of a sudden as he regarded the pink-haired young witch on the ladder.

Flinching slightly, Tonks furrowed her brows at Sirius's sudden shift in his expression, casting a slightly wary glance over towards the door, thinking that she'd heard the noise again. Turning back towards her cousin, she was surprised to see that the man had paled and was looking as white as a ghost or a bedsheet.

The young Auror looked towards the door again, though it was admittedly difficult considering the place was shrouded in shadow, her delicately arched brows knitted together in quandary. She froze, as she could swear she heard _him_.

When she turned back to look at Sirius and shook her head to clear her mind of such a thought, she huffed in frustration, as the man was looking like a deer caught in the sights of the Knight Bus, and she could tell the man felt guilty.

But Sirius seemed as though he was a little too dazed and confused and mesmerized by the sudden turn of events his night had taken to be able to so much as form a coherent sentence around this woman, this 'She-Stranger' from Remus's nightmares.

Which was, in Sirius's mind, a little bit ridiculous, because he had always believed himself to be rather charismatic and charming whenever the mood struck him, especially around members of the opposite sex.

He was very rarely tongue-tied, but by Merlin's beard, his best friend did not know how lucky Remus had it if the poor man's nightmares bore any semblance of truth.

He supposed that, in their own way, they did, because Remus had certainly proven to him that the woman from his dreams was very much alive and real.

And she was currently struggling to make her way down the ladder in his parents' library after painstakingly crawling her way through the air vent to retrieve her pet Bowtruckle with a broken ankle, stab wounds that still looked like they were proving to be problematic and causing her a great amount of hurt, her wand hand which suffered nerve damage and as a result of this shook uncontrollably, and her other arm currently sporting a splint and was immobile.

Sirius shook his head in minor disbelief. Who on earth _was_ this woman?

Nymphadora Tonks possessed a certain inner strength that was unlike anything he had ever seen in another witch or wizard before, though if he was being honest with himself, in a small, subtle way, the witch reminded him of Alice, back when Frank and Alice had been inducted in the Order during the First Wizarding War, and it was rumored that, when this one's hair changed color to a dark brown, the likeliness between her and Alice Longbottom was uncanny.

Sirius offered Tonks an awkward little-half smile as his cousin finally noticed that she was being stared at, and she paused, one hand on the rung of the ladder to steady herself as she craned her neck over her shoulder and frowned.

"What?" Tonks demanded hotly, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks, painting them a pale pink. "What? What? Why—why are you _staring_ at me?" The young pink-haired Auror huffed in frustration and blew a stray strand of her long pink bangs that had gotten in her way and fallen in front of her eyes.

"Because Remus does not know how lucky he is to have a partner like you. And…this might be a bit forward, but... has anyone ever told you that you have a lovely neck, Tonks? It's very long, elongated. It's like a…a sexy _goose_. Don't bother trying to deny it, cousin. Can't put the truth back into the box," he murmured thoughtfully.

Tonks blinked at Sirius in surprise, her lips parted open in shock, and seeming to struggle to form an apt response to his quip about her neck.

Sirius wasn't sure if his cousin had taken offense to his comment or not, but the moment he heard Tonks let out an adorable sounding little snort through her nose, and her shoulders start to shake, he felt the tension in his shoulders leave him, and he allowed himself to relax.

Sirius smiled warmly, feeling more than a little stupid and off his game as he cautiously approached the end of the ladder, hoping that he wouldn't have to bloody catch her if she fell, and hoping no one walked in.

Her cousin awkwardly shifted her position on the ladder. Her voice matched her outward appearance, given the circumstances.

It was light but had a rather vivid presence.

"So, Lupin is your best friend. What's he like, you know, off-duty, when he's not working for the Order? He strikes me as the type to sit in a corner and brood," she asked casually, her gray eyes alighting with something akin to intrigue and an insatiable curiosity, that Sirius blinked owlishly in surprise at her.

 _So, she does care for him, then. Dumbledore was right. I'll be damned_.

"Oh, about what you would expect. Quiet, reserved, but he opens up to you, in time. I don't think that you will have any problems. I can see why he likes you," Sirius answered airily by way of deflection, thinking that it was not his business to discuss Remus when he wasn't here. If she was truly interested in the man in that way, then it was up to her to approach her partner and learn for herself of Remus's interests by asking her questions directly to the man himself.

Sirius scowled. "Come on, hurry up! You want to know what's happening with Harry, don't you? And I don't fancy Remus catching us in here, do you? Look, if it'll get you down off the bloody ladder _faster_ , then just jump! I'll catch you!"

"But I—I really _hate_ this!" Tonks moaned in protest, trying not to look down. "There are only three things in this life I hate. Crouch, heights, and jumping from them." Tonks frowned, shaking her head in response, and she turned back to the ladder to gingerly step down another rung just as she felt the ladder begin to tip backward.

Hastily clawing at the wall to find something, anything to stop herself and the ladder from falling, she quickly realized it was futile as she grasped at air.

Sirius swore under his breath as without even having to think on it, the man bolted forward to stop the ladder from falling, and although Sirius had succeeded in managing to push the wooden ladder back against its perch on the wall, he quickly realized that, in his haste to do so, he'd failed to consider that the sudden movement would cause his cousin to lose her balance and fall forwards.

Onto _him_. As Tonks began to scream, Sirius rushed forward, catching his cousin around the waist as she inevitably toppled on top of him, rather clumsily.

The sudden weight caused Sirius to fall backward as he tried in vain to balance himself and not fall to the ground.

Sirius ground his teeth as Black quickly realized the two of them were going to converge with the wall behind Tonks, and Sirius hastily moved to his side so he would get the brunt of the impact and stop his already injured cousin from slamming her body wholly against the wall.

Sirius winced and groaned as he felt the back of his head hit against the corner of the wooden writing desk that he fell back against and inwardly cursed whoever had bloody invented the damned thing who'd created such a wretched table with its ridiculous twists and uneven surfaces, and something wet formed at the base of his skull and Black flinched, thinking he'd have a good size knot there.

One had to excuse Sirius for his lack of grace and edict, considering he'd spent the last twelve years of his life locked away in Azkaban Prison with limited mobility, and he'd never exactly, not even with his best friends and all that they got up to during their time at Hogwarts, had never found himself in the position of having to catch someone, much less his own cousin, so he got a pass for this.

" _Ow_ , Merlin's beard, that hurt," Tonks groaned, her eyes clenched shut, her pretty face twisted into a rather pained-looking grimace as she rested her head back against the wooden floorboards of Sirius's mum's library. "You all right?"

Sirius nodded, blinking rapidly as he dared to open his eyes and saw nothing but concern ridden in those glistening gray orbs like the steel of his cousin's.

"I think I should be the one asking _you_ that. Are you all right, Tonks? Can you sit up? Holy Merlin's beard, that _hurts_. Is anything broken?" Sirius gasped out, not realizing that he might be crushing his poor cousin with his body weight, and he realized that in his haste to attempt to keep his cousin from re-injuring herself even more than she already was, his right hand accidentally rested just above her right breast. Not wanting to make this any worse than it already was, he quickly withdrew his hand as though the very gesture had burned his skin.

Sirius drew in a sharp breath, not wanting to get up just yet until he could discern for himself if his cousin had any broken bones, never mind that this was a rather unsavory and precarious position for the pair of them to be in, and would likely bode ill for the pair of them if someone were to walk in and discover this, but it did not deter him from remaining exactly where he was, and he made no move to get up, though he and his cousin were a mess of tangled legs and limbs.

It looked bad. Sirius bit the inside wall of his cheek as the heat crept to his cheeks, and he heard himself ask his cousin again if Tonks was all right and hurt.

"I—I'm fine," Tonks replied airily, opening her eyes blearily and struggling to focus her haze vision, clouded with black dots dancing and swirling in her line of sight from when she'd hit her head on the floor during the fall. "But are _you_ , Black?" Tonks asked, concern and worry laced through her soft voice.

"Yes," croaked out Sirius, even as his head began to throb and pound horribly, and he clenched his eyes tightly shut as a brief swell of nausea wracked his body. "But it's you that I'm worried about. Your—your injuries. Are you hurt, Tonks?"

"I'm fine. But you _are_ kind of heavy and kind of crushing my side, so if you can just get off of me and untangle yourself, then I'll be better. And I'm _so_ _sorry_ ," Tonks sighed, her voice rising an octave the more upset she got. "This was all _my_ fault. What a _stupid_ plan," she growled through gritted teeth. "I'm just a _stupid_ girl with _stupid_ ideas who _never_ learns! I—I must have squashed you, Sirius!" she groaned and attempted wiggle her way out from underneath Sirius's weight, which had effectively trapped her on the floor.

Tonks visibly flinched as she watched her cousin gingerly clutch and rub at his shoulder, Sirius wincing as it throbbed and ached with the pain from the fall.

Though despite this, her cousin quickly put on a brave face and smiled grimly at the nervous young Auror who was now unceremoniously on top of.

The last thing Sirius wanted was for his cousin and Remus's partner to think that it was her fault, or that he blamed her for what happened just now, which could not have been further from the truth. "Don't say that. You aren't _stupid_ , Tonks, far from it. It was an _accident_. A close one, yes, but an _accident_."

After a moment of simply staring up at Sirius from her spot on the hard floor with what must have been the roundest gray eyes that Black had ever seen, the young witch replied that yes, she was all right, and she couldn't thank him enough for catching the worst of her fall and bearing the brunt of the full impact.

Before he could even so much as getting a word in edgewise, Tonks began to stammer and apologize repeatedly for her clumsiness, and Sirius quickly cut her off. "This isn't necessary, Tonks. It was an accident. Please don't feel like this was your fault. What matters is you're not hurt, I hope, and that you need to—"

But Sirius's sentence was promptly cut off as the library's door flung wide open and startled the pair of cousins, and, with great effort on both their parts, blearily lifted their head and tried to untangle their entwined limbs from each other.

"Oh, _damn_. It's _him_ , Sirius," Tonks breathed, her eyes wide and round as the pair of cousins regarded Remus, who was standing in the doorway, his wand drawn in his wand hand, and he'd managed to conjure a small ball of flame in the other to provide a small burst of light and warmth into the otherwise cold, dark, and dank library. "We're _screwed_ ," she cried.

Tonks shivered, but not with the cold of the room, as she felt Sirius immediately pull himself up off of her, and she could see Lupin looming over her as he wordlessly held out her hand and without even waiting for Tonks to ask, his hand gripped onto her forearm, his towering shadow casting a large shadow from her perch on the floor. Rather, she shivered because of how angered he looked. The look of unbridled rage on his pale face sent Tonks's spine weak.

Lupin's gaze drifted down to the floor, where Sirius still lay on top of Tonks, his right hand hovering just near her breast, the pads of his fingertips accidentally grazing the skin of her slightly sticking out, prominent collarbones, and the man seethed, a muscle in his jaw twitched and behind the man's right eyelid as well.

" _What the hell is going on here_?" Lupin snarled, baring his teeth as his eyes narrowed until they were mere slits as he looked at Tonks and Sirius. "Someone want to explain this to me? Why was the door locked? And why are the lights out?"

And then his head slowly inclined as his head swiveled slightly to the right to regard Tonks in silence. Antagonizing hurt. His light brown eyes boring through her.

Tonks swallowed nervously and stepped forward. "It's—it's _not_ what it looks like Remus, I—I fell, and Sirius managed to catch my fall. I can promise you, Lupin, n—nothing happened," Tonks whispered quickly, surprised at how meek and hoarse her voice sounded. Strange.

She furrowed her brows into a frown as she could have sworn that she heard Lupin growl a little. Tonks internally screamed, knowing that by this point, it was fruitless to try to reach the werewolf, for her words were as good as the wind.

Though there was no denying that what her partner had walked in on was a very peculiar scene indeed, and it did look bad, with Sirius on top of her, one of his hands hovering unceremoniously near her breast as he tried to steady himself.

Her gaze briefly flitted away from Lupin's outraged face, as his arm clutched tightly onto Tonks's, though when he followed her gaze and saw that she had locked eyes with Sirius, then his grip upon her arm loosened slightly and he stepped forward.

"Sirius," Tonks started to say as Remus silently pulled her to her feet, and she had no chance to react as one of Lupin's arm shot out in front of her, preventing her from taking another step forward to try to reach her cousin.

Tonks let out a muffled squeak as Remus strode towards Sirius, who was promptly backing away from his best friend, having no doubt seen the look of anger and shock on his slightly withdrawn and sullen best friend's lined face.

Sirius shot Tonks a brief look, and upon seeing her shoot him a slightly pleading look, he gave a curt shake of his head, as if to say, _Let me deal with Remus_ , and winked. For whatever reason, one that was foreign to Tonks, Sirius did not seem put off nor even remotely surprised by Remus's sudden violent behavior.

In fact, if Tonks wasn't mistaken, he almost...looked like he was... _enjoying_ it.

Tonks returned the gesture and silently pleaded with her cousin as Lupin rapidly advanced on his best friend, effectively backing Sirius into a corner, near one of the bookshelves, for Black to allow her to deal with Remus's temper.

But Sirius again shook his head curtly and locked his jaw in anger. _No_.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as Remus approached Sirius and did not stop until Sirius's back was literally pressed against the faded flowering wallpaper, and this time, Remus did not restrain himself.

A cry of rage escaped his lips and Remus curled his left hand that was cupping the small orange and yellow flickering ball of flame currently, into a tight fist, tight enough that his nails pierced the skin of his palm and he slammed his fist into the wall, just below Sirius's right earlobe and would have singed the skin had Sirius not jolted his head to the left at the last possible second.

Tonks let out a muffled squeak and jumped at the sudden violent reaction of her partner, though she did not know what to say or do in this regard to quell his wrath.

Remus very narrowly missed his best friend's ear, and as a result, thanks to the ball of flame he'd been holding, left a thick, black, scorch mark on the wall in its wake.

 _Permanent_. Tonks gingerly crept forward and tugged on Remus's sleeve of his tattered brown jacket and swallowed hard again as she lifted her head slightly to better look her new partner in the man's kind light brown eyes.

Though right now, Lupin's eyes were anything _but_ kind. His open, wide eyes reflected everything in this library all at once, and yet saw nothing at all.

Behind the man's glistening brown orbs as they darkened in color, and Tonks heard the low rumbling of a low, threatening warning growl emerge from deep within the confines of the man's chest, was something more intense than normal thought, and his clenched two-day jaw stubble was not a good sign at all.

Tonks had been hoping to get through her surprise rescue mission of little Ptelea without any incident.

Actually, she wasn't entirely sure what she had been hoping for. Definitely not to get caught, and she certainly didn't think she would.

But now that they _had_ , her and Sirius, who had gone with her plan against his better judgment, and in a rather compromising and admittedly suggestive position to boot, the best that Tonks could hope for was not outright forgiveness. But the beginnings of a tentative understanding between her and Remus.

Now, however, Tonks simply hoped that Lupin would let Sirius go from this confrontation without giving Remus a reason to hate her as his partner even more, but she knew that as she looked into Remus's brown eyes burning bright with anger, those orbs of his holding total anger, that it wounded her. It _hurt_ her.

The way his darkened eyes squinted when Tonks gingerly stepped in between Remus and Sirius in an attempt to quell the worst of the man's anger, and glowered at Remus, reminded the young Auror of a pit viper's slit pupils.

She gulped nervously. A burning, fiery animosity was developing in those brown eyes of his, and Tonks could tell that she was likely the root cause of the problem, of Remus's unbridled rage towards what he had walked in on just now.

And if, judging by the furious look in his eyes, Tonks was about to find herself and Sirius in a spot of trouble that she wasn't quite sure she would get out of.

 _Very_. _Deep_. _Trouble_.


	26. Amends

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX **

_Easy, Moony_. _Just play it cool,_ James's voice piped up, unusually quiet at the back of his mind, though Remus was half of a mind to tell James to shut up and to be quiet, because there was no stopping the storm that was brewing, igniting deep within his own veins.

_Don't overreact, Rem_ , Lily chimed in, sounding worried. _You weren't here. You don't know what happened. There's every indication to believe that if you lose your temper over this, you'll be jumping to conclusions without proof. You should at least hear both of them out and hear what they have to say_. _Trust in Tonks_.

Remus growled in frustration and bared his teeth, and immediately, the Potter's voices inside of his head fell silent and they did not try to intervene again.

Never before in his life had his best friend's name sounded like such a _curse_. Lupin froze, not wanting to meet Tonks's eyes.

He'd _known_ what he'd walked in on. She was on her back on the floor and Sirius was laying on top of her. What _else_ could it be?

Sirius had _always_ been a womanizer, and tonight, it would seem, was no different, but this wounded him more than anything he could have ever done.

What made it even _worse_ , he thought, was how Sirius's name sounded coming from her lips, so full of anguish and fear over _his_ well-being.

Tonks had spoken her cousin's name with such an _anguish_ and yet an insatiable curiosity that Remus felt his blood ignite as fire within his veins as he recollected how he'd caught Sirius on top of _his_ partner.

He hadn't thought Sirius capable of forcing himself on a young woman like some kind of—of _dog_.

He curled his free hand that had previously been holding the small ball of flame into a fist to prevent himself from striking out at Padfoot in sheer anger.

The question _was_ , and one that he could not answer given that he hadn't been here to witness what the hell had happened in his absence, was how exactly familiar Tonks had become with Sirius, and his best friend must have truly laid on the charm something thick in order for him to walk in on… _this_.

Lupin would be lying to himself if he also did not admit that he hadn't liked the look of concern and shock on Tonks's face as she was currently the only barrier between himself and Sirius, nor was the look that Sirius was giving her in return particularly reassuring, and he let out a growl as Sirius laid a hand on Tonks's shoulder, to which she promptly ignored and fixated her attention on Remus.

He didn't like the glances exchanged between the two of them.

"Remus, _please_ , you—you asked me if I trusted you. I _do_ , more than anything, and more than anyone else in my life right now, and now I ask the same of you. As your partner. I'm asking you right now…if you can…trust me. Listen to me. _Trust_. _Me_. There's—nothing happened. I—I fell a—and Sirius…caught me," pleaded Tonks, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout, but her voice sounded distant, muffled, and garbled, as though she were underwater, and all Lupin could focus on was the horrible vision of his best friend on top of his partner, how Sirius's hand had hovered too close to Tonks's right breast for his comfort, that it burned so bad, it felt like fire lacing through his veins and igniting hotter than any Hungarian Horntail dragon could flame.

All Remus could feel in the moment was to despise his best friend's despicable behavior.

"I would _never_ have believed it of you, Sirius," he whisper hissed his words through gritted teeth, lowering his voice so Tonks couldn't hear, and he stifled his growl of irritation as he gingerly clutched onto the young witch's arm and as gently as he could, shoved her out of harm's way.

Tonks let out a muffled whine of pain and that one small cry of pain was just enough to cause for Remus to decide to act.

Best friend or not, what Sirius had just attempted to do to his partner could not go unpunished. He let go of his reserved behaviors, his timidness, for they would do him no good here.

He launched himself at Sirius, closing off the gap of space between the two of them with a cry of rage upon his lips.

This had gone on far enough. Tonks was _his_ partner. Not Sirius's. Not Arthur's, not Severus's. _His_. And it was his sworn duty, both to her, and he had promised Dumbledore and Tonks's parents that he would do everything in his power to protect her. And now it was time for him to fulfill that promise, friend or not.

He would protect her. Even if it was against his own best friend.

Lupin was intoxicated with inexplicable rage, an emotion towards Sirius he had no intention of ever feeling, the acidity of which was residing in his stomach waiting to be spat out of his mouth in vulgar and foul words he knew Tonks would likely stare at him for saying here.

Except he wasn't going to say them. He was going to shout them at Black with every ounce of breath that dwelled with his lungs.

" _What. Are. You. Doing. Padfoot_?" he growled, seizing a fistful of Sirius's crimson coat, and slamming Sirius harshly against the wall. "She's _my_ partner, Padfoot, you—you _bastard_. _Not_ yours. What were you _thinking_ , Sirius? Oh, that's right, you _weren't_. As usual. It's like those two brain cells you've got working in that thick brain of yours are on overdrive while you try to come up with an excuse for _this_? Well, go on," he spat meanly. "Say it. I'm just _dying_ to hear what you have to say for yourself, Sirius."

As the unsurmountable dragon-fire seed of anger coursed through his bloodstream and changing him, Remus felt as though he was no longer in control, and he did not hear Tonks's light pleading.

Tonks had cried Sirius's name with such concern and anguish that it only succeeded in igniting that fire-seed within his now-boiling blood even more, and he curled his free hand tightly around Padfoot's throat and lightly squeezed.

Remus felt his wand hand's fingers curl even tighter around his wand, though his hand shook with the effort to keep it lowered. He didn't want to curse Sirius in front of his partner, on her first day here home at Headquarters, but… never would he have thought it possible of his best friend, that Sirius would have the audacity to lure Tonks into the library and attempt to coerce his partner into… _this_ , when Tonks was at her most vulnerable and still injured.

Though the way that Tonks was looking at Sirius just know was confusing and sent a swell of panic throughout his scarred and wretched body.

Just _how_ close had the two of them gotten when he'd perhaps foolishly left Tonks alone in the care of Sirius when he'd gone with the rest of the Advance Guard to get Harry from his aunt and uncle's house in Little Whinging?

What had the two of them got up to in his absence for an hour?

Remus did not like at all the concerned tones as he heard faintly Tonks murmur Black's name, nor the look of shock and concern that was rendering her pretty features even paler than usual, and he could no longer ignore her pitiful tugging on the sleeve of his sweater as she attempted to pry him off.

" _What_. _Happened_? I want the truth, Black. _All_ of it. _Now_ ," He growled, visibly wincing as his words came out harsher than he would have liked, and he quickly cursed himself as his new partner shirked away in fear. "Give me a _reason_ why I shouldn't hex you right here where you stand, Padfoot," he growled, pointing his wand straight at Sirius's chest. "I could turn you into a _pig_ …it would certainly be appropriate, considering what you just tried to do to her!"

Lupin cringed and bit the inside wall of his cheek as he heard the faltering crack and dip in his voice, and at how Tonks slowly backed away.

No doubt she must have seen the shadow of the wolf cross his features, and it did not help that the room was shrouded in shadow, in pitch darkness.

Remus bit his bottom lip and whiplashed his head back to the right, turning the worst of his wrath on Sirius, fully intent on making _him_ bear the worst of his temper. He did not want to yell at Tonks. It wasn't _her_ fault.

"Why were the two of you in here _alone_ together? And why were the lights out? _Don't_. _Lie_. _To_. _Me_ ," he warned threateningly, baring his teeth.

Tonks's voice spoke up faintly and sounding much hoarser than before, and he could just barely make out her sweet voice through his haze of anger.

"Wh—what are you _doing_ , Remus? Let go of Sirius! He's—he's your friend! Don't _hurt_ him! I told you the truth, Lupin! I _fell_. It was an _accident_ , he—he caught me and saved me from the worst of my fall. You're _hurting_ him!" she protested, her gray eyes wide and round with shock as she tugged futilely on the man's sweater sleeve, desperately trying to pull him away.

Lupin watched his partner, inwardly flinching as the young witch's lips parted open in shock and abject horror at the way he was behaving towards Sirius.

And he _especially_ did not like the way Tonks's features paled and became pallid at seeing the most unusual sight in front of her, at how furious he was.

Remus cringed, knowing how frightening this must look like to her, but he could not deny how he felt towards Padfoot. He was angry. In fact, he was on the verge of passing that point of no return and was completely furious.

But more than angry, however, Lupin felt emotionally hurt by Sirius's _betrayal_ , and his lip curled and pulled back as he thought of what he tried to do.

He didn't know whether to scream and rage or curse Padfoot into oblivious for his heinous actions. All of the emotions welling up inside the confines of his chest were beginning to drive his mind utterly insane and savage.

"Please don't _do_ this, Remus. Sirius isn't at fault for this. _I_ am. Punish _me_ if you must, but let him go," Tonks begged, stepping to the front, not once relinquishing her surprisingly strong and ironclad grip on his sweater sleeve.

It was just enough to momentarily break Lupin out of his raging stupor, and Remus felt his face drain of color as he promptly looked Tonks over once.

He could see hints of purple and black bruises starting to form on her face, and what looked suspiciously like finger markings around the pale column of her throat, though he supposed those could still be remnants of Crouch's attack. Lupin didn't know for sure.

"Did he hurt you?" Remus growled angrily.

Tonks rapidly shook her head no in a curt gesture, looking like she was blinking back briny tears and on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.

"N—no, but…let him _go_ , Lupin! Can't you see you're _choking_ him?!"

Remus blinked and turned back around to regard Sirius, who was maintaining a stoic look of a perfect impassiveness, though his hands had come to claw pitifully around Lupin's hand currently holding his throat hostage.

Tonks gingerly stepped in front of Sirius by ducking under Lupin's outstretched arm and firmly planted herself as a barrier between Padfoot and him and regarded her partner with a look of desperate pleading on her face.

"Sirius is my _cousin_ , Remus. I—I swear there is nothing between us whatsoever. You've my _word_ on that," she promised solemnly, a muscle in her jaw twitching. "He's…proven himself to be quite kind, and a friend to me…"

_Friend_. A _friend_?! Remus felt like his mind was reeling as it throbbed and pounded relentlessly.

Through his relentless, unceasing hurt and immense confusion ceased to exist the moment Sirius dared to open his mouth to speak.

"Y—you won't _kill_ me, Moony," he whispered, his voice a mere hoarse, croak. "You and I…couldn't…kill Pettigrew…you'd kill me…over… _this_?!"

"H—he helped me save Ptelea, Remus," Tonks confessed, casting a wary glance towards the still-open air ventilation shaft, and she felt the heat creep to her cheeks at a snail's pace as Lupin's gaze curiously followed hers.

Tonks bit her bottom lip and stuck it out in a slight pout, _really_ hoping her partner wouldn't start asking specific questions of her little rescue mission.

His temper was already a hair's trigger away from imploding, and Tonks knew that if Remus learned of her rather unorthodox and quite frankly, _stupid_ plan, that she'd crawled on her stomach and elbows in the air vent with a broken ankle and recovering from multiple lacerations, a Splinched arm, and stab wounds, then he would surely never forgive her, nor would he trust her.

And for that reason alone, she could not tell him the truth, she realized, as a light tinkling bell in the back of her conscience chimed a warning in her mind, and then Ollie's voice spoke to her in his solemn baritone, curt voice.

_If you tell him of your plan, then he might think it was Sirius's idea…_

"If you needed help, then you should have come to _me_ ," Lupin snarled, his grip on Padfoot's throat only tightening. He stifled a low growl at the back of his throat.

Seeing how pale Tonks was becoming, and he recognized the growing look of anguish in her eyes, and how her grip had slackened slightly on his sweater sleeve, Remus quickly came to the realization she was losing strength. "You need to _sit_ _down_ , Tonks. You are tired. You need to _rest_."

" _No_." Tonks's answer was only one word, but firm enough in her stance for Lupin to recognize that his partner was not going to listen to him in the slightest. Her gaze shifted slightly as she turned at the waist to look at Sirius.

Lupin bristled as he decided that he did not like the familiarity in which Tonks was behaving around Sirius, cousin or not, and he especially could not explain away why the fact that his partner's worried gaze settled over Padfoot's face, the column of his throat still held hostage by Remus's strong face, bothered him so badly that it burned like fire, and hurt like hell in his heart.

"What happened here, Tonks? Did Sirius hurt you?" Remus growled. "Tell me the truth!"

Tonks felt her eyes behind their lids become suddenly dry and a near fear threatened to engulf her completely.

Something within Lupin had changed, and this was perhaps her third or fourth time seeing the man so changed, and not for the better, and she didn't like it at all.

His light brown eyes had shifted, darkened, and burned hot and steadfast with a wave of anger for his best friend that she had not thought possible in the man, though the more rational side of her at the moment chastised her at the back of her mind, remembering Umbridge's visit.

Words left her. Tonks blinked owlishly at her partner as she stared into Lupin's eyes burning with such a fit of anger and animosity towards her cousin, and her heart fell silent. "Answer me!" Remus roared, finally losing his patience.

"I…" she stammered, and her voice trailed off as she looked into Remus's eyes. But Tonks couldn't force her lips to move. She supposed she was struggling to form an apt response to his demand for an answer because she herself, in a way, was still much too shell-shocked to respond.

Her mind felt blank as a piece of parchment paper and her eyes wide as she stared at Remus in abject horror. His eyes met hers as they desperately searched hers…waiting….

Remus's gentleness in the current moment had completely vanished, his previous timidness and somewhat reserved and shy nature, whenever he was around her, was now practically non-existent.

He was… _furious_. Angry. At _her_.

The wolfish-like growl he had released moments again from deep within his chest sent a wash of cold over her entire body and a tremor of fear down her spine.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and nervously fidgeted with her fingers as she tried to think of something— _anything_ —to say or do to calm him.

Deep within the recesses of her heart, Tonks knew that, just in her limited timespan of interacting with her new partner thus far, that Remus would never hurt her or cause her intentional harm, but seeing him like this…

And even worse, behaving this way towards his _best_ _friend_? It was terrifying. Tonks emanated a tense, shaking breath through her nose and closed her eyes.

_Please don't do this, Remus. Please don't_. She did not want Lupin to become even angrier on her account, for the poor man had done enough.

More than enough. He had purposefully put himself in harm's way not once, but twice now, first when attempting to interrogate and capture Crouch, and then again in St. Mungo's when he'd dared to talk back to Umbridge.

Tonks could honestly say at this point into their new relationship that she preferred the softer, quieter side to Remus John Lupin, and seeing him like this, with the shadow of the wolf dancing across his lined but handsome face, and flickering's of pure anger throughout those light brown orbs of his, scared her.

More than anything. She had already lost one partner, she would not lose this one to the darkness in his own heart, and right now, that seemed to be an ever-increasing probability of happening to Remus if he could not calm down.

Tonks was afraid the poor man would lose himself. Lose that part of his soul and heart that made Remus who he was.

Though she knew him now to be a werewolf, save for those 'special times of the month', he did not strike her as a particularly violent young man, no.

Remus did not seem like one who tended to live in anger, in fear, in rage. That was not him. Nope. Lupin was a _kind_ man, with a good, _good_ heart. His heart was pure and golden, and the thought of that leaving him terrified her even more than what she thought her punishment would be.

Remus let out a growl and furrowed his brows in a frown as he bared his teeth as Sirius was attempting to explain away the 'slip in his balance' moments ago.

"Moony, th—this is r—ridiculous," he coughed, still clawing at Lupin's fingers. "I know what it looks like, but I give you my _word_. How many years have you known me? You would truly allow our friendship to fall apart over this?! I did _not_ hurt my cousin, Remus. Let. Me. _Go_ ," Sirius growled in a bark.

Lupin glanced towards Tonks, who was still tugging lightly on his arm, and he froze.

If it was possible, she had paled even more, and her entire body was shaking badly, and some of his unbridled rages immediately dissipated.

Tonks hastily took a half-step forward and planted her feet firmly on the hardwood floor beneath her boots, practically near tears. " _Please_ , Remus. _Don't_." She was begging him now, but Sirius had almost tried to—he had seen it with his own wretched sight. He had walked in and found him _on_ _top_ of her!

Sirius couldn't be allowed to— but then his steady stream of dark thoughts swirling around like a vicious whirlpool in his tired head was immediately interrupted by a violent spell of shaking coughing from Padfoot.

Remus blinked rapidly and snarled like a vicious dog who'd had his prized bone taken from him as he swiveled his head back around so fast to regard Sirius, that Padfoot had to move his head back to avoid connecting with his.

"Y—you would… _kill_ me…Remus? Th—this isn't _you_ , Moony. Stop this, think what you're doing. You—you don't…" Sirius managed to choke out, sounding more amused than anything else, and he opened his mouth further to speak, but whatever he'd been about to say was interrupted by another fit.

Remus instinctively loosened his hold, not enough to free his friend, but it was enough that it wouldn't crush Sirius, where he had him pinned against the wall practically dead to rights, though the way Tonks was currently eyeing his best friend had him strongly reconsidering this desire. What did Sirius want with _his_ partner?

"I don't _what_?" Lupin growled through clenched teeth and locked jaw, and, using less than a fraction of his sometimes overwhelming strength whenever he would let the Mad Beast within out, that he desperately worked so hard over the years to quell within himself, as he felt the Beast now currently tug and strain against its chains, snarling and howling like the savage wolf it was.

Lupin was _not_ in a patient mood, having returned from Harry's aunt and uncle's house almost soaking wet, given Mad-Eye had tried to make them all double back and go through their clouds on their brooms to make sure they weren't being followed, and the entire duration of the trip he'd been plagued with the thought that Tonks was somehow in trouble, if not wallowing in some sort of misplacing self-pity, feeling as though she were somehow useless given the extent of her injuries, which could not have been further from the truth, and hoping that Sirius was caring for her, and now this. Sirius's betrayal was too much.

_Oh, he 'took care' of her all right_ , that snakelike demonic voice whisper hissed into the shell of his ear, that sounded entirely too much like Severus for Remus's comfort.

He'd come back to find her _not_ in her place where he'd left her, the sofa vacant, empty, and no sign of where she could have gone off to.

Just the sign of the empty sofa was enough to send the already frazzled man into a state of near panic, for as her partner, in many ways, she was his responsibility. He'd asked Molly, and she'd not seen Tonks _or_ Sirius in an hour.

And then to venture into the library, on the off chance she might have thought to explore the lower levels of Grimmauld Place, though she really needed to be off her feet and resting and not putting added strained weight on her ankle, he'd thought to check in here, and he'd found Sirius on top of her like a wild _dog_ in heat.

Remus growled as the unpleasant visual refused to part from his dark swirling vortex of thoughts that involved Sirius hurting greatly.

Even… _dying_. Remus let out a guttural snarl from the back of his throat as he allowed the Mad Beast a little freer reign as he felt one of the links of the chains snap.

Tonks blinked in surprise and glanced towards Sirius, whose face was paling rapidly, and her cousin and Harry Potter's godfather didn't seem able to breathe. " **NO**!" she screamed and bit the wall of her cheek. "Don't _do_ this!"

Remus could hear a faint voice calling to him, pleading with him to stay this madness before he made the biggest mistake of his life. A faint, quiet voice.

It was too shy to be Lily's, lower in tone than Molly Weasley's, older than Ginny's, so…who, then? Again, the semi-familiar voice called his name.

However, his thoughts and emotions were warring violently within his mind and his mind had become so polluted and diluted with rage that he could not discern exactly who the mysterious female's voice belonged to.

His anger towards Sirius escalated to an entirely new plane of existence, and all his mind could dwell on was what he had almost walked in on, what Sirius had almost _done_ …

Could his partner really, truly not be allowed to be left unattended for more than an hour on her own while he had an important Order errand to run.

Apparently not. There really was no such thing as a safe sanctuary any more.

The voice that spoke to Remus, Lily's sweet voice of sound reason, had by this point as events escalated and unfolded before his eyes, all but faded from the confines of his mind. James's voice was muffled, but still trying to reach him.

The only thing he was left with was his rage towards Sirius. Remus let out a growl and moved in closer, but before his ironclad grip could tighten around Black's throat and end this damned conflict of theirs, Lupin felt something soft collide against his chest, and a pair of slender, slightly weak arms wrapping themselves around his middle, and whoever it was, was practically grunting with the effort as they slowly but surely propelled him backward, trying to pry him away from Sirius.

And a voice, its soft susurration's wafting to his eardrums. A voice calling his name. No, not calling out to him. Begging him.

_Her_ voice. Tonks was pleading with him, her tone soft and frantic. "Please don't _do_ this, Remus! _Let_ _go_ of Sirius right now. Please, _please_ , put him down!"

The voice's resolution was growing slightly firmer, stronger now, and somehow, albeit miraculously, through the dense fog of his blinding rage and inner turmoil that was waging war on the already troubled confines of his mind, Remus recognized the sweet sound of his partner's voice, and a vision of her lovely face darted through his mind.

The vibrant image of an incredibly intelligent witch in her mid-twenties, with short pink hair cut in a stylish pixie, that would have made Umbridge feel as though she were connecting with a kindred spirit, and he blinked owlishly once or twice, and Tonks's face appeared clearly.

The young witch's eyes had the eyes of dove feathers, not the albino kind, but the ones with a hue so softly grey that they could have been pencil drawn.

They had that look of birds flying on sunlit days, the shine and quick movement, yet relaxed, purposeful, at ease, and as such, put _his_ soul at ease, too.

But perhaps more so than her eyes, it was the witch's bright white smile that had captured his attention most of all, and for some reason or other, that was foreign and quite unfamiliar to the melancholy wizard, made him feel almost breathless whenever he was around her presence. "Let _go_ of Sirius, Remus!"

The pink-haired Auror's smile was one of happiness growing, like whenever a flower was in full bloom. Remus could see how it came from deep inside to light the witch's grey eyes and spread into every fiber, every part of her.

A person smiles with more than just their mouth, and Lupin could hear it in Tonks's words, in the choice of her words, and the way she relaxed with him.

It was… _beautiful_. Startled by this, Lupin blinked and was immediately shoved back into the harsh reality of his situation. Immediately, as if by witch's curse, whatever spell he had been temporarily placed under fled him, and Tonks's image was all that remained.

And yet, for all his efforts, he couldn't rid himself of the young woman's sweet voice, and he found himself not wishing to, either.

" _Please_ , Remus." Her voice had become a whispered plea, and hopeless, listless as if all the energy had been sapped from her. "Let go of Sirius right now before you hurt him."

Dazed and not fully coherent, Lupin felt his hand not clutching onto his wand loosen his grip and he relinquished his hand's hold on Sirius Black's throat.

Lupin ignored Black slumping to the floor, using the wall as a brace for his back, as Padfoot erupted into a violent coughing fit, choking, clutching onto his throat.

Remus glanced downward, for that was where _her_ voice originated from. She was…she was… _hugging_ him, albeit rather weakly, and her form was shaking badly as the strength was leaving her legs, having exerted her body past its limits for one day, and Lupin knew that Tonks's stress levels were enormous.

_All your fault_ , the snakelike voice taunted, growing louder by the second.

Remus's gaze was drawn to her pale and perfect hands, currently clutching onto folds of his black woolen sweater as though her life depended on it. Small various cuts dotted alone the bone-white surface, bleeding slightly.

Though from what, Lupin didn't know. He was lucky, at the very least, that they appeared very shallow and the blood of her wounds was dry, cracked.

She did not, thank Merlin, seem to be in any immediate physical danger, for which Lupin felt immensely relieved. "Please, Remus," she begged. " _Don't_."

At that moment, Remus felt as though he had been hit squarely in the chest with a Knockback Jinx. _Hard_.

She was… _begging_ with him. _Pleading_ … And her sweet voice. Not since the night he had found her wandering in a semi-state of lucid consciousness and very near death had he heard Tonks speak to him did her voice sound so helpless, distraught, cracked, withered, broken…

Another wild bout of coughing momentarily drew him away from his fellow Order member's ashen, clammy face, beads of sweat forming on her brow, and back to the front of the library's entrance door, where Sirius had shakily risen to his feet, one hand still on the column of his throat.

Lupin winced visibly as he could see red markings in the shape of his own fingers already starting to bruise.

_Damn_. He stifled a low moan and locked his jaw out of a sudden wave of loneliness and self-hatred for himself.

Things between him and Sirius would never be the same again after this, for how could he _possibly_ apologize to the man now?

To his immense relief, as he heard Sirius's breathing slowly regulate back to normal and the man shot both Remus and Tonks quizzical looks, and when his inquisitive eyes drifted back towards Lupin, Padfoot had such a strange look of wonder mixed on his face intermingled with that of…almost _amusement_ , that Remus did not know what to believe.

He could not quite explain it, nor did he care to, but he could tell as Black's gaze was unwavering and unabashed as he refused to avert his gaze first, nor Lupin from his, that Sirius did not blame him.

"Sirius?" A new voice coming from the open entryway pierced through the unbelievable tension, shattering the thick silence between the Order members. "What's—what's going on? Mrs. Weasley sent me to come to get you, and…oh, I—I didn't know you had… _company_ , Sirius. Professor Lupin, sir, it's good to see you again, though I already said that back at my aunt and uncle's…"

Harry Potter blinked owlishly at Tonks through wide green eyes as his gaze briefly wandered the length of Tonks's broken, battered body and gawked.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as the kid's mouth opened and closed a couple of times as he took in her rather haggard-looking appearance and her pink pixie cut.

Her first impression of the teenager as he looked like a fish whenever he did that, and she really wished the kid would quit staring at her.

In a further attempt to quell the awkward tension and silence between the trio of friends, Harry nervously fidgeted with the ends of his pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm in the Black Family House's frigid library and still, his gaze lingered on Tonks before drifting to Remus skittishly, noticing how the man remained tall and rather protective towards the young pink-haired Auror.

It did not escape Tonks's attention how the boy's gaze lingered on Tonks's left hand, which was currently clutched in an ironclad tight fist around Remus's black sweater sleeve in her feeble attempt to pull Remus away from Sirius and put as much distance as she could between the pair of feuding friends over this misunderstanding, and Tonks flushed as it lingered too long on her ring finger, no doubt looking for any sign that she was taken to put a connection with how Remus knew her.

Tonks wiggled her brows and quirked one of them Harry's way nervously.

_Surely, he wouldn't be dumb enough to assume on me not wearing a ring._ _No. Surely not. From what Dumbledore's told you of him, he's smart._ _But… He's certainly not living up to his expectations, is he?_ Tonks mused.

It felt as though as she observed the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, in silence, that Harry James Potter was not exactly living up to the high standards or the stories about the boy of whom she had been told so much about at work.

Her mind continued these conflicting thoughts, swirling around in her tired head, and Tonks let out a barely audible sigh and rested her hand in her left cheek as though thoroughly bored, though, in actuality, she was quite relieved.

_If it weren't for Harry showing up, Remus and your cousin might have come to blows, and you're way too weak right now to stop it from happening_.

"Professor Lupin, sir," Harry began hesitantly, nervously weaving his fingers in between his knuckles. "I didn't know you had… _family_ , sir. Is this your wife?" he asked, his widened green eyes drifting back towards Tonks and Lupin.

Tonks felt her jaw drop open slightly in shock, as she blinked owlishly at the kid's wide green eyes behind his rimless glasses, too stunned to provide an apt response and tell him no, she was _not_ his wife, but rather, his partner, and he needed to pay better attention to his surroundings and not be so quick to make assumptions, for she wore no ring on her left finger, which she would if she were married, but she _wasn't_.

Tonks frowned, stunned at the fifteen-year-old's query. She bit the inside wall of her cheek, her frown deepening as the minutes dragged on. _How thick can you possibly get?_

She wiggled her brows at the boy, though he did not catch her look and thereby in retrospect, missed her subtle hint.

The moment Harry Potter had entered into the library, Remus's expression had become for lack of a better word, considering they were in a library, unreadable.

It was blank, devoid of all emotions. Lupin's head was slightly angled and bowed, and Tonks let out a sigh and blinked back frustrated tears.

By Merlin's beard, could the last two nights get _any_ worse for her?!

_Keep it together, T_ , Ollie's voice lightly chastised her, his baritone voice cutting through the ringing in her eardrums that was still resonating in her ears from all the shouting that Lupin threw Sirius's way but only a moment ago. _He needs you to be his pillar of strength right now. Be strong. For him_.

Though, the moment the question tumbled unchecked from Harry's lips, it seemed enough to break her partner out of his petrified state and respond.

"She _is_ your wife, Professor, sir, isn't she?" Harry asked again, frowning.

_That_ did it.

Tonks watched in stunned silence, she herself too shocked to respond to the boy's question, as Remus's head jerked so fast upward that she promptly withdrew her hand from the man's sweater sleeve.

His eyes were ablaze still with some raw, untamed emotion she could only describe as pure anger, though at Harry Potter's question posed to him, his lingering anger evaporated.

In its place, she watched as Remus struggled to regain composure of the myriad of emotions raging war in his mind as he struggled to answer his former student's question. "I…" he stammered, his voice trailing off quietly. She bit the inside wall of her cheek as a light pink blush speckled along her partner's cheek.

After a rather lingering and uncomfortable silence, it was none other than Sirius who came to his best friend's rescue, though not before hugging his godson.

"No, Harry, they aren't married, but they are…. _together_ ," Sirius said pointedly, fixing Remus and Tonks with a quizzical look, and Tonks was sure, yes, she was sure, that he shot the pair of them the briefest of winks, and she felt the tousling of her hair, and she quickly realized that Ptelea had poked his head out from underneath his spot.

Remus coughed once in embarrassment and turned his head to the side before swiveling his head back around and regarded Tonks with an incredulous look on his face and in his eyes.

"I…Harry this is my…my partner, Nymphadora Tonks," he began, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a slight smile as Harry, Sirius, and he watched as Tonks scrunched her nose and pulled a face.

" _Don't_ call me Nymphadora, Remus," she snapped, feeling her temper swell at the use of her surname, and if truth be told, she was still very much on edge over what had almost happened just now between poor Remus and Sirius. "It's Tonks. Or…"

_Dora_ is what she wanted to say if he was dead set on calling her by her first name, though Lupin had yet to call her that. She wondered if he ever would. Perhaps in time once they became more familiar with one another.

Remus offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile before turning back to Harry, though Tonks felt her brows knit together in quandary. She wasn't at all fooled. The smile currently plastered on his lined and handsome face was fake. "Who prefers to be known by her surname only," he finished warmly.

"So, would _you_ if _your_ fool of a mother called you Nymphadora," Tonks scowled, knitting her brows together in a frown as she recollected faintly the yells and screams of her parents and their hostile behavior towards Remus earlier.

This was all too much.

Tonks recognized the look of anguish and despair in her partner's eyes and suddenly, wanted nothing more than to get the kid out of here and speak to Remus alone. She did not know what he needed from her.

But it was up to Lupin to communicate whatever that thing or those things might be. Tonks blinked and took a half-step out from behind where Lupin stood and felt her eyes widen in shock and awe as she took in the form of Harry Potter.

Her gaze briefly wandered up to the red lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, and she promptly looked away when the fifteen-year-old blushed in embarrassment and shakily covered a hand to his forehead, as if to hide the scar.

"Bet you wouldn't mind hiding that scar sometimes, huh?" Tonks asked, in a last-ditch effort to steer the conversation towards something more pleasant.

"You could say that," Harry murmured darkly, to which Tonks nodded sympathetically.

Tonks, sensing Remus's newfound state of dumbfounded shock, as the man seemed to have temporarily lost the ability to form a cohesive sentence, stepped forward as gingerly as she could and outstretched a hand.

"Thank you, Harry, for…coming to find us. I—I'm sure you're hungry after the trip over here." she breathed, shooting Sirius and Lupin a dark little glance and gave a jerk of her head towards the open door. "Um, would you tell Mrs. Weasley that Remus and I will be right there and take Sirius with you and get him some water? He...almost passed out earlier?"

She shot Sirius a silently pleading look with her eyes, and drew in abated breath and held it, not aware she was even doing so until she saw her cousin offer a silent nod towards both Remus and herself, that Tonks heard herself release it.

Tonks could have sworn she felt Lupin stiffen in a reactionary way, and she clenched her eyes tightly shut as she somehow managed to detach his hand from her forearm and she hobbled behind Sirius and Harry Potter, who continuously kept shooting Lupin and Tonks quizzical glances behind his back.

Silently fuming, Tonks let out a tired sigh as a muscle in her jaw twitched as she escorted the godfather and his godson to the library's door and closed it once they had crossed the threshold of the room and back out into the corridor.

Exhaling a slightly shaking sigh of relief, Tonks breathed in slow. In and out. In and out. Repeat a few more times and she felt her heartbeat come down off its high.

It didn't feel like she was going to pass out anymore, so that was good.

It was evident by the look in Remus's eyes that he needed her support.

Remus bit down hard on his tongue as his jaw clenched and his teeth dug on the wall of his mouth again. He let out a quick and dense breath aggravated with tension still, as his mind was no doubt plagued with visions of her and Sirius.

He had—oh, _Merlin_ , he had almost _injured_ his best friend, and for what? Because he had caught the two of them in a seemingly compromising position?

Lupin felt like he didn't have time to linger on the strange, foreign feeling of possessiveness that he felt whenever Tonks was around other men, for she was the one suffering.

He visibly winced at seeing the hallowing in the woman's face. The darkening circles underneath both eyes. Cold sweat was forming on her browbone, glistening on her gaunt features. Her eyes sunken in and slightly sallow skin, Tonks was not looking good at all, and Lupin's guilt intensified, knowing the stress her body was undergoing, was direct causation of his actions towards Sirius a few moments ago.

_All your fault_ , the snakelike voice hissed into the shell of his ear, whispering it over and over again.

She'd no doubt did not have a decent night's sleep in who knows when, and Remus's guilt sat heavily on his shoulders, and he knew that he could not un-do tonight what had been done.

The best that Remus could hope for was that Sirius would forgive him.

Remus growled in irritation and shoved aside thoughts of Padfoot for now. Tonks was the one who needed him to be strong, for she was experiencing pain, and all he wanted to do was shove aside thoughts of Sirius for now and think of how to keep his partner from hurting even more. Though he didn't know how.

He watched in silence, too stunned for words as Tonks limped towards him. Maybe there was nothing there, and he would completely understand her reasoning if she no longer desired him as her partner after he'd behaved, but…

And then he blinked as she held out her arms and did not hesitate to envelop him in her arms, taking him completely by surprise and catching him off-guard.

The hug was a simple-enough gesture—affection laced within, perhaps even the beginnings of a tentative understanding between the two of them, he knew.

Though what Remus did not know at the time, nor did Tonks, was that it was the beginnings of something much stronger, as this was the solidifying moment that their bond became as hot as molten lava, hard and unbreakable as stone when Nymphadora Tonks did not condemn or yell at him for his behavior.

The arms that held him about his middle were soft and yet strong. The feel of Tonks's body and the heat she seemed to radiate, so close to his own, soothed Remus all the more, more so than he had expected.

Automatically, Lupin felt his arms fold about her shoulders, and rested his chin on top of the young witch's hair, allowing the scent of honeysuckle and pinewood and autumn to calm him.

Gingerly, as if handling the most delicate of china, Remus lifted his hand as it somehow found its way to the back of her hair and entangled his fingers in her thick strands, allowing them to drift comfortingly through the rest of her hair.

"Tonks?" He winced at how uncertain and cracked her name sounded coming from him in his current emotional state of distress over her and Sirius.

Remus furrowed his brows into a slight frown as he promptly lowered his hand and it came to rest at but not on her waist just in case she felt faint or sick.

But even more so than that, he was surprised at how both of her hands curled into tight fists over his arms, as though she were the one clinging to him as if she believed he would somehow vanish right before her very eyes right now.

"It's all right, Remus. I—I don't blame you for what happened, but I—I need you to _trust_ _me_. I'm your _partner_ , Lupin. Nothing happened between Sirius and me. I am telling you the truth. I fell. He caught me, and you walked in on it. That's all. Nothing more and nothing less."

Tonks's voice was hoarse, and it cracked and faltered when she said his name. Disbelief and worry wrought within her tones, and yet, as she regarded her partner in silence, the faintest ghost of a smile crossed her beautiful features, and her gray inquisitive eyes almost seemed to crinkle and brighten with pure light.

It felt as though several moments passed that felt like an eternity to him. Remus was internally relieved that his partner did not relinquish her grip on him, for he did not want to let this celestial like creature within his grasp go. _Ever_.

The little world confined in the library seemed to distort and melt away as Lupin lowered his chin slightly to meet Tonks's gaze. In those silent seconds, an unspoken feeling passed between the two of them, a private moment.

What it _was_ , Remus did not know, and he didn't even claim to understand it, but perhaps Molly would know what it was later if he was of a sound mind to ask her later.

He could not even remember what he had almost done. What had he almost done?

And then, as his gaze briefly drifted towards the now-closed door, he remembered, and it hit him like he'd been hit square in the chest with a spell. Remus winced and cast a furtive, guilty look back towards Tonks as his memory came back to him, and immediately wished that he had not looked.

The abject horror he had felt at coming into the library in search of Tonks and finding Sirius in a compromising, suggestive position on top of Nymphadora.

And then _rage_. Hot, fiery scalding rage hotter than any dragon flame as it burned through his veins, like nothing else he'd ever felt before.

Not even Crouch the other night invoked this sense of _anger_. It seemed it had hurt worse when it was a man whom he considered above all else his last remaining friend.

To his utter horror, Remus realized that he had welcomed this anger into his heart, and he felt that damned stubborn corded muscle within his chest practically drop into the pit of his churning stomach, and he tasted acidic bile.

What had he almost _done_?! He'd almost _killed_ Sirius just now with his anger. "Oh, _God_ …I—I almost killed Sirius, Tonks. I—I can't…" He cried, turning away from Tonks, and raking his fingers through his light brown hair. "What have I done?!" he yelled, blinking back bitter tears.

"Shhh," Tonks murmured lowly in what she hoped was a soothing and reassuring tone. Still, the young pink-haired Auror did not relinquish her grip on his arm, and Remus could feel the witch move and match his movements.

Her fingers tightened on the back of his sweater for support, her one good hand not bound in its sling drifted upwards and found its way to the back of his hair and she absently smoothed down a stray fly away, and Lupin could not repress the slight tremor that had nothing to do with the cool temperature of this room as it traveled down his back as she raked her fingers through his coarse brown hair.

"It's all right, Remus," she murmured. "Sirius already forgives you. I saw it in his eyes. You—you didn't mean it. You—you were reacting out of anger for my well-being."

"Tonks?" Lupin's quiet, reserved voice sounded much rougher and coarser than before, and more than a little slightly put off, Tonks was inclined to believe, though she had no time to question it as she quickly turned her head.

She sniffed once and flicked back the one and only tear as it traveled down her cheek, for her partner did not need to see her cry yet again if she could help it.

"Yes?" Tonks whispered, hating hearing how her voice lowered an octave.

"I…" Lupin's voice broke as it faltered and he hesitated in his resolve as if he did not know exactly how to phrase whatever it was that he wanted to say to her. "I…I am so _sorry_. I never meant to—for any of this to happen, I…."

Remus's soft tones came out as broken and distraught, and his strong arms tightened around the young woman, and Tonks let out a muffled squeak of surprise as suddenly, her head was nestled underneath his chin as he hugged her.

Tonks furrowed her brows and resisted the urge to let out a groan of frustration.

Again, he blamed himself and was now trying to apologize to her. _Again_. But _why_?!

Why did everything within the last few hours suddenly revolve around hurt feelings, tears, and apologies?

What on Merlin's green earth could Remus have done that warranted the amount of hurt and anguish that surged through his tones, for Tonks knew he had done nothing wrong just now.

Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose and albeit reluctantly pulled apart and stepped back slightly to study Remus's pale, incredibly hurt face.

"I forgive you," she whispered, speaking the words she knew Lupin needed to hear. "I'm sorry too, my friend. Let's…let's just try to put it behind us. Perhaps we _both_ apologize for the way that we acted towards one another and move forward with our relationship?" Tonks bit her bottom lip and stuck it out in a slight pout.

Remus could feel his brown eyes widen in shock and awe and he could not help the shock that crept its way into his tone as his question passed his lips.

"Wh— _what_? Why are _you_ sorry? There's nothing to be sorry for."

Now it was Tonks's turn to look incredibly confused because her expression changed from one of morose to one of immense astonishment.

"Why? What do you mean, 'what for?'" she scowled, biting the wall of her cheek. "Because I hurt your feelings earlier. I—I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. I—I didn't mean to…to chase you away, it's just that…"

Here, Tonks's voice trailed off and she looked away for a moment to compose herself. "That everything that's happened to me in the last few days, happened so quickly…and...I really do like you. I like you a lot, and I did not take your feelings into account, Remus. I'm sorry."

Lupin nodded, though he was lost. He was the one who had not listened to her and had almost injured his best friend.

"But _I'm_ the one who should apologize, Tonks. I hurt you. I—I didn't respect that you needed your space."

Tonks opened her mouth to say something to him but must have thought better of it because she promptly closed it. "Don't worry about it. We're past it. We're past it."

Remus could only watch as Tonks gave a soft sigh of exasperation and carded her fingers through her pixie cut.

Lupin watched as his partner began to nervously fidget with her fingers. He had clearly noticed Tonks's dilemma, for he spoke once again, but this time, his tone was more certain, and much clearer and more articulate than before. "I—I would like that. To…to put the last few days behind us, Tonks."

Tonks offered a curt nod, signaling that she understood and respected his needs. "I meant what I said," she began cautiously, untangling her fingers from her short hair and offering him a shy, small half-smile that made his heart flutter. "That you and I both apologize for the way we acted and move _forward_? I—I want our partnership to get on the right foot with one another, you, and me. Could we try again, Remus? We have to if this is going to work," she asked, unable to disguise the note of hope in her voice and she glanced down and realized he had offered her his arm to escort her out of the bloody freezing library and to the kitchens of Headquarters.

"Try again?" Remus repeated, as though he had misheard Tonks's words, stepping forward gingerly as he reached up the hand not currently offering his partner support so swipe his bangs off his forehead. "Even after... _that_ ," he said, a pained look in his eyes as his gaze flitted towards the scorch mark on the wallpaper that he had caused. "You are still willing to forgive me because you want to..." His voice trailed off, and he looked away, biting his tongue. "Are you sure you want this? Can we start again? You and me? Can I get to know you, Nymphadora?"

Tonks playfully scrunched her nose at her partner in jest and rolled her eyes as Lupin carefully opened the library door, and the sounds of the other Order members and the Weasleys and Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione gathered in the kitchens of Grimmauld Place for dinner, and Molly called them.

"Please _don't_ call me that," she sighed in exasperation. "If you _must_ call me by my first name, then please…call me Dora. Only if you want, Remus," she groaned.

Remus grinned, and it sent an unexpected spiral of warmth throughout her entire system, and Tonks decided that she liked it, this heat emanating in her chest. "I think I like that better anyway. Much better than calling you by your surname only. Very well. _Dora_."

She shivered at the way it sounded, though it wasn't necessarily a bad feeling, though it did leave Tonks feeling quite confused and warm.

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" Tonks asked as she allowed herself to be guided gingerly and slowly down the darkened hallway towards the chaotic kitchen, where it sounded like Mrs. Weasley was yelling at Fred and George for bewitching a cutting board and knife with bread towards the table, and it sounded as though it had narrowly avoided missing Sirius's right hand.

Tonks heard herself speak the words, and she believed she really did sound quite dim, and she bit the inside wall of her cheek, cursing herself for being so _stupid_.

It had not been her intention at all to come across as rather dim-witted. _If Remus wanted dim-witted for a partner, then Dumbledore would have given him Harry Potter_ , Tonks thought rather meanly as she recollected the boy's mindless query of how the boy had assumed the two of them to be married.

_Married_! She frowned as she realized Lupin had not answered her query.

It was when Remus allowed a light laugh to escape his lips and he squeezed her arm, and gave her a blindingly bright smile that Tonks knew she was in serious, serious trouble…


	27. Her  Boggart

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN **

Two weeks had passed since Lupin had brought her home from St. Mungo's, and Tonks was feeling overwhelmed at how much Mrs. Weasley had to put up with, and how crowded Number 12, Grimmauld Place could get at times, and the stress it sometimes caused, between Molly yelling at Fred and George for something or other, scolding her youngest son, Ron, for taking a lackadaisical approach towards helping purge Grimmauld Place of all the unsavory things during the cleaning process, or the countless Order meetings that took place in secret behind closed doors in the kitchens was causing the young witch to begin to think that she was wondering if her injuries would ever fully heal up.

Most of the other Order members, like Sirius, Remus, and Molly, were quite patient and understanding with her as she isolated herself at the far end of the table and allowed her mind to drift as she would continuously flex her wand hand's fingers into as much of a fist as she could through gritted teeth, trying to power through the pain, now that Mr. Ollivander had stopped by personally with a selection of several wands for her try, and spent over two hours with her in her bedroom trying the wands, away from the more valuable items in the house in case the wands grew temperamental, along with the uncontrollable tremors of her hand.

Ten wands later, and after a great deal of frustration on Tonks's, part, she was equipped with a brand-new wand, and Ollivander had not charged her for it, either.

Her new replacement wand was made of dragon heartstring with elm and dogwood at its core. A sleek, slender design, more so than her last wand.

Still, Tonks could not help but mourn for the loss of her wand, the one that she had obtained from Ollivander's when she was only eleven years old and had been by her side through thick and thin.

In many ways, it felt to the young Auror as though she were mourning the loss of dearly beloved ways.

She supposed that, perhaps in some small way, that she was. Tonks heaved a sigh and clutched her new wand in her other arm, which, thankfully, after two weeks was out of its splint.

She winced and flexed her wand hand's fingers and bit the wall of her cheek as a white-hot fiery pain shot up her entire right arm and her side.

"I need—oh, excuse me, dear! I did not anticipate finding you in the kitchens at this hour. I thought you'd be with Remus upstairs," a woman's voice rent out through the doorway, and Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upright to regard the new arrival.

Mrs. Weasley was staring at her with a concerned expression in her kind brown eyes as her gaze drifted up towards Tonks's pixie, which was a light ginger color flecked with highlights of blonde, and she knew Molly was thinking that today, Tonks could easily pass as a Weasley relative if Tonks was of a mind to.

Mrs. Weasley offered Tonks a kind smile. "I do believe Remus is upstairs with Sirius, Harry, Ron, and Hermione helping to rid the attic of a particularly troublesome ghoul. From the sounds of things, Sirius is having more fun than the others and refuses to get rid of it just so he can have some fun with it," she chuckled, shaking her head slightly in disbelief, though her cheerful smile quickly faltered as she soon took note of Tonks's pale face and sullen expression.

"I—I was going to join them and try to help them remove it, b—but I would only be a burden on them," Tonks sighed, lifting her shaking wand hand.

"I see." Molly pursed her lips, and it was clear the older witch pitied her, but Tonks wanted nor did she need no one's pity. They could keep it. "Are you all right, dear?" Mrs. Weasley's matronly, concerned voice spoke up from the entryway of the kitchen as she lingered in the doorway, no doubt expressing her concern for the fact that Tonks was isolating herself yet again.

Tonks nodded mutely, biting the inside wall of her cheek, and clenching her eyes shut as she gingerly rubbed her wrist with her other hand, wishing the tremors would just stop. She had no idea what to do to fix it, or how to even try.

"Mmm?" Tonks blearily lifted her head and attempted to focus her gaze on Molly's face. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Weasley, I—I am fine," Tonks managed to gasp out, though even she could tell Molly wasn't exactly fooled as the young pink-haired Auror promptly turned away in her chair, refusing to meet Mrs. Weasley's piercing, knowing soft stare.

The young Auror ground her teeth as her hand refused to stop its incessant shaking and she was forced to practically sit on it in an effort to quell it. "Nothing you need to trouble yourself over. I am _fine_."

"Mmm," was all Molly murmured, though she did not sound entirely convinced by Tonks's words of reassurance, as she nodded her head and took the seat opposite Tonks at the kitchen table.

It did not escape Tonks's attention that there was a lot of activity going on in the kitchens, and Molly was in the middle of preparations and had hung gold and scarlet banners across the kitchen's wall.

"What are you doing, Molly?" Tonks asked, at last, furrowing her brows in a slight frown as she regarded the gold and garnet banners as the material proceeded to drape itself across the wall, all the while supervised under Molly.

"Ron and Hermione were just appointed Gryffindor prefects!" Mrs. Weasley gushed in almost a singsong voice, and it could not have been more evident to Tonks that she had been just dying to announce it to anyone willing to listen. "I thought that this caused for a little celebration this evening in about thirty minutes or so. I thought we'd have a party, not a sit-down dinner. Kingsley's coming, of course, so is Mad-Eye, Hestia, Emmeline, and a few others."

As she spoke, she flicked her wand at the stove, where a pot sat idle in waiting and a knife rose in midair as it began to peel potatoes for mashed potatoes.

Tonks nodded her head slowly at all the information, taking it all in. She felt her face reluctantly mold into a false smile, to hide her pain from Molly, and the rest of the Order as well.

_Even Remus_ , her conscience added guiltily.

Furrowing her brows into a frown, she scowled and shoved it away. The reason that she did this so often these days, was because she did not want to worry Lupin, or anyone else for that matter, to reassure them that she was just fine. But she _wasn't_ fine.

Far from it. The pains were becoming too unbearable, and it hurt her even now to fake a smile, but she could not let Molly know of it.

Tonks shot Molly a white smile and hoped it was genuine, that her eyes did not betray her, that a party, any kind of social gathering, was not at all what she wanted, nor what she needed right now to heal.

"That's wonderful! A great honor. I was never a prefect myself, I spent too much time in detention with Barnaby and Charlie, but that would make almost everyone in your family to have achieved that status. You should be proud of Ron, Mrs. Weasley," she murmured lowly, sounding pained. "Pass along my congratulations to the two of them for me," she said, and rose from her chair, albeit shakily as she did such.

The young witch could not explain it, but she was hit with an immense desire to be alone as an unexpected wave of uncertainty and sadness washed over her.

Now it was Mrs. Weasley's turn to frown. "Oh, but you're coming, dear."

Tonks winced, her back to Molly. Coming from the matronly witch, it did not necessarily sound like a request, and if there was one thing that she had learned over the last two weeks, it was that Mrs. Weasley, though quite kind and gentle, possessed a fiery temper that you did not want to invoke or be on the receiving end of. In all honesty, she had no intention of going to this 'party.'

Particularly not if Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones were going to be there.

Everyone, Tonks knew, had their reasons for being how they were.

Some of them learned to get past their troubles, their trials, and tribulations, and mature, whereas others got stuck in a sort of basic mode of fear and reactions, loving responses absent or portioned out for personal gain.

Such behaviors were typical of Hestia and Emmeline, who, for whatever reason, did not seem to like Tonks. Tonks felt the muscles in her back stiffen as her posture became rigid as she straightened up and stood to her full height, which wasn't saying much.

She let out a barely audible sigh and pinched at the front of her temples.

"I…I will be there, Molly. Of course. But for now, I think, I'd like to go lie down. Excuse me," she murmured, turning back around, and offering Mrs. Weasley a curt nod of her head before the matronly witch could open her mouth to speak and darting out of the kitchens and towards the hallway, towards the front door.

She had no intentions of going upstairs and taking a nap. She needed air, more than anything, as it felt as though her lungs were constricting and closing off.

To the outside. Tonks swallowed nervously past the lump in her throat as she realized Remus was upstairs and would likely no doubt throw a fit if he were to learn that she just…wanted to step outside for a moment for air.

Gingerly, as quietly as she could, she slipped out the front door and collapsed on the front stoop, and twiddled her thumbs, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap as she glanced out at the bustling crowded streets of London in front.

Sometimes, she wondered what would happen to her if she were just to get on the Knight Bus and just… _go_.

Go somewhere, anywhere, to get away. _Especially if Emmeline and Hestia are coming for dinner tonight_ , Ollie's voice piped up in the back of her mind, a note of bitterness in his baritone voice.

Whenever Emmeline and Hestia attended the dinners following the conclusion of their Order meetings, the pair of witches would often cast their gazes down at the end of the table, just long enough to catch a brief glimpse of Tonks's red-rimmed irises and downcast expression that sent Tonks bristling.

They said Tonks was mean, stand-offish, but in actuality, she was _hurting_ , and the pair of women, for reasons unknown to Tonks, either could not see that for themselves and were as blind as a bat, or they simply refused to acknowledge it.

She flat out refused to speak in detail at great length of Crouch's assault, of which the pair of Order members had seemingly taken an interest in, and were more than a little off-put when Tonks refused, though Lupin had come to her defense, for which she was eternally grateful. Yet another debt that she owed him.

Emmeline and Hestia behaved as though they found Tonks a severe inconvenience and had made snickering remarks just last week when Tonks, unable to control the tremors in her wand hand, attempted to lift a glass and it promptly broke and shattered, though thankfully, in a moment of mercy, Remus had waved his wand and caused the glass to vanish before any more damage could be done.

She had silently tried to thank her partner with her eyes then, but there had been a brief look exchanged between Lupin and Vance that she wasn't entirely sure that she liked, and she could not quite place her feelings of anger toward her.

Whatever the feeling was last week, it had immediately killed her good mood, and she spent the rest of the dinner in a sullen, morose, sulking mood.

Tonks did not necessarily want a repeat of the events of last week and was in no mood currently to socialize with more than a few people at a time, but nor did she want to come across as rude and ungrateful to Mrs. Weasley.

Sadly, this was becoming a rather common occurrence around Tonks, their bad behavior.

Emmeline and Hestia might be outwardly polite to her during Order meetings and briefings of assignments, but that did not necessarily mean they were kind to her.

And Tonks, given the scope of her injuries and the fact that she was not to return to the Auror Office for a few more months yet, did not find it exactly easy to make conversation with the pair of witches and best friends.

Tonks did not mean to be demeaning towards her fellow Order members and work colleagues, but from the little snippets of conversation she did manage to overhear at the kitchen table during supper, she knew instantly that it was going to be very hard to talk to women like that, who derived a sick sense of pleasure in engaging in gossip, mainly because the three of them shared no common interests whatsoever, and the only thing they shared in common was their status as Aurors, though if Tonks had to hazard a guess, the pair of them were jealous of her, for Tonks was admittedly the youngest and smartest Auror in the office.

As a result, Kingsley had promoted her two weeks ago prior to her attack that involved her leading a team of Aurors under her immediate supervision, two of them being Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones, who were resentful of the fact that they had been looked over for the promotion, despite their experience and years at the Auror Office that superseded how long Tonks had been employed with the Ministry of Magic, and the fact that the two women were older, Tonks believed that they harbored a great amount of resentment towards the fact that they were now forced to take orders from a witch who was two times younger than them.

It was just a suspicion, of course, one that she could not prove, though Tonks tended to follow her instincts, and her gut was almost never wrong about these types of things.

Emmeline and Hestia spent their time gossiping about other people, talking about her behind her back, and Emmeline continued to constantly take the seat right next to Remus and poorly flirt, which, for reasons unknown to Tonks, continued to bother her and sent fiery swells of anger in the pit of her stomach.

Though why that might be, Tonks did not know.

Why should _she_ care if Emmeline sat next to Remus?

For there was nothing romantic or otherwise between her and Lupin, so it should not matter in the slightest. Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown and rested her cheek in her hand.

Her partner, and Vance, for that matter, were at perfect liberty to spend time with one another, should they decide that's what they wanted, so why, then, did Emmeline Vance's incessant, boorish attempts at flirting, _bother_ her so much?

Why did it send spirals of rage through her blood? She had known her partner all of but a precious two weeks, and granted, while their relationship had improved drastically following their somewhat intimate conversation in the library following the incident with extracting her Bowtruckle from the air vent, the simple fact of the matter remained that she didn't really truly _know_ Remus Lupin.

At least, not as well as she'd have liked.

Tonks, as much to respect the man's privacy as much her own, purposefully kept him at somewhat of a distance.

She did not want to hurt him. She could not—would _not_ —allow Remus to share in Ollie's fate. _No_. Tonks ground her teeth and clenched her jaw in anger, forcing herself to think of something admittedly more pleasant than that of an old haunt, that _ghost_.

Her thoughts drifted momentarily to that of her father. To Ted, and how Dad and Mum both had always told her she was an extraordinarily gifted witch and one that was ahead of her time, and while this was a good thing, it did nothing to shake the feeling that sometimes Tonks felt like she was truly alone in this life.

She couldn't very well start talking about Macbeth and Banquo and Duncan to Emmeline and Hestia. When she had attempted to discuss it at first when she had attempted to make small talk with the pair of witches, Vance had plainly stated that she did not know a Duncan or a Banquo that worked at the Ministry, which had left Tonks feeling utterly speechless and at a loss for words.

Tonks firmly believed it was that moment that had stirred the pot, in a metaphorical sense, and Vance and Hestia and the others in the Order became slowly aware that Tonks was not like the rest of them, and she was different, and not just because of her label as a Metamorphmagus.

She was highly educated, though soft-spoken, shy, reserved, with a fascination for Muggle playwright William Shakespeare, and was more than content to hole up on the couch or in her bedroom slowly making her way through the compendium Sirius gave her.

This thoroughly puzzled them, and Tonks was inclined to believe that women like Hestia Jones and Emmeline Vance felt belittled and perhaps jealous.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as she recollected the second night of her stay in Grimmauld Place when she'd moved behind Vance and Hestia to choose a baked potato, actively averting her gaze, though the heat had crept to her cheeks the moment she learned Emmeline and Hestia were talking about her.

"There's something strange about this one," murmured Hestia lowly as they turned around, their plates loaded with food as they moved to take their seats. "She _never_ talks to anyone but Remus during dinner, haven't you noticed?"

"Well, the man _is_ her partner. She's cut off from her parents and forced to live in this smelly old dung heap. Perhaps she just misses her family?" Emmeline suggested, who was, Tonks even had to admit, a good deal less mean than Hestia, but unfortunately, not by much, as she still partook in the gossiping. "She's shy."

Not that Tonks did not put in an effort and try. She did, but whenever the young pink-haired witch did manage to engage in a conversation, it always ended with the same dumbfounded expression on her counterpart's face: Disbelief.

The only comfort in this uncertain time that she was able to find lay in the infrequent times she'd managed to socialize with Sirius, Mrs. Weasley, or Remus.

The trio was only too eager to assist Tonks in healing however they could, particularly Lupin, and he seemed to be finding an increasing number of excuses to spend more time with her, though Tonks wasn't fooled.

He wanted to know her. Like _truly_ know her. And Tonks wasn't entirely sure she could allow that. For if he _did_ know her, what she had done, then he would no longer want her in his life as a partner, much less as a friend, and then she would be right back where she started in life. All alone, with no one to turn to during times of stress.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and ran her tongue over her teeth as the door creaked open and a man's voice spoke up and she stifled a small groan.

She had been hoping to remain in solitude for the time being, but it looked as though that time was over.

Tonks let out a tired sigh and fidgeted with her new wand, shifting the delicate thing in between her knuckles as Sirius sat down.

"Intuition told me I'd find you out here, somehow, cousin. You really _don't_ like crowds, do you? Well, you and Moony have that in common, at least. Lupin's upstairs cleaning up the rest of the…bloody _mess_ with the ghoul." His way of an introduction as he flinched as he took a seat next to her on the stoop.

"I…" Tonks allowed her voice to trail off as she promptly looked away from Sirius's piercing gaze. "I am trying my best to stay out of people's way. Since I cannot help, I would only be a burden to anyone attempting to clean."

His cousin, sensing his exhaustion, slowly shifted at the waist, and peeked back over her shoulder at the stoop, though the door remained closed.

Tonks nodded and turned back around and turned her head to the left to regard Sirius.

Those familiar gray eyes and inquisitive look that suggested Nymphadora Tonks always knew more than she let on caused a spasm under his skin that Sirius knew had nothing to do with the cold, but it felt as if whenever she did this to him, looked at him this way, that she was looking past his skin, deep into his soul, for some small semblance of assurance and trust—with just a flickering of fear.

"He wanted you there, you know. Moony did," mumbled Sirius, glancing down and picking at a loose thread on his crimson jacket. "In the attic, I mean, he was deeply upset that he didn't get to show off his dueling skills to you, I think," he elaborated, teasing her slightly, upon seeing Tonks shoot a quirked brow his way. "I think it _offended_ him when you did not take him up on his offer to have you join us."

Sirius did not bother to stifle the dark little chuckle that escaped his lips as he folded his arms across his chest. "Though if you ask _me_ , I think he just wants you there because he likes to be able to keep an eye out for you. Makes him feel wanted. _Needed_ , in a way, I suppose you could say," Sirius sighed, troubled.

"I would have only gotten in the way, Sirius," Tonks grumbled darkly.

Sirius frowned, confused, and pondered over his cousins' surly attitude. Was she still thinking over the little incident in the library? Is _that_ what was making Tonks so doubtful? It took a while before Tonks answered Sirius.

"I hope you did not leave too much of a mess up there for him," she sighed, carding her fingers through her short ginger pixie, and setting her wand balancing on her knee.

A thick, heavy silence lay between the pair of them, and Sirius at first believed it to be because she was looking at something that glinted.

He removed the Black family's locket and she flushed and promptly looked away, realizing she'd been caught staring at it.

Sirius held it out silently to his cousin for inspection. Tonks stared at the small golden locket before taking it.

"What is it?" she murmured quietly; her brows knitted together in thought. She shifted the small golden locket in her palm and felt its weight. Light.

"A cherished family heirloom, I suppose you could say," Sirius snapped, unable to disguise the note of bitterness laced through his tone. "My brother gave it to me shortly before his disappearance. Told me to guard it with my life. I've tried several times to open it, but the damned bloody thing is locked uptight."

Right as he spoke the words, a cold breeze touched them like Death's caress, its frigid spindly fingers touching the hairs on the backs of Sirius's neck as he watched in silence as his cousin fingered the golden locket.

"It's strange…"

Tonks brushed the pad of her thumb at the surface of the device. If she squinted hard enough, she could see her minute reflected in the polished sheen of the gold.

"Seems to call out to you, doesn't it?" Sirius growled in annoyance.

"I don't know what this is, Sirius, but it's been cursed with Dark Magic," Tonks responded, speaking to her cousin without ad-lib, and it seemed as Tonks continued to clutch onto the locket in her hand, that the device itself was pulling words out of her mouth that she was not meant to be saying. "It's _cursed_ , Black. If it cannot be destroyed, then…throw it in the Black Lake at Hogwarts, and then drown it."

Sirius was taken aback by Tonks's statement, but not necessarily afraid. And he found that he could more than agree with her.

There was a darkness within that golden locket that used to belong to his brother, Regulus, something spectral and dangerous.

But unlike others who Sirius had shown it to before, Tonks possessed eyes and a keen insight that delved deeper into the locket's psyche, into the darkness and bitterness that was no doubt trapped, rooted within.

Briefly, he wondered if it would be appropriate to mention that, during the last week since finding the bloody thing buried among a pile of rubbish in Kreacher's little nesting den, he had slept with it under his pillow for safekeeping.

And during that time, Sirius was plagued with horrible nightmares, that he was beginning to wonder if his dreams would start to rival that of Remus's.

He dreamed of _her_ and hearing her screams, and a horrible, scorching fire, helpless and begging for someone to help her, and Sirius was forced to walk along with a decrepit and burning, crumbling house, but was invincible of the flames, and he continued his way through the house like a ghost, following the sound of her screams.

Sirius tried to call out to her when he finally found her, bereft of clothing and brutally beaten within an inch of her life, battered, bruised, and ravaged.

And he saw the face of the man that did it, that dark-haired demon with the glinting dark eyes with a wide Cheshire Cat-like grin, taking pleasure as he took her over and over again, and made Lupin _watch_.

And then this part and this part was always the same, Moony tried to save her, and failed, and the devastation in his face as he held her lifeless body was entirely too much to bear, hearing the anguished screams, and it was oft around this point in the dream that Sirius would wake up bathed in a cold sweat.

Once, he'd flung the locket across the room. Not that it quelled the hushed, almost snakelike whisperings in his mind that he was certain was emanating off the locket somehow, cursed with Dark Magic though it may be.

_It lives_ , is what Sirius wanted to blurt out to his cousin as the two of them sat in awkward silence on the front stoop of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. _It's alive. It's evil_.

But he restrained himself, though he felt the fingers of his left hand gave a twitch as he resisted the urge to smack the locket out of Tonks's hand and let the damned thing fling into the street. Let it get run over by a car or the Knight Bus.

_It lives, and it's dangerous, Tonks. It wants to murder you and destroy Remus's soul and consume you. I have to destroy it, but I don't know-how. I need your help. Remus needs you_. Is what he _wanted_ to say, but how could Sirius even possibly begin to tell the two of them the truth.

He had to warn his cousin and his best friend that somehow, some way, she was in danger, and he could not explain it, for he thought she wouldn't believe him if he were to make such an attempt as to try.

But Sirius remained silent, for better or worse, and watched as thunderclouds rolled in. The low boom rolled across the city of London, announcing the start of what the brooding cloud layer had promised them all since dawn's first rays.

The boughs of the trees nearby swayed in the strengthening gust, surrendering their end-of-summer leaves without much of a fight in the end.

"Storm's coming, Black," Tonks remarked airily by way of attempting to continue their conversation as the vicious-looking thunderstorm that carried the heady scent of rain that wafted through their nostrils approached even closer.

The young Auror cocked her head to the side and strained her eyes, much like a She-Wolf or a female dog would do whenever it found something curious.

_Somehow, I don't think she's talking about the thunder_ , Sirius thought.

There were growling, omniscient dark clouds gathering above, looming over her and Sirius.

Sirius stiffened as he heard the door open and he was, if he was being honest with himself, completely disturbed to have sensed the goosebumps on Tonks's skin as the hairs on the back of her neck as the new arrival stepped out onto the stoop behind the pair of them, though the door remained unclosed.

It was as if Tonks could sense someone looking at them without even having to turn around to look to see who it was. "Remus…"

Her voice was low and soft as she turned slightly and the two of them faced Lupin, and Remus's gaze was slightly suspicious and hardened, though if Sirius wasn't mistaken, when his light brown eyes moved to Tonks, who remained unstirred from her spot on the stoop, her foot finally out of that damned boot, his lips reformed to form a smile, but it was entirely obvious that it was false.

Sirius felt the corners of his mouth tug downward into a scowl as Lupin stepped forward, pocketing his wand into the interior pocket of his brown jacket.

"You shouldn't be out here, Tonks," Remus announced, sounding slightly condescending as he lifted his head to gaze upward at the storm clouds. "You could get sick in this weather. You don't have a jacket on. I _looked_ for you, in the library, but when you weren't there, I thought…" His voice trailed off and Lupin fell silent, regarding the pair of them.

Sirius saw how his best friend's gaze traveled from Tonks's eyes to her cheek and therein they lingered on her lips. Sirius snorted, to which he received a particularly scathing look from Remus, who was still mulling over the incident two weeks ago in the library, that despite Sirius forgiving him for it, he would not forget Lupin's irrational behavior any time soon.

_How protective of her he was_. He was certain that Remus was growing increasingly fond of his cousin. Smitten, even. Infatuated, but who wouldn't be?

Her face was more than enough to attract an entire army of followers at Dumbledore's side, her Metamorphing abilities completely notwithstanding.

"I needed some air, Remus. Your best friend was kind enough to join me out here and keep me company."

Tonks's voice sounded incredibly small, and Sirius flinched as Lupin's gaze strode back towards him, where he sat on the step.

"Sirius. Thank you for keeping my partner company. Tonks needs someone like you to help her get used to the… _strangeness_ of Grimmauld Place."

Though his words were kind, there was no mistaking the undertone of curt triteness in the man's usually kind tone, and it did not sound like Remus at all.

Tonks shot Remus an incredulous and slight look of disbelief intermingled with that of confusion, though she had no time as the man offered her his arm.

Sirius gave a curt nod towards Lupin's general direction, though his gaze remained fixated on that of his cousin as he winced at the stiffness in his knees as he rose to his feet.

That damned bloody ghoul had put up one hell of a fight.

Tonks's face was flushed pink and high with color, though it did not take an intellectual genius to recognize that his cousin was embarrassed, though not for herself, Sirius could deduce that much, but rather, at having placed him yet again in an uncertain situation regarding her partner's jealous and possessive behavior towards her, and she looked as though she wanted very much to apologize on behalf of Remus, but closed her mouth and thought better of that.

No doubt it would just drag the three of them into a quarrel sooner. There was an absolute stillness between the three of them.

Even his own breath seemed to die the moment it left Sirius's mouth.

It was an eerie sort of tranquility, but instead of being soothed by it, he became unnerved, and his senses heightened.

He felt as though he were the prey, and Remus the predator, as if the small world on the front stoop of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, were encased in a cocoon, a bubble, and there was no way out, and that was when Tonks spoke.

Sirius could practically fathom the pressure on Moony's look he was giving him. If it were air, then he surely would have suffocated by this point in time.

He saw how Lupin gingerly raised Tonks's chin with his thumb and foreigner and gave her a scrutinizing look. "Everyone's gathering in the kitchens to celebrate Ron and Hermione becoming Gryffindor Prefects, I don't know if Molly's told you." He offered her a kind smile, which Tonks nodded at. "It'll be good for you. I'll take you inside. We'll get you cleaned up," he murmured, glancing down at her hand.

Still shaking uncontrollably, Remus noticed it was covered in small bloodied speckles all along the top of her right hand, garish against pale skin, though the cuts were shallow enough, he could not help but wonder if perhaps the damage was the result of Ollivander's visit when she was testing new wands.

Lupin moved his hand from her chin and down to her shoulder, where it rested, almost seeming at ease, and Sirius watched as Remus gave it a squeeze.

"Come inside," he murmured, his hand drifting down and he reached for her hand. "I _won't_ have you out here getting sick, Tonks. Come," he pleaded. "Please don't make me ask again."

Sirius inhaled a sharp breath of heady air that smelled of encroaching rain as a low boom of thunder rippled across the sky at seeing Lupin take her hand.

_Unprompted. Of his own volition. Oh, wait till Molly hears of this!_

Sirius bit the inside wall of his cheek as Tonks gave a shy nod and a slight smile and looked down at his hand, which was currently curled over hers, and allowed herself to be led inside. Sirius trailed behind, though he did not miss the look that Remus shot over his shoulder at Sirius as the three of them made their way upstairs first to allow Tonks to change into something more suitable for a gathering before venturing into the kitchens to socialize and be with the others.

Sirius quickly realized that his brother's locket was still firmly clutched in her grasp but did not think now would be an appropriate time to ask for it back.

There would be another chance, of this he was sure. Sirius was interrupted out of his thought process as Remus's gaze landed on his while they waited outside of her room as Tonks changed her clothes.

Acrid and a slight mistrust. As close to hostility as the Mad Beast within would allow him to get. _Merlin's beard_ , Sirius thought, feeling his gray eyes widen in shock as he regarded his best friend's rigid, tense posture, the strange look of longing in the man's eyes as it settled and lingered upon his cousin's closed bedroom door.

He felt as though his mind were on overdrive as it put the missing pieces together.

The excuses Remus seemed to be coming up with in order to spend more time around his partner, his incessant habit of hovering near the girl.

_Remus is falling in love with her_ , Sirius thought wildly. _And he doesn't even know it for himself_.

The look on Remus's face was more than evidence enough. It was a warning as clear as daylight, meant for Sirius and him alone.

To stay away from Tonks, or else…

_Molly's not going to believe this…._

Sirius did not bother to hide his grin as the door to Tonks's bedroom opened and the young Auror emerged, now dressed in a black v neck long-sleeved blouse, black skinny jeans, and black booties with a slight heel. The outfit was well put together and sensible, and it flattered her petite figure, Sirius thought.

He snorted at the heels on her shoes, thinking she'd be lucky not to trip.

Remus blinked, startled, the moment the door to Tonks's bedroom flung open, and what little sunlight was left from the sky outside streamed in through the window of her room and threw what little he could see of her room into the light.

He watched, momentarily mesmerized as the light hit Tonks's pale face and engulfed it in a soft, almost pearly glow. Today, her neat pixie cut was a light ginger color softened with a few blonde highlighted streaks here and there, no doubt she had changed it in honor of Ron's accomplishment at his appointment as Gryffindor Prefect, and the moment the light hit her hair, it shone with a new radiance that he did not think he'd ever seen before with his wretched wolfish eyes, and it captured the subtle underlying golden hues of her choice of hair color for the occasion within that soft red. It was as if gold itself had been woven into the very shining locks of her ginger locks.

In that single fraction of a second, Lupin felt his breath catch in his throat, and he could have sworn he was developing a heart murmur as it pounded against the confines of his chest, thrumming so audibly loud, that he was surprised Tonks and Sirius couldn't hear it.

She looked… _beautiful_.

There was no other word to describe her right now. Tonks offered him a shy smile and clutched onto his arm, seemingly lying in wait for him to say something to her.

But he couldn't seem to find his voice.

And just as the feeling of unexpected and sudden warmth enveloped him, he felt his heart plummet to the pit of his stomach.

How could a _beast_ like him compare with someone such as _her_? How could she even want to be his partner without even knowing what he was, was entirely beyond his ability to comprehend? She truly seemed to enjoy his company.

But _why_? _How_? And for how _long_ could this continue to last, these precious days with her by his side, feeling an eerie sense of peace and tranquility that he'd never known before in his life, not even when James and Lily had still been alive. How long before this fruitless dream he chased came to an end?

Would she leave his side when she learned of his affliction? Would she be like all the others when they learned of his lycanthropy, unable to look at him?

"Remus?"

"Mmm?" He blinked, startled, the sound of her beautiful, shy voice drawing him back to the present. Tonks was regarding him, a worried expression glistening in those steely gray orbs of hers, her head cocked to the side like she had a tendency to do whenever she was trying to figure something out or trying to see something from a completely new perspective. He found the behavior of hers endearing.

He felt a sudden unexpected burst of heat course through his veins as her right hand came to rest on top of his arm and curled her fingers around his arm.

"Aren't you going to say something, Remus? We should go," she murmured quietly. "The others are expecting us…"

Lupin blinked and quickly nodded when a small, strangled noise from behind him caught his attention.

Sirius quickly disguised his snort as a poorly disguised cough as Remus shot him another slightly mistrustful glance over his shoulder as he silently offered the young witch his arm, and he trailed behind his best friend and his partner as they followed the chaotic noises of the cramped kitchens of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

The rest of the Order had gathered and was in the middle of a toast by the time the three of them entered the kitchens.

"To Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor Prefects!" Mrs. Weasley gushed, raising her own glass of wine, and a low, murmuring echo swept the room as the rest of the Order raised their glasses in kind and repeated Mrs. Weasley's toast.

Mrs. Weasley, Tonks could tell, had really outdone herself this time. The table was packed and crowded with delicacies as it was pushed up against the wall.

Everything Tonks could think of, and things she'd never dreamed of, waited to be sampled, though Tonks wasn't too terribly hungry, she needed to eat, if only to avoid Lupin's wrath and constant _pestering_ that she eats something.

Tonks stood in front of Remus and Harry as everyone moved forward to form a line to help themselves to food. "I never was a prefect myself," she commented as the line shuffled slowly along as she swiped a plate off the front. "I always spent entirely too much time in detention with Barnaby. My Head of House said I lacked the certain necessary qualities to qualify for a prefect…"

"Like what?" Ginny piped up from behind, a note of curiosity and intrigue in her voice, as she waited for Tonks to answer, who was choosing a baked potato.

"The ability to behave myself," she murmured dryly, rolling her eyes in jest as she stepped out of the line and picked at her slab of meatloaf with her fork, well aware that Lupin was following behind her, hovering practically, as she moved to stand next to Molly, who was in the midst of a conversation with her mentor, Mad-Eye Moody.

"Oh, Alastor, I've been meaning to have a word with you. There's something rattling and making a ruckus in one of the spare rooms upstairs. I suppose it could just be a boggart, but I've been wanting to have you take a look at it. I've not wanted to open the trunk in case it's something really dangerous…"

Tonks's ears perked up and her eyes widened as she watched Moody's magical eye swivel upwards to stare at the ceiling, and Mad-Eye Moody furrowed his scarred and uneven brows in a frown. "The trunk in the third room to the left? Yeah, I see it. You were right. It's a boggart. Want me to go up and get rid of it for you?"

"I'll go," Tonks volunteered shyly, the sweet sound of her quiet voice almost becoming lost and drowned in the din of the other conversations amongst the Order members, and she felt the heat creep to her cheeks as she could actively feel the stares of Hestia and Emmeline practically burning a hole in the back of her skull as they stared at her, hotter than any Dark Mark could brand, and her simple and unexpected request to volunteer startled both Molly and Mad-Eye as the pair of Order members swiveled their head to regard the young Auror.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and stiffened as she felt Lupin's hand come to rest on her shoulder, and the man moved slightly to stand in front of her.

"Are you _sure_? Your…your hand is still not fully healed. What if the charm backfired and hurt you, Tonks…" Remus urged quietly, a note of caution and worry in his voice as he looked towards her trembling wand hand, which was clutching her new wand tightly in her hand.

He bit his bottom lip, thinking that he did not want her to do this. It was too soon. And still shaking as a result of her nerve-damage sustained from her fall, though it was less these days, which Lupin and Tonks were both grateful for.

"Are you sure you feel up to it, Tonks? I _don't_ want you hurting yourself. Let me. I can take care of it," he murmured, and there was no mistaking the sense of urgency in his voice.

Tonks could have sworn something unreadable passed through Remus's eyes as she lifted her chin slightly to meet his gaze and something ignited in his light brown eyes when she dared to lift her good, uninjured hand now free of its splint, and good riddance, and gave one of his hands a reassuring little squeeze.

"I will be _fine_ , Remus," she reassured, biting down on her tongue, and taking one more bite of her potato before setting her plate down, most of the food untouched and discarded. " _Really_. Please do not worry about my hand. I—I could use the practice," she added, as if to emphasize her point, clutched onto her new wand, even tighter. "It has to heal sometime. Must as well start trying. Boggarts are harmless creatures, Lupin. You _worry_ too much about me, Remus. I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself in this regard, Rem."

Tonks repressed the urge to roll her eyes at Lupin's growing paling face.

"Wait!" he called out, and he felt his arm outstretch, though he missed the fabric of her simple black blouse by a fraction of an inch and he swore internally.

_I swear, trying to keep track of this woman is like trying to catch the wind_. But still, he would try. He would try until his dying breath. Remus furrowed his brows and frowned, his lips parted open slighlty in shock.

Tonks slowly turned around, her back still to him, though she swiveled her head slightly to look at him. "What is it?" she asked, biting her bottom lip.

"I…what… _what_ did you just call me?" Remus breathed, feeling his eyes widen and round in shock and disbelief at the team of endearment. "Say it again. Please."

If the urgency of the request startled her, Tonks was good at hiding it, though she blinked owlishly at the man a couple times.

"Rem. If you _insist_ on calling me by part of _my_ first name, then I think as your partner I've _earned_ the right to give you a nickname by this point in our relationship, haven't I?" she sighed, sounding tired. "Anyways, I'll go take care of this boggart for you, Molly. I _promise_ I won't be long. Fifteen minutes. I'll be back, Remus."

As the young witch turned her back on the rest of the party and headed towards the stairwell to take care of the boggart, she completely missed the stunned look of surprise and growing affection in her partner's eyes at the use of Lily's nickname for her, not even knowing the profound effect it had on Remus.

The effect _she_ had on him…she had _no_ _idea_ …

Lupin was hardly aware his legs were no longer taking direction from his own mind by this point as he could feel himself follow her, though he sat perched on the bottom-most step of the stairwell, and mulled over the strange burning sensation welling in his chest.

His partner, this incredible woman, was changing his life in such subtle ways right before his wretched sight.

Though he'd known her but a precious two weeks at best by this point in their relationship, he knew he'd saved her for a reason.

When she had called him by his nickname just now, not knowing it was what Lily used to call him, notwithstanding that, it was as if all that he had known had ceased to exist around him and held him trapped within that precious second.

Though he had seen, he had been blind up until now, and even though he could feel, he had been numb, until now, and though he'd lived, he'd been dead until now.

So, if that was the case, then…what in Merlin's beard _was_ this? The way she had smiled at him. How her gray eyes ignited and seemed to hold a softness that he was sure no other held such a look in their eyes. _No_ _one_. And her laugh. There was something in the way Tonks laughed that reminded him of his better self.

There was something almost pure in the way his partner struggled to do what was right, an honesty. She had a creative mind, that brought such magic in every literal sense of the word and interest to his life.

One that enjoyed the sparking of new ideas, and she respected and listened to what he had to say. Remus swallowed nervously with a sudden craving for her. The thought of the beautiful witch upstairs currently dealing with a boggart had surged a power that began to fill as a fiery, wildfire, immense heat in his chest.

Once, his father and mother asked him what he wanted, and all he would have thought of was acceptance. Of his friends. Of the rest of the wizarding world. He recalled the answers he gave as a young boy rolling around in his head.

But all of those answers melted like snow dying under first light of the sun. He now knew that the ultimate answer was a floor above him, three doors to the left.

_I want…her_. _Just her_.

Remus Lupin, whether he knew it or not, was beginning to fall in love with Nymphadora Tonks, though there was a small flickering of recognition for this foreign feeling of warmth that sent this welcoming heat throughout his body.

But before he could ponder it any further, a horrible heart-wrenching scream rent the air, and his ears perked up at the voice. _Her_ voice.

But it wasn't one of fear, oh, no.

He listened, feeling a stab of a fear prick at his heart as he bolted to his feet without waiting for anyone to ask him where he was going.

From the upstairs came the most hysterical wailing, the screaming sob only interrupted by the person's need to draw breath.

Lupin had no idea what time it was, what room Tonks was in. All he knew was he had to keep running forward. Not stopping for anything but her. Tonks was in danger.

_Have to save her_. It was this thought and this thought alone that propelled him forward and he felt his hands tremble and his eyes water as Remus reached his hand towards the doorknob. Something was behind there with his partner and it was anything _but_ good.

His body suddenly felt on fire and sweat beaded on his brow bone and startled trickling down his neck. He gripped the knob tightly and twisted it.

With every move he made, he could feel himself getting more and more terrified. His breaths quickened as he heard the creaking of the door, not knowing what at all he would find the minute he flung open the door.

Suddenly, as he flung the door open, everything was silent and behind the door was just darkness as he gingerly stepped over the threshold and into the room.

Or so he thought.

What he had perceived as darkness as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting was actually a faint navy blue hue, and he squinted, trying to see.

"Tonks?" he said faintly and finally found her in the middle of the room.

At first, Remus was sure the darkness of the room must have deceived him, or his eyes were confused and dazed by this strange bluish hue that made him feel as though the pair of them were submerged underwater somehow.

For a minute or two, he could make out nothing at all but dark lumps of discarded furniture.

The mass of chest of drawers by the wall, the opened trunk which the boggart had no doubt emerged from the moment that Tonks had set it free.

"Tonks?" he tried again, to which he received no response from her. She appeared unharmed, but it was hard for Remus to tell with her back toward him.

Her shoulders quivered and muffled sobs were lost, and the darkness shrouded her face from his view, but nothing could mask the bitterness and brokenness of her mournful weeping.

Lupin wanted nothing more than to run to her and hold her, not let her go. But he exhaled slowly and forced himself to approach his partner calmly and slowly.

The last thing he wanted was to startle Tonks, even more, when she was in such a distraught state, losing her composure.

"Tonks?" Tonks raised her head at the sound of his soft voice, and the look on her face physically ached and sent a swell of pain straight to his heart.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and glossy with a fresh layer of tears. She had clearly been crying since the moment she came up here and showed no signs of stopping. "Are you hurt?" he asked, fearing the absolute worst. "What's wrong?"

She was seated on the hardwood floor, cross-legged, her wand tossed aside by her right leg as she looked up at undoubtedly what was the figure of her boggart. Lupin hurriedly knelt by her side and snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Tonks?" he demanded urgently. "I—I need you to look at me. _Look_."

But she wouldn't meet his gaze. Her irises were cloudy, as if covered by a strange white mist, as she regarded something above their heads that held her so captivated.

Silent tears poured in a constant stream down her pale face in steady tracts, though when Remus shook her by her shoulders slightly in order to elicit a response from his partner, and she did not respond, he began to grow concerned.

He steeled himself and breathed out slowly. "Dora?" Remus questioned, using her first name for the first time since meeting her, and he decided he liked this much better than using her surname.

It held a more intimate vibe. But it did not elicit a response, and his panic only worsened.

His gaze followed that of Tonks's and when he saw what she was looking at, at the form her boggart took on in an attempt to frighten the young witch, he froze.

For floating in the air high above their heads, was a pure white cloak and nothing more, resting lazily in the mid-air, the cape's ends billowing behind it, though its blinding white hue was offset by the blood splatters that were well spaced apart, and as the garment floated in midair, droplets of the thick crimson liquid had tumbled to the wooden floor and landed right by her palm.

"I…what _is_ this, Tonks? It's—it's only a boggart. It can't hurt you, Tonks. Everyone is scared of something," Remus murmured, almost whispering it into the shell of her ear as he joined her on the floor, upon seeing she could not be moved.

For whatever was happening to her had rendered her immobile, mute.

His question triggered something within his partner, for the moment the words left his lips, something within Tonks seemed to shift and give way, and she bolted from her spot on the floor and began restlessly pacing the room like there was a hurricane inside of her.

The young witch was moving like her brain was demanding her to move but wouldn't tell her limbs what to do otherwise.

Her eyes were wild and when Remus rose from his spot and made her sit back down, his first thought was that he'd never seen Tonks sit like this, so deflated. Her loose shoulders shook, her hands hung low at her side in her lap.

She made no attempt to conceal or wipe away her own tears.

Aside from her pale face, she was so gray-looking, and her short hair was as disheveled as the Hogwarts Grounds under fall leaves. Remus had seen others cry like this before, and in every single case, it was a transition from a person with hope to one without.

It was how he had cried when he'd lost his mother, several years ago. When Tonks cried, there was a horrible rawness to it, like the pain was still an open wound.

He did not understand the nature of her boggart, but just the fact that it was causing her severe amounts of distress and was not at all what he had expected. Her sobs were stifled at first, as she attempted to conceal it.

But soon enough she became so overcome that she broke down entirely all her defenses washed away in those salty tears. When at last Tonks turned to face Remus, she was the complete picture of grief, loss, devastation. It was the face one who had suffered before and did not know if she could do it again.

"Here." Lupin did not hesitate for a fraction of a second to envelop the distraught young woman into his arms and encircled his arms tightly around her.

It was as much for him to take comfort at seeing her like this as much to give comfort himself. Tonks sobbed into Lupin's chest unceasingly, her hands curling into fists around his jacket.

He held her in silence, rocking her slowly from their spot on the floor as her tears soaked through his black wool sweater.

A tiny lapse allowed her to pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before she relapsed again, her cries of misery and anguish only worsening. Her pain at whatever her boggart was must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing, broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling Tonks back into the outstretched arms of her grief.

"It's just a boggart, Tonks. Just a stupid boggart. It cannot hurt you," he murmured, and the pair of them sat on the floor and he heard her sharp intake of breath as the boggart shifted and focused on Remus and revealed that of _his_ greatest fear: the full moon.

Remus exhaled a shaking breath through his nose as he watched as Tonks's eyes seemed to lose some of their brightness.

He waved his wand irritably at the boggart. " _Riddikulus_!" The boggart proceeded to turn into a crystal ball and shatter into a thousand pieces on the floor.

Lupin scowled and waved his wand again and sent the boggart back into the trunk, flicking his wand with a curt wave of his wrist and locking the trunk.

There was no hiding it from her anymore now that she had seen it.

_This is it_. He could hide the truth from her no longer. Letting out a shaking breath through his nose, he turned towards Tonks, and when she would not look at him, her head bowed in shame, he was not having _any_ of it, for he gently moved his hand underneath her chin and tilted it upwards.

"There's something I have to tell you," he began, a pained expression on his face. "Now that you've seen my boggart, I guess...I cannot hide it any longer." He cringed. _Here it goes_. I'm a… I'm a…werewolf."

Remus whispered his confession as though it were a dirty secret. He bit the inside wall of his cheek as he waited for his partner to respond, to scream and bolt from him.

But she did not do it. It did not come.

When she spoke to him, her voice came out as a faint half-choked hoarse sob. " _I know_. I have known for a while, Remus. I…I should have told you sooner. I—I am sorry…"

Her confession was but a whisper.

He looked as though Tonks had slapped him. Remus frowned and froze, feeling as though he'd been doused in ice water.

"You…? You _know_?" He felt his eyes widen in shock, but Tonks did not give him a chance to respond as her grip around his back tightened and she buried her head in his shoulder. She…She was not _afraid_ of him. But… _how_? _Why_?!

She did not seem to _care_.

A brief moment of elation and euphoria swept through his body, and the shock must have registered on his face and in his eyes, for Tonks offered a weak little smile in the midst of wiping at the last of her tears with a well-practiced flick of her finger, though it quickly vanished and its place was a wave of concern for her partner.

How could he have been so _selfish_?

Tonks was _hurting_ , and here he was, _relieved_ that she did not think less of him as a human being because of his unfortunate affliction.

"How long have you known the truth, Tonks?" It was all he could ask, and still, he cursed himself for his selfishness in this regard, though Tonks did not relinquish his grip on his sweater, and there was a tiny part of him that felt immensely pleased by the sudden unexpected intimacy.

"Since the night we met," she whispered. "The signs were there once it was easy enough for me to put them all together. I…I've been brewing the Wolfsbane Potion for you when I cannot sleep. I—I hope that's okay, Remus…"

Words left him, and Lupin felt like his mind was _reeling_ , though he quickly did his best to conceal the worst of his shock, which was no doubt evident upon his face, he shoved aside thoughts of his own well-being for now.

Right now, he needed to focus on _her_. "I… yes, I—I cannot thank you enough for what you are doing for me, but… _why_?" he pleaded, needing the truth.

Tonks sniffed once and coughed, a hand over her mouth to quell the lump forming in her throat as a fresh wave of tears gathered and formed in her eyes.

"Because you need _help_ , Remus. What does it matter as to your ' _why_?' I give you the potions. They _help_ you. As long as you take them, you keep your mind when you transform, and it pains you less. Do not ask me to stop making them, for I don't think I could bear to watch you suffer anymore on my account, Lupin. You have done more than enough for me, and have asked for so little in return. It is a debt that I owe you. _Take them_. Then the next day, you help someone up when they fall," Tonks murmured lowly, attempting to turn her head away, but if anything, Remus's grip on her chin only tightened as he forced her to continue looking at him. "That is the answer to 'why.'"

They were not done having his conversation, though he shelved it for now and intended to revisit with his partner later.

Right now, he was more intrigued to learn of her boggart and the story behind its unusual form.

"What…what _was_ that? Your…your boggart," he asked cautiously, careful to keep his voice low and un-accusing. "I…I don't think I've ever seen a boggart assume that shape. Dora?"

It seemed to take Tonks an eternity to find her voice. When she did, he was surprised at the copious amounts of hurt and heartbreak laced throughout it.

"He…it…that was Ollie. What's... _left_ of him. All that remains is his cloak. _Was_ ," she corrected herself, fighting back tears. "He was mine… my partner once. Before Snape. The only friend in my life that gave a _damn_ about me. My best friend. And…"

Tonks swallowed down hard past the dip and crack in her voice as it broke.

When she swiveled her head to the left slightly to regard Remus, he was loathed to see her shed even more tears.

Instinctively, one of his hands found their way to the back of her hair and pressed in, absently playing with a few stray strands and wisps of her hair to soothe her.

It worked because she exhaled a tense and shaking breath and shuddered, and as he slowly moved his hand away, before he could even think about resting it in his lap, Tonks caught it in mid-air and clutched onto it tightly, as though afraid to let him go, and he felt justified in keeping it right where it was.

Remus felt the familiar spark of warmth in his chest, but shoved it aside, for now, needing nothing more to hear her thoughts, to listen, to be there for her, and hear and what she had to tell him.

Tonks continued speaking, though her words were but as wind, so faint and barely audible that Lupin had to strain forward to hear her.

"And I murdered him."


	28. Precarious

**"In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul."- Tears for Fears**

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**

Half an hour later, after coaxing Tonks to calm down enough and escort her back to her bedroom, where he sat perched on the edge of her bed, a mug of warm cider in her hands, and a blanket that Remus had found for her draped over her shoulders as he took a seat next to her, and he let out a hiss as their fingers briefly touched. Her fingers, he would swear, never failed to leave hot flaming sparks in their wake.

Tonks offered Remus a weak smile in thanks, though, in truth, it looked more like a grimace as she shivered and clutched the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

The more they sat in silence, his concern for his partner melted away into something sadder and more unbearable as he thought of the haunting form of her boggart, thinking he'd never seen anything like it, and how could you possibly turn something like that into something _funny_ in order to repel the boggart?

And not to mention the weight of the guilt and regret she must be feeling. He could nothing to help but watch as Tonks struggled to reign in her grief, though he himself was still processing how it was that she knew of his affliction so soon after meeting him.

She truly was the brightest witch of her age, and her words could somehow not be true, for even if she had killed her former partner, somehow, Remus was having difficulty believing she was at fault. Lupin fidgeted with his fingers, unable to find anything to say in response.

It seemed to take his partner an eternity to find her voice.

"I don't want to be alone. We…we aren't meant to be alone, Lupin. I have been alone all my life, as have you. And all I ask of you now is…please don't leave me. Will you…will you stay with me?" she murmured lowly, biting her bottom lip as she turned her head to the side to better look Lupin in the eyes, though there was no mistaking the sheen of uncertainty and trepidation as it glistened as unshed moisture in her gray eyes. "E—even after you…learn the truth?"

Eclipsing everything else he felt at this moment, the worry ignited in his stomach at his partner's words as he came to the realization that she _did_ seem to care for him, for Tonks would not have asked of Remus to stay if she didn't.

This was not lost on Lupin, but it still did nothing to ease the churning knots in his stomach.

"Yes," he answered, after a moment of silence. "I'm right here where I'm sitting, Dora. I'm not anywhere else," he reassured her, rubbing her shoulder, and let out a sigh. Remus watched as Tonks nursed her mug of mostly untouched hot cider and attempt to gather her thoughts.

Outside, given the lateness of the hour, and in between the muffled noise of the get-together still commencing down in the kitchens, he could hear the wind picking up.

"I…I don't know where to begin," Tonks murmured eventually. She spoke into her mug of cider and refused to meet Lupin's gaze, her downcast eyes brimming with shame and hot tears as they stung and blurred her vision.

Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek and leaned forward slightly and took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze, running the pad of his thumb over the white scar just above her knuckle, wondering how she'd gotten it.

Remus furrowed his brows in a frown, not liking how pale Tonks looked, and then he remembered.

He dipped into one of the drawers of the small night table and unwrapped one of the chocolate bars he'd discreetly slipped into the night table when he learned from Molly that Tonks suffered nightmares. He broke off a small slab of chocolate and pressed it into her palm.

"Here," he murmured lowly. " _Eat_. You'll feel better. It helps. Really."

Tonks glanced down at the piece in her hand and lifted her chin slightly defiantly and he could have sworn the faint ghost of a smile flickered along with her features as she broke off a tiny bite, taking her time chewing it and swallowing.

"Are you _trying_ to get me fat, Remus? This is the second time you've tried to push chocolate on me in the last three days," she joked faintly, though the smile she offered him did not quite reach her gray eyes, though much to his relief, she ate the bite of the chocolate bar without much protest, which was an improvement. "You are right," she said in a soft, shy voice. "It helps. Thank you." Tonks swiveled her head back around and offered Remus a weak smile.

Lupin's heart thrummed against the confines of his chest so hard and loud that he swore it was audible as their eyes locked and he returned her smile.

It was a small smile, but it was enough to make him feel quite strange.

He wracked his brain in silence, trying to think of some small word of comfort that he could offer, but nothing came to mind, for he was too distracted.

All he could fathom at this point in time was someone he cared deeply for was falling to pieces in front of him, and he did not know how to help her. Feeling apprehensive and hesitant, Remus dared to scoot a fraction of an inch closer on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm around her trembling form and pulled her close, feeling a strange sense of serenity as Tonks turned and buried her head in his chest, where she let herself cry with no restraint.

There was a tiny part of his heart, the selfish part, that darkly relished this feeling, the fact that Tonks had chosen him to confide in, that Dora trusted him enough to tell the story behind her boggart's unusual, eerily grotesque form.

As his sweater grew damp with the young witch's tears, and all he could do was pat her on the back and stroke her hair, his chin resting on top of her head, Remus mulled over her words.

_He was my partner. And I murdered him_.

Why? And how? What had happened? It wasn't her fault. It couldn't be.

But Lupin could not find the strength nor resolve within himself to give his questions a voice, as much as they burned on his tongue for her answers.

All Remus could do was close the gap of space between the two of them on the edge of the bed and sit as close as he possibly dared all the while hoping he was not making Tonks uncomfortable with his need to be close to Tonks.

He could not quite explain it, but whenever he was around her, he felt, perhaps for the first time in his life post-Hogwarts, he felt at peace. Calm.

_Happy_. It almost felt a foreign feeling to him, after so many years alone and spent wallowing in moments of anguish, pity, and melancholia, that he wasn't entirely sure what to make of the strange sensation of fiery warmth that continued to spread throughout his chest the closer he allowed himself to get to her.

Whenever he was around Tonks, the Mad Beast within the confines of his chest and mind, that monster, that beast, that he tried so hard to quell once a month, and to a lesser extent, retained its hold on his mind, did not seem to bother him as much.

When he was around this strange delectable creature, it went dormant. Remus wasn't sure he could even begin to explain it, and he was not sure that he wanted to.

As long as the Beast could be tamed, that was good enough for him.

Should he be lucky enough to share an eternity with this young woman, then he thought he might sink into a blissful serenity, just content to be close to her and by her side. Their energy vibrated in such a unique way, each the perfect complement of the other. He did not know how long they sat like this on the edge of her bed as she silently allowed the waves of remorse and guilt to pass through her.

Absentmindedly, hoping that it brought some semblance of comfort to his partner, Lupin rubbed small circles over the small of her back, near her spine, until her body ceased to shudder with sobs.

Finally, Tonks spoke to him. "I—I don't know how I…I can only hope that you will f—forgive me for what I have done. I—I h—have not been honest with you, Remus. I should have told you sooner," she croaked hoarsely, her voice barely above a whisper as she glanced down at her fingers fidgeting nervously as they rested in her lap.

Her words only caused more probing questions to arise in Lupin's troubled mind, and not without a measure of extreme anxiety that he was sure to send him into another panic attack. Nevertheless, Remus stifled a growl of annoyance at his mind's swirling vortex of thoughts surrounding the turn of events that occurred but a mere half-hour ago. He had not anticipated that she would have had a positive reaction to the revelation that he was a werewolf.

It was admittedly not the type of reaction he was used to receiving, so his mind was still attempting to come to grips with his feelings surrounding her confession that she had not only known but was brewing for him the Wolfsbane Potion. Remus supposed that he should be angry with Tonks.

Lupin thought it would have been easy to be incredibly angry with her.

For she had, by rights, as his partner, _lied_ to him by omission, but Remus pushed aside these troubling thoughts and reminded himself to be patient.

Tonks said she wanted to talk, and so they would. And in that regard, Remus had not exactly been forthcoming with the truth on _his_ part. The fact that he suffered from lycanthropy should have been one of the first things out of his mouth the moment Dumbledore assigned this young woman as his partner.

But Remus could simply not find it within himself to work up the nerve to express, let alone even feel the emotion, for the last thing he wanted was to cause friction between the two of them. In light of this, she was apologetic.

It seemed to stem from a strong, slightly overwhelming desire not to want to cause him any more pain or hardship, and for that, he could respect it.

There was a small part of him that cherished it. Her concern for _his_ wretched well-being, when he was not at all deserving of this celestial being.

After a moment, Lupin reluctantly drew away from Tonks and pulled back slightly to study her face, and the young Auror looked up at him from her perch on the bedside with hollowed, sad eyes full of despair and heartbreak, her tears now completely spent and her tears had dried in gentle tracts, ghosts of her pain on her cheeks. A stray wisp of red hair was stuck to her cheek, and Lupin brushed it back behind her ear where it belonged with surprising tenderness.

Tonks lifted her chin slightly and regarded her partner in silence, her hands still clutched around her mug of warm cider, and gave him a weak smile in thanks and tried to silently communicate her gratitude for the simple gesture with her eyes, though it looked more like a grimace, he did not fault her.

"I—I scared you tonight. I shouldn't have tried to take on a boggart so soon when my—my hand is still…I was wrong to try…I am sorry, Remus."

To that, Remus had nothing to say. Tonks was right. She _had_ scared him, and he was scared _for_ her, but it was nothing to the immense relief he felt as it coursed through his entire body and bloodstream that his partner did not think any less of himself nor his abilities on learning the truth of his condition.

His gaze drifted down to her trembling wand hand, which was shaking so uncontrollably that if it would have sprouted wings, it would have detached itself from her arm had departed from her a long time ago. Needing to give her comfort and wanting to do something— _anything_ —to ease the tremors, he felt his hand instinctively drift over hers and he rested her hand in his.

Remus was surprised, and he heard Tonks's sharp intake of breath, as the violent tremors of her hand almost ceased the moment his fingers grazed over the top of her palm, stroking the perfect, pale flesh as he stared at it. So tiny.

Delicate, and fragile, and he held her hand as if it were fragile china.

Tonks stared as her hand almost seemed to cease its shaking, in shock. But Tonks needed him more right now, so that aspect of their conversation would have to be shelved for a time when she was in a better state of mind to discuss it. "Start from wherever you want," Remus told Tonks.

Emanating a tense and slightly exhale through her nose, Tonks blearily lifted her head and locked eyes with Remus and so, she started at the beginning.

* * *

_Tonks_. The coldness of the frigid winter air made her numb and tingly. Moving into the winter morning light was a wolf. She was a white-silver, fur glossy and thick. Her paws kissed the earth with lightness and there was a serenity in her yellow eyes. Her stance was confident and body muscular.

This was one girl who knew how to take care of herself. The wolf regarded Tonks fleetingly before heading back the way she came.

_Tonks_.

Tonks blinked owlishly, nearly a frozen tear due to how frigid it was. In this dream-like world of squirrels and squeezing herself between the trunks of dead trees beneath murky skies, the ice of the ground beneath her paws was frozen. Her ears pricked and twitched as she sniffed the ground for his scent.

And thus, the She-Wolf padded along, sniffing at the scent of a familiar man, but not the one that roused the fire in her belly.

But…but she came to a clear in the forest opening and saw him, the sight of the He-Stranger made her yellow irises deflate. The man with the scarred but handsome face, and light brown hair flecked with tinges of gray throughout the temples and back.

The Man who smelled of old pinewood and oak. Of autumn's scent.

She had come from further up the path, towards the snow line of the forest. _Tonks_. The She-Wolf's movements were fluid and without apparent effort.

**_TONKS!_ **

The sound of the noise caused the Wolf to blink and howl. The gesture startled the Man, and he turned his back to the She-Wolf and began to put distance in the wooded clearing between himself and her.

_No. Stay! Stay! Let me stay! Let him stay!_ Tonks felt herself screaming, as the man startled by the noise, his brilliant white smile faltered and he Disapparated, and Tonks blinked, her own eyes wide open as the disruption to what was otherwise a lovely dream sent her to the bitter world of the living.

The vibrant young Auror blinked owlishly in shock, startled out of her daydream. Merlin. It felt so…so _real_. The Stranger in her dream haunted her.

Ravaged her nightmares nightly, this man, and Tonks did not even know his name, and she was almost but to _touch_ him every single time mostly, but Merlin was cruel in denying her that right. Or, she supposed in this case him.

Ollie. "Tonks." His voice reached her eardrums, light but concerned. Her partner quirked a thick dark brow her way and furrowed them into a frown. "Glad to see you're back into the land of the _living_ , T. Maybe now you'll actually pay _attention_?"

Ollie Brennan eyed his partner and best friend, as she blinked at him, seeming to take a minute to come back to reality. This strange material of beauty which was Nymphadora Tonks, during her last two years of Auror training, both of them under Alastor Moody's tutelage, though this was their first solo mission together, to prove to Mad-Eye they had what it took to successfully operate without him.

The winter day was untreated with light, and twenty-four-year-old Ollie's thought rather bitterly was when wasn't it? The skies above their heads were dull and grievous, gray, and omniscient.

The Auror-in-training regarded his friend in silence as his face, hard from lack of sleep met Tonks's gaze with a rather critical interest as he eyed her.

"By the way, Dora," commented Ollie airily, in a vain effort to make her smile. "Your mum says hi," he snorted, to which she responded in kind by scrunching her nose in disgust and sticking her tongue out at Ollie in jest.

"Your dad can't stop talking about me, so I'd say we're even," she shot back immediately without even missing a beat and crossed her arms curtly.

He repressed his urge to snort as she evenly matched his gaze, blushed, and promptly looked away so Ollie wouldn't see the light pink blush speckling along his cheeks.

The young wizard knew what Tonks saw, as did a lot of women, whenever they looked at him. Tall. Towering. Rugged, alluring features that turned heads. Raven black hair, which at the moment glistened in the moonlight, was currently combed back and his face carefully structured.

As if Merlin Himself had molded Ollie, just to spoil his cold, alluring blue eyes, that were full of intensity. He had a Roman nose and a thin pair of lips in the form of a smirk.

His tight jaw was an angular shape that was filled with little stubbles. His pale skin looked so...right. The man had on a white cotton shirt with a silky blue vest and a pair of black pants, which tied everything together quite nicely.

Though he shivered and wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders and regarded his partner in silence. Tonks was, Ollie had to confess, a sweet sight, even using her Metamoprhing abilities to disguise her appearance for their mission. Her hair was dark on curly on this cold December night, cascading in natural curls to her shoulders, and her dark, delicately arched brows against such pale skin rendered her bore a striking resemblance to her mother, Andromeda.

There is beauty in every color of hair, even the greatly despised "mousey brown."

That subdued earthy tone is like a song softly played, bringing him to recollections of autumn. Ollie knew some have hair with brighter tones, inflections of vibrant red or gold streaks that catch the sunlight, he loved those too.

But earth herself has a beauty not to be ignored and to wear the color of her soils is an honor, not a misfortune.

The only thing that didn't change was her eyes. Those never changed. Always a glistening gray. He took the opportunity to study her eyes. The first couple days, he'd labeled them "gray."

If he was feeling particularly poetic, he called them "silver."

Neither word did them justice. They were so solid, so bright, the exact lustrous color of a polished shard of metal. If you looked closer, like he was just now, you'd see the swirls of glittering onyx black and tinges of blue at the edges. They weren't monochrome or boring. That had simply been his terrible judgment.

They were beautiful.

Tonks broke Ollie out of his moment and gave a tiny cough and sniffed, shivering as she glanced up at the weeny snowflakes that had started to fall.

She glanced down at her outfit and furrowed her eyebrows in a frown.

The robe she'd donned to continue her guise as Helena de Barreau was rich, a long linen robe a light brown color that reminded Tonks and Ollie of the desert. The sleeves of the garment were long and wide with turnbacks, suggesting that she was of pure and noble blood. The fabric was draped in rich architectural pleats, the waistline high, which only emphasized his friend's slim, elongated silhouette. This was, according to Tonks, 'Helena's' favorite robe.

Tonks knew it was too dangerous to utter her first name the first night Alecto, the man's sister had caught her, and thinking fast since she had a distant grandmother of French descent, and as a result, carried in her own English accent a slight tinge of French as well, was able to come upon the spot with a fake name, and called herself Helena, a French woman and one who had admittedly fallen under the scrutinizing watchful eye of known Death Eater Amycus Carrow, with him not knowing her true identity, had taken something of a shine to the luscious brunette that was 'Helena.'

But that wasn't the worst part of all of this. Not by a long shot.

Carrow was sexually attracted to her disguise as 'Helena' because supposedly the curly-haired brunette resembled a cousin of his, and just that fact made her want to vomit. Perhaps for better or worse, Tonks had agreed to continue the guise of meeting with Carrow until Ollie could get in place to take him down, wherein they would present him to Moody for official interrogation and questioning before charging him.

She'd managed to sneak evidence of the Carrows' involvement in the torturing and assault of several young Muggle women and men before killing them, leaving the Muggle law enforcement baffled at their disappearances.

The Carrows had gotten sloppy, and she'd found the latest piece of evidence in the night table of the man's involvement in the kidnapping of a Jacqueline Robertson last week, a detailed map of the Carrows' routes.

But it wasn't quite enough to connect them to the others. She needed more. The missing posters plastered on streetlamps and in shop windows of London, though the Muggle community remained at a loss for the vanishings.

The warrant out for both Carrows' arrest had been out now six months.

"You know the plan?" Ollie murmured, pulling up the hood of his white cloak tighter around his face. He cast his gaze nervously towards the edge of the woodland surrounding the Carrows' estate, where the dark oak trees that lined the edge of the dark forest swayed precariously in the winds of winter.

Tonks nodded mutely, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "I do."

They'd gone over it together at least half a dozen times in the last two months leading up to this moment. Carrow was, unfortunately for her, by this point, completely infatuated with 'Helena', and Tonks, not wanting to drop the disguise, had gone along with it up to this point, if it meant finding the evidence that they needed to put this man behind bars in Azkaban Prison.

Ollie would lay in wait for her in the woods once she found she needed, which she was led to believe lay in wait for her in the Carrows' personal study.

Tonks offered another nod to Ollie, signaling that she understood, though before the man could Disapparate and take cover in the thick of the trees, she held out a hand to stop her friend.

"Wait for a second, Ollie," she pleaded, biting down hard on her bottom lip and brushed a dark curl out of her eyes as she blew her bangs off of her forehead in agitation. "A word."

The cold winds of winter did nothing to thaw the walls of her guarded heart, that stubborn, beating, corded muscle within the confines of her chest, that at this moment, despite her best friend standing right next to her, his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of reassurance, Tonks decided that if Carrow were to lay a hand on her tonight, then she might very well slit her wrists if he dared to try.

The young witch thought that she could live with such a death. Ollie noticed his best friend crinkle her nose in disgust and was biting on her tongue.

"All right, Tonks," he sighed, pinching his temples, and letting out a groan, casting a longing glance towards the woods. "What's wrong? Spit it out. You're worried about Carrow, aren't you? There's no _shame_ in saying no, T. I won't think any less of you for it and neither will Mad-Eye. We can go back."

The note of concern in her best friend's voice made Tonks jump, just as another gust of frigid wind wafted their way and tousled her dark curly hair away from her face. Tonks blinked owlishly at her partner and the fake smile was plastered over her face before Ollie could fully swivel his head to the left to regard his partner. Tonks let the muscles around her eye fall a little bit to recreate smile lines. Yes, she was terrified, but she didn't know how to admit it.

Carrow had gotten a lustful, hungry look in his eyes the other night towards 'Helena', and Tonks wasn't sure how long this charade could continue.

No one in her life had ever questioned her except for one person and the man was standing right in front of her, both hands firmly gripping her shoulders as if to steady her, fixing the young disguised Auror trainee with a strangely icy stare that was uncharacteristic of Ollie's usual jovial demeanor.

Ollie's smile held such kindness, a gentleness. His was the smile of one who laughed with ease, constantly got on Mad-Eye's nerves for his jokes, and saw the person underneath her behavior, a soul-connector. Ollie was the kind of person who lived how he believed people ought to behave all the time.

Everything about her partner was symmetrical, most obviously his cheekbones, but it extended to the way he smiled and held his body.

But his best feature, Tonks knew, as everyone else did at the Ministry who were fortunate enough to meet him, was Ollie's cobalt blue eyes.

A clear lake in a dark forest. If you looked closer at that lake, you could see around shallow crevice filled completely with transparent water. The water didn't tug or ripple in the closed-off space, though there was reason enough to.

In that already unnaturally beautiful scene were two identical and gigantic green koi fish - trapped in an unbreakable and frighteningly fast chase for each other's long tails, fusing into a seamless circle.

The only thing that got through their immortal war was a yellow light from the sun, a gracious beam to caress the bodies of the two. How it bounced off their scales making the water turn a paler green. His eyes were every hue of the forest, rimmed coolly with moss. Their lightness reminded Tonks of summertime when the sun-rays warmed each extended leaf. Next to the shade of his hair, that deepest raven black, he was alive in the same way birds are, casually wild.

Ollie was a true 'diamond in the rough.' Yet, most of all, he was her friend.

Ollie saw into her gray eyes, the window to her soul, and held onto her as the façade crumbled into a real grimace, and the smile slowly melted off her face and watched as it twisted and contorted with grief.

She lifted her chin slightly to meet the man's gaze and winced. "Be careful, Ollie. Don't get killed, my friend," she cautioned, quirking a brow at her partner as his back was still turned, though when the man turned around to regard Tonks, he had an unreadable expression, though it felt to Tonks as though he had doused her in ice water. Ollie had a strange look and a gleam in his eyes, as though this was to be the last time he would look upon her face ever again. She hated it.

Tonks flinched as Ollie's quizzical blue eyes bored into hers, and Tonks knew the natural Legillimens was reading her mind, his brow furrowed deeply.

Though as quickly as the foreign feeling of dread crept down her spine like a spider leaving a careful trail of silk had come, it vanished as he smiled.

"Oh? Are we _friends_ now?" Ollie snorted playfully, dipping into the interior pocket of his cloak for his wand. "And here I was, thinking I wasn't."

Tonks scowled and pretended to be offended. "Of course, we are! Just because Moody pays us to be together doesn't diminish our friendship, Ollie!"

Ollie grinned, and Tonks could not help but return the mischievous smile with one of her own. "Enhances it, really, Tonks. Tell Moody after putting up with you for an entire year, when I make full Auror, I'll be needing a raise if you're going to be my partner, Dora. Someone's got to save your ass."

Tonks frowned, rolling her eyes, and scoffing as she turned her back, preparing to Disapparate straight into the front courtyard of the estate's garden.

As her best friend made to turn away, she couldn't resist one last quip.

"You don't even know how much he's paying you _now_ , Ollie!" she called out, cupping her hands around her mouth, careful to keep her voice low.

Ollie didn't miss a beat as he turned on his heel and Disapparated.

"Which means Mad-Eye can afford it!" he retorted, his laughter still echoing and reverberating off the forest boundaries as Tonks shook her head and followed in her friend's footsteps, though she was headed in the opposite direction.

Tonks would give him the signal in a half-hour, and if she was unable, then she was to think of his name repeatedly, given his status as a natural-born Legillimens, Ollie would hear her plea, and know to come.

Tonks could not quite shake the feeling the moment she Apparated into the mansion of the Carrows, one floor above the library, where she was to meet Amycus in less than five minutes, that she was walking straight into Death's embrace, where the cold shrouded figure waited with open arms to greet her.

The young Auror lowered the hood of her robe and looked around and stifled her scream of surprise as she felt a rough hand grip onto her right shoulder and spin her around, and she was not at all surprised to face Amycus.

"Hello, darling. You're early. _Good_. I like my women to be punctual. More time that way," he grinned, his gums pulling upward to reveal slightly yellowing teeth, and Tonks barely suppressed a shudder of revulsion and fear.

Tonks was terrified. In fact, she would go as far as to say she was downright petrified. Of course, she always was when she and Ollie were working cases like this, but this time it was different. Using her looks like bait.

Putting herself purposely in harm's way at risk was dangerous on a good day, but Tonks considered it a necessary evil if she held a prayer's chance in the seven hells of qualifying and becoming an Auror and tonight, she had to prove it. _Moody's counting on us both_ , her conscience reminded her, and she winced.

Now that she had the man in her line of sights, Tonks and Ollie just needed to wait for the right moment to make the arrest, when he was distracted.

The timing was everything during critical moments like she was in right now. Tonks normally considered herself excellent at timing, out-thinking the Dark Wizards she helped takedown and arrest. Tonks let out a pained whine.

She did _not_ like the hungry look Carrow was eyeing her as she felt his advance upon her and finger a dark curly lock of her hair in his fingers tenderly.

Tonks could see the way the Death Eater looked at her, and of course, she'd be a bloody fool not to know what the man's intentions towards her were. He'd just made a remark about how she looked so like his own _cousin_!

That was what haunted Tonks more than anything else right now. This man standing in front of her was specifically seeking out women who looked like his own cousin, to have sex with them, and then beat them nearly to death.

"Turn around, Barreau," Amycus Carrow growled through gritted teeth, using Tonks's fake name she'd given. Tonks mutely shook her head no.

Whatever insidious reason he had in mind that required her backside to face him, she was not about to give him that satisfaction of her obeying him.

"I turn my back on _no one_ ," Tonks retorted hotly, feeling her temper swell and acidic bile rise its way up into her throat and settled on her tongue.

She briefly wondered how many women this man and his sister had killed. Ten? A dozen? A hundred? Five hundred? An endless number of them?

" _Turn_. _Around_. Don't make me say it a second time, sweetheart…Tonks."

Tonks felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. "How...?" she whispered hoarsely. She thought she'd been careful, but somewhere along the line, she must have accidentally let something slip. Could she have gotten careless? What had she done to give herself away? Turning her back on this creep was _not_ in her best interest.

But a few moments later, when the known Death Eater took a few steps away, perhaps against Tonks's better judgment, the young Auror trainee made herself more vulnerable on purpose, turning her back on Amycus Carrow to entice the Death Eater to try something. _Try something, you rapist pig…_

Tonks ground her teeth in anger, her wand hand fingers twitching.

Tonks wasn't sure at all what she was _thinking_ , and she could practically hear Mad-Eye screaming _Constant Vigilance!_ If she concentrated hard enough.

But she turned her back against her intuition telling her this was a mistake. A very big mistake.

Though Tonks would be the first to admit she had good intentions, her actions weren't what the other Aurors would consider 'wise.'

Her plan was a reckless one, but their 'usual methods' at the office that involved following protocol and a mountain of endless paperwork and warrants at attempting to nab this brother-sister duo had gotten them nowhere in the last six months, so Tonks had taken it upon herself to come up with this idea.

If Moody yelled at her and kicked her out of the program, then so be it, but she would not let Ollie take the blame for this. This was solely her idea.

Hers and hers _alone_. Making a huge gamble like this with her own life could pay off big, or there was every possibility that it would get her killed.

As scared as she was to be facing away from Voldemort's Death Eater, one of the more sadistic ones and that was really saying something, Tonks figured if she made herself the bait, then Tonks could catch Carrow and his sister in the act of trafficking those young women and stop it happening again.

The very fact that Carrow, a man _twice_ her age, was putting the moves on her and she herself was just twenty-two and very much _not_ consenting, should have been just cause to arrest him on that basis alone, but in her mind, it wasn't enough.

The Carrows, like the Malfoy family, were very influential, and wealthy. Somehow, she thought the moment an arrest was made, the pair of siblings would be back out on the streets within a mere matter of days, at best.

She needed _more_. Solid, concrete evidence. Enough for the entire Wizengamot to convict them and put them behind bars in Azkaban for _good_.

As best as she could, Tonks cocked her head to the side, straining her eyes to listen as the creaking floorboards behind her grew even louder now.

She needed to time this exactly right or it would all go to hell in a handbasket. To pull her wand out from underneath the overly long sleeve of her robe so that the Death Eater would be caught doing something incriminating, and if that alone wasn't enough, then she was fully prepared to extract her own memories and present them to Dumbledore to use in the Pensieve as evidence in a trial should she be called in to testify against Carrow.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as the sound of the floorboards creaking softened. The man was walking entirely too slow. His slow, steady, and slightly shaking breaths could barely be heard by the young Auror trainee.

But that hope that Carrow wasn't going to try anything was dashed the moment it entered Tonks's mind. Out of nowhere, she heard his footfalls quicken and before she could even fully turn all the way around, he lunged.

Tonks tried to spin around and pull her wand from her sleeve and point it directly at the man's burly chest, but she felt a sharp, excruciating pain in her back before the young woman could turn all the way completely to face him. Waves of heat coursed through her bloodstream, a cold sweat glistening in her rapidly paling and gaunt features as the end of his wand was pointed directly at her face. "You really _do_ look like my little cousin, sweetheart."

The way his voice said it so casually frightened the young witch if she was being honest with herself. Had he murdered his cousin after doing what he wanted to her?

Tonks let out a muffled whimper of fear as one of his spindly, long fingers fingered a dark chocolate curl and twirled it, almost…lovingly.

She shuddered. Tonks attempted to scramble away from Amycus Carrow from her place on the floor, but the man was as fast as lightning, and the strong grip of the Death Eater held her in place by her waist and she hadn't remembered the strength in her legs leaving as it felt as though her heart was ripped from her chest. Her eyes sunken in and her skin sallow and clammy, she swallowed nervously past the lump in her throat as it hallowed, tightening.

"Little dove. Did you _really_ think that you and your _partner_ , could deceive us?" His question escaped Amycus's lips as a low threatening growl.

The way his hands balled into fists at his side suggested he was not at all pleased to see her tonight, and Tonks felt the color rapidly drain from her face.

Something was wrong. She had— _they_ had—been compromised.

"Did you really think that we did not _know_ your little game, sweetheart? I _know_ you're an Auror with the Ministry, kid. Did you really think that you could _hide_ that from me and get _away_ with it?!" Carrow snarled. His cold baritone voice was flat, his eyes listless. His eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, and hard. In that moment, Tonks could tell that Amycus Carrow was far away.

No doubt already thinking of some horrible punishment to inflict upon her. Tonks swallowed nervously as she watched as the whites of his eyes almost seemed to darken the angrier he got as his gaze narrowed and he growled.

The Death Eater's lethal stare felt piercing, painful as if his glower were tearing Tonks's heart apart with a blinding stare devoid of warmth and kindness.

Tonks swallowed, her throat feeling like it was on fire and in agony as she looked up at Carrow, her wand hand fingers twitching, but she was frozen.

**_OLLIE!_** Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and screamed his name. Silence. _Ollie, move your ass and get in here_ _ **NOW**_ _! He knows! He knows!_

When Ollie did not immediately Apparate to her side, Tonks felt a tremor of fear down her spine and feared the worst.

Maybe the sister found him and killed him already.

_No_ , she thought wildly, biting her tongue until she tasted copper and iron.

Before Tonks could crawl away even further, Carrow was already hovering over her, grabbing her by the arm and flipping her onto her stomach right there on the floor. "You thought you could _deceive_ us? You thought you had outwitted me, darling. But I'm a _patient_ man, darling…"

When Tonks favored silence as a response, not wanting to say anything that could incriminate either her or her partner for the sheer stupidity and the shirking of their Auror duties what the rest would deem the 'normal' way, through massive channels of permits and paperwork, Amycus grew even angrier.

Carrow let out a low guttural growl from the back of his throat and snapped his fingers.

Tonks visibly flinched and stifled a cry of surprise as she heard the familiar all-too-familiar _crack_! of a witch or wizard Apparating, and through her haze of cloudy vision, she blearily attempted to lift her head to see who it was.

Tonks felt a wash of cold as the man's sister, a sallow-face fair-haired blonde woman with her hair pulled back into a severe-looking bun that would have rivaled that of Professor McGonagall's, Alecto Carrow, dragged a struggling figure across the linoleum tile floor.

" _No_ …" she whispered faintly. She did not know what had happened in the woods, but Alecto had somehow found Ollie. Perhaps he had heard her mental scream and she had intercepted him. She didn't know, but what she did know that Ollie was hurt.

His left eye was practically swollen shut and bruised purple, his tall form slack and he practically crumpled into a heap next to Tonks as Alecto released him, a look of revulsion on her face at having to touch a filthy _half-blood_.

Ollie's raven hair was matted and tangled with congealed blood. It looked as though the sister had hit her partner with a well-aimed Stinging Jinx.

His one good eye fluttered open slightly, and he struggled to say her first name, his cracked lips failing at the first syllable, but he did not need to say it.

Stifling a choked sob at the back of her throat, Tonks scrambled to his side and cradled his head in her hands, resting his upper torso on her thighs. She dropped down on her knees and screamed with all her might. She sobbed and tears flooded like the waters rushing down from a waterfall and the only time she'd stop was to fill her lungs with fresh air.

"Ol, Ollie, _look at me_ ," she murmured lowly, lowering her voice so that only her partner could possibly hear her voice. "Oh, God. What...what do I _do_? Oh, Merlin, look at what they've _done_ to you. What the hell happened?" Tonks whispered, hearing the crack in her voice, as she blinked back salty tears. Y—you're fine. We're _fine_."

But they weren't. They _weren't_ fine. Tonks let out a muffled whimper as one final glance upward as she forced herself to tear her gaze away from Ollie's beaten and broken form and craned her neck up to regard the Carrow siblings.

One final glance at Amycus and Alecto's furious eyes confirmed her possible outcome. Tonks knew would never forget the evil glint in his beady eyes.

The murderer had smelt of blood. Of danger. Thanks to her carelessness, somehow, she had been compromised and put Ollie at risk.

Because of her _stupidity_ , the pair of them had been found out and compromised.

And Carrow was going to kill them.


	29. A Light Extinguished

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE **

" _So_ …" Amycus growled, his voice dangerously low and quiet as he seethed. "Here we _are_ , sweet Helena. Or should I call you Miss Tonks? That is your real name, isn't it, little darling? Or have you lied about that too? I suppose my sister and I shall learn the truth from you, one way or another. Not to worry in that regard. You have _lied_ to me, and how you have betrayed my confidence and trust, doll. This is rather embarrassing for me, little love, as it is for you and _him_."

As if to emphasize his point, he jerked his head towards the woman's nearly lifeless partner, the only indication the boy was alive was the steady rise and fall of his chest. Piling reproach upon reproach upon this little Auror that had thought she could get away with deceiving him, toying with him, taunting him, was a sin that he could not let go unpunished. And this, for them both, was the beginning of the end. Carrow was more than maddened right now.

He was enraged. Amycus fumed, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he began to grow silent and unresponsive, despite Tonks's quiet pleadings to let them go _now_.

"The—the Aurors are on their way," the young witch said through her tears. "If—if you try _anything_ , if you hurt either one of us, it won't bode well for you. Seeing as your arms and legs aren't missing yet, then…I guess this means you haven't ever had a run-in with Mad-Eye Moody, have you? Let us go. _Now_ ," she began, and Amycus snorted, seeing her bluff as plain as day.

Carrow turned his back on her from the witch's place on the floor and clasped his hands behind his back.

"No, I do not think that they are, sweetheart. Nobody knows that you are _here_ , do they, little lovely? For your so-called little _plan_ to gather evidence against me goes against your entire protocol, and if you told anyone, then it would be admitting for you both you went against your precious rules and regulations at the Ministry, dove, and it wouldn't be good," he growled coldly. She had been…unfaithful to him, and in such a _low_ way.

Toying with him like this, and now, her _partner_ would pay the price. His gaze drifted back towards the young Auror, who had, it would seem, given that he and Alecto had caught onto her wretched little plan, abandoned her disguise and her lusciously dark curly hair that he had fawned over was gone.

In its place, was a thick tuft of dark pink hair, cut short in a pixie, and Amycus felt his blood boil. Now the girl no longer looked like his precious cousin, of whom he was increasingly fond, and the resemblance was no longer there. Amycus Carrow shuddered, feeling his insides curdle like sour milk.

This…this _bitch_ , she was the acid in something that would have otherwise been so heavenly tonight. What the Auror-to-be had just done, rip out that damned corded muscle straight from the confines of his chest. Wounded him more so than anything _else_ the bitch could have done.

" _How_?" It was all Tonks could ask as she continued to clutch onto Ollie and attempt to revive him, swallowing nervously past the lump in her throat, her voice coming out as a mere hoarse cry of pain as Alecto kept her wand trained on them both. Her throat now felt like it was burning and on fire.

Amycus did not bother to stifle the grin that formed at the edges of his lips, into a twisted sneer that chilled both Tonks's and Ollie's insides (what little of the man's wicked smile that he could see with just his one good working eye) and rendered the pair of them unable to move from their spot on the floor.

"Your eyes, darling, I would have thought that it would have been obvious, sweet thing," Carrow answered with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulder. "My dearly beloved cousin does not have gray eyes, sweetheart. You might be a Metamorphmagus, but your eyes at the one thing that doesn't change. I've known since the night my sister caught you snooping outside our house. It was just a matter of…finding the right time to deal with this little deception…"

_Damn_. Tonks swore under her breath through clenched teeth and tightly squeezed her eyes shut as the Death Eater stalked towards the pair of them now.

Tonks felt a shudder journey down her spine and a wash over cold engulf her entire body. "You—that's not _possible_!" she cried, tears streaming down her ashen face. By Merlin's beard, the damned bastard was right. He was _right_.

" **NO**?!" shouted Amycus, seeming to finally lose the last of his patience, his face reddening in anger and a vein in his neck throbbed. "Then what do you call _this_?" he growled, gesturing a shaking finger towards the limp figure of Ollie, whom she still cradled protectively and defensively in her small arms.

The Death Eater's mind felt as if a stone were coursing through it instead of blood. He had rather become attached to the petite little brunette over the last few weeks, despite knowing that she was an Auror from the very beginning.

Amycus Carrow purposely left his gaze off the younger witch, for he could no longer bear to look the kid's way because he believed if they made eye contact, he thought he might vomit. All he felt towards her now was disgust. Total disgust at how she had toyed with his desires the way she had.

"What to _do_ with you, Miss Tonks. What to do, what to _do_ …a lesson needs to be taught here, darling. I think you need a little reminder of what happens when you come on strong, darling, would you not say this to be the case?" he growled in a mock jovial turn, still keeping his hands behind his back.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat and let out a pained wince as Carrow's strong hand curled around her wrist and wrenched her to her feet, violently pulling her to her feet and away from Ollie.

She had no choice but to momentarily shove aside thoughts of her partner for the second and kept her fearful gaze continuously fixated on _him_.

As she clenched her eyes tightly shut and let out a pained whimper as his grip on her wrist tightened hard enough to break it, all she could do was pray to Merlin and His Light that the two of them could get away as soon as possible.

"Please don't hurt him…" she begged, her voice barely above a whisper. "This…this was my idea, _not_ his. Take me instead, but let Ollie go. _Please_ …"

Amycus bristled at the girl's begging, his neck stinging with the heat at the declaration of her partner's name.

The moment he knew she was an Auror, a plant by the Ministry, that changed nothing in his eyes. How he'd wanted to expose her right then and there, and demand that if she wanted to survive, then she would do exactly what he told of her, and she would not fight against him.

"I don't think so, sweet thing. You know I can't let this go unpunished."

Tonks blinked and tried to focus her gaze more than a few feet from herself. She had no idea what Carrow was planning. Just that this was her fault.

Merlin, but she felt so _sick_. It felt like she was radiating heat like a brick removed right from the coals of a fire. Her entire body ached, cheeks feeling like they were burning with the flush of a sudden fever.

She would have pleaded with both Carrow siblings again to show an ounce of mercy, that they did not have to do this to them, that the Wizengamot would be more lenient on them if they let them go now and did not harm them, but there was no strength left in her voice, just a faint whisper lost on the autumnal breeze as soon as the pitiful whimper left her lips in the form of a half-choked sob.

Her breath quivered in short, quick gasps every time she inhaled, her lungs having no choice but to take in the chilled air around painfully and rigidly him. Tonks couldn't seem to stop shaking either, or she trembled in the Death Eater's strong, ironclad grip.

Carrow ignored the young woman's partner, as the dark-haired man rose to his feet, and he heard the man's low threatening growl in his throat, his hands balling and clenching into fists at his sides, though he could not help but to notice that it was enough to quell the man's rage as Tonks let out a muffled squeak and gave a curt shake of her head no, barely noticeable, and Amycus would have more than likely missed it had he not already been hanging onto her every movement.

Amycus narrowed his eyes and his grip on the girl's wrist tightened, and she squirmed underneath his touch but did not cry out in pain. Carrow seethed, a muscle in his jaw twitching as his eyes narrowed, as one of his hands came up to grip the back of her hair, finding purchase in her strands. The hunter let out a heavy sigh and cupped the young woman's chin in his hand.

"I knew I'd find you eventually. You've caused me no small amount of grief, sweetheart, causing me to come _all_ the way into Wales just to find poor little _you_." Amycus clucked his tongue in mock disappointment, relishing in the way the girl's face paled as if hit by a blizzard, and her lips were agape as if devoid of words.

His gaze darted back and forth between that of the boy's, whose expression was unreadable, almost impassive, though the Death Eater was not fooled.

The dark-haired one whom she called Ollie, standing next to Tonks was just as furious, though he could see it in the surprisingly brilliant cobalt blue orbs of the man's that he was afraid to act out in anger for fear that Amycus would retaliate against Tonks. Carrow heaved a heavy sigh and pinched at his temples, and then the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"I am…sorry that it has to be this way, dove. I truly am. But I did _warn_ you, little dove, what would happen if you ever left me. And now _you_ are the one who pays the ultimate price. I'd rather _not_ ruin your pretty little face and make you one ugly whore, though it would certainly reflect what you've _done_. I like you pretty, my little plaything. Still," he sighed, almost sounding bored like he wanted nothing more than to get this little farce over and done with. "I'll have to get my message across to you some other way, I'm afraid."

The man's words chilled Tonks's blood in her veins as Amycus strode around and faced Ollie, who had somehow managed to find his way to his feet, though it looked as though one good puff of wind would blow him over.

How the bloody hell he was standing on his own two feet with his injuries was a miracle. Tonks inhaled a sharp breath that pained her bruised side and waited, and she let out a muffled scream as Amycus nodded to Alecto curtly.

"Sister… Rip. Him."

Just the command murmured lowly turned Tonks's blood sour in her veins. Tonks had no time to raise her own wand against Alecto, before Amycus pointed his own wand at her wand half-raised in hand, ready to strike Alecto down, and shouted, " _Expelliarmus_!"

Tonks's wand flew out of her hand and went sailing across the room, where it lay discarded on the other end of the room. Now she was helpless.

The details began etching permanently on her mind. Ollie's screams as Alecto steadily raised her wand at her partner's chest, a listless look in her eyes.

" _Sectumsempra_!" The moment the spell left Amycus's sister's lips, the blood, Ollie's own life force, didn't gush in a constant flow from his chest, but in time with the beating of his own heart. At first, it came thick and strong, flowing through his fingers as they weakly clawed at the ripped, grotesque flesh.

After a few moments more, the blood was still leaving Ollie's rapidly paling flesh, but his pulses were slower weaker, and his face was much too pale.

The moment Alecto turned her wand on Tonks, and despite the literal tip of Death pointed straight at her chest, Tonks could not look away at what Amycus's sister had made of her partner, as the strength left his knees and he collapsed, though his one good eye remained fixated on Tonks's pale, afraid face. She did not think she would ever forget the vacant stare of Ollie's now.

Staring at her with red-rimmed, bloodied eyes. His maimed body lay helpless as Alecto continued her brutal torture of her only best friend in life.

Blood gushed with sickening determination from Ollie's neck as if his own heart sought to pump it from his now-weak body. His fingers clamped over the wound, two pale starfish growing paler by the second. The scarlet blood lashed over the linoleum floor, painting the scene in which Ollie would be found dead unless Tonks did something very smart fast…but she couldn't.

There was a scream from deep within that forced its way out of her mouth as if her terrified soul had unleashed a demon. All she felt was rage.

All she felt was that she did not want to be friends with anyone at all anymore because then this would not happen. She wouldn't have to trust anyone. It would be safer, easier to choose not to allow herself to be attached.

In Tonks's intense silence she somehow screamed with her whole body. The eyes wide with horror, the mouth rigid and open, her chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging deeply into the palms of her white-boned hand.

" _This is your fault, darling_. I did _warn_ you, sweetheart. _Your fault_."

The last taunting words of Amycus Carrow reached her eardrums, and all she heard was a horrible ringing in her ears as it began to screech incessantly.

It felt as though her heart was almost bursting against her very ribcage.

She was feeling it—a drop of rage forming and fevering her very bloodstream and spreading like a wave of hot, fiery anger she had never felt before.

Her breaths increased and became half-mad, a low growl escaping from her throat, falling completely beyond the scope of her control. A strange itching sensation erupted on her jaws and she could almost feel herself foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

The last thing Tonks remembered was how her teeth gnashed in a wild frenzy as she felt her pupils dilate, and though she could not see it, her eyes changed color, shifting from their usual light gray hue, to a piercing yellow, like glinting topaz pinpricks in the dimly lit corridor and she let out a growl as she collapsed to the floor, skin feeling like it bubbled and her bones shifting into place as she gave herself over completely to her Animagus form, and soon, all that was in the place where she had once stood, was the Wolf.

From the Wolf's throat came a low, guttural growl as her teeth bared, coiled with ravenous hunger and hatred. She could hear the Man and Woman's screams, sweet, succulent music to her ears, and then jinxes, bright red and yellow darting, and firing in every direction.

Then came the scream of Man.

And blood. Warm, sticky bloom skimming around her mouth as the Wolf sank her fangs in the neck of the Man—the _Murderer_ of the Man whose familiar scent had long since faded, and the one laying on the floor, his pulses were slower. Very much faded, but still alive. _Defend. Protect. Attack. Kill_.

The instincts of the Wolf as Tonks allowed this persona to take overran through the Wolf's mind like a mantra, and the Wolf had to protect her Friend.

_Kill. Rip. Tear. Bite. Feed_. The thick scent of terror intermingled with coppery blood filled the She-Wolf's nostrils. Terror. Fear.

How it smelled sweet and succulent.

She had never known herself to be a savage She-Wolf whenever she transformed into her Animagus form, of which she had learned in her third year how to successfully transform. But now, given what the Man and Woman had done to her Friend, the She-Wolf snarled and raged and ravished, bearing her blood-soaked fangs, tore at the Woman's arm, lashed at the Woman's throat, snapped the wand in two in between her powerful jaws, and went for her eyes.

Unsatisfied with the Woman's demise as a horrible, guttural choking noise spluttered from her ravaged throat as she bled out to death on the floor, the Wolf leaped on the other, the Man, and clamped down on his face repeatedly until his left eye was yanked from its socket, and his screams filled her eardrums.

Tonks's mind was ravaged with pure wrath and rancor and she went lunging after the Man, successfully snapping, and clamping onto his ankle, and had the man screaming in pain. A sudden, unexpected gash hollered on her left side. A red jinx whizzed past her right ear and the Wolf yelped as she crumpled next to a tattered mess of pristine white stained garish crimson with thick blood.

The dissipating mist reflected on Tonks's eyes as she felt the savagery of the She-Wolf leave her spirit and body as she felt the transformation wearing off. When at least, her heartbeats slowed to something that resembled normalcy again and no longer sounded like they thrummed against her chest so damn loud that she could not focus on anything else but them, Tonks blinked blearily and sat up and perceived the carnage around her, eyes gazing at the horrors.

Mutilated carcasses still warm and sticky with their own lifeforce, Amycus Carrow's empty eye socket, shards of skin, and flesh from Alecto.

And a vast overflow of crimson liquid that would stain the floor. " _No_ …"

There was no amount of horror that could ever prepare her for seeing the life force ebb from another, the hopelessness, the tearing at the soul that was the departing of the other. Death came for Ollie with the slow rattling gasps. His breathing would stop for a time only to reemerge like a drowning victim coming up for one last breath, though in her father's case, he was choking to death on his own blood.

But in a few moments, Ollie had passed on, his earthly tether separated, and his soul bound for whatever came next. Tonks cried like there was too much raw pain inside her to be contained. She cried like her spirit needed to break loose from her skin, desperate to release an elemental rage on the world. Tonks's gaze landed on that of her partner and watched as Ollie's last breath plucked off his mouth. Red against pristine white.

Tonks tasted bile on her tongue. Nausea at what had transpired her and the full realization that she had played a part in this, that Tonks, in her wild, untamable form as the Wolf, had killed Ollie on accident, not able to distinguish her friend's scent from the blood-soaked carcasses of Alecto and Amycus Carrow, clawed at her throat, and the Princess tried to force down the bile, but it was too late.

The bread that she had eaten earlier spewed out of her coughing, choking mouth, now brought back up as gorge. Her stomach kept on contracting violently and forcing everything up and out. Ollie was _dead_ , because of _her_.

The light within him, that bright, beautiful light that was his soul, that vibrant ball of energy that Tonks could never seem to get enough of, was now permanetly extinguished.

Because of the Wolf within her. _Murderous beast. Nasty, nasty animal!_

Her face was white and dripping bile, sweat, and tears as heavy sobs wracked her frame and shook her shoulders as she lurched forward and sank to her knees on the floor next to her partner's corpse. The pungent stench of bile and the blood-soaked floor around her invaded her nostrils and she heaved again, even though there was nothing left to come out.

Tonks had always been so self-conscious when she cried but now, she just gave way to the enormity of her grief. She sobbed into her hands and the tears dripped between her fingers, raining down onto the blood-soaked floor.

Her breathing was ragged, gasping and the strength left her legs. She sank to her knees not caring about the grit that dug into her knees. She was noisy, her skin was blotched, but she did not care. Murderer. You're a murderer.

She cried until no more tears came, but still, the emptiness and sorrow remained. Dawn came.

On the first light of the day her still crouched figure remained unmoved, still clutching onto Ollie's lifeless form, even when Moody and the Aurors arrived on scene to arrest the Carrows, and instead were met with a blood-soaked room and no amount of gore that they had ever seen before in their life up until this moment, and when she lifted her head to look at Moody, it was as if her heart had been ripped from her chest.

Only the strong grip of Mad-Eye held her in place as he removed her forcefully from the scene, and away from Ollie, though it took himself and two other Aurors to pry her away from the lifeless body of her best friend.

Her partner. Tonks had not even remembered her knees weakening, her chest hyperventilating, and her soul hallowing and becoming empty, and it was only when Mad-Eye finally covered her sight from Ollie Brennan's body, with a numb embrace and a strangely well-played hand pressing on the back of her skull as he said not a word as he pulled in his protégé for a hug that her tears came.

Dawn came, and Moody stayed with Tonks, for she did not want to move. She couldn't.

There was nothing left, nobody left, no reason to move.

And still, she screamed.

* * *

**Bet you weren't expecting her Animagus form to be a wolf, were you? It has long since been my obsession to give Tonks the form of a she-wolf, to keep a certain werewolf company during those special times of the month.**

**Sad they killed her man.**


	30. The Mad Beast Within

**CHAPTER THIRTY **

By the time Tonks had finished recounting her tale of events, she was holding onto both of Remus's hands, squeezing them tight enough to break his fingers if she were of a mind to, though Lupin knew his partner would never intentionally hurt him.

It was almost as if she was afraid to let him go, as though if she were to, then he would vanish, and she would never hold his hand or be near him again.

In light of the gruesome and bloody details of her story, parts of which he could not even begin to fathom how she had found the strength within to go on, but Remus already knew that Nymphadora Tonks was stronger than he was, Lupin found he could only pity her and thank Merlin that she had chosen to open up to him and share what was on her mind following the boggart.

He was admittedly still having difficulty believing that her Animagus form was a female gray wolf. It all seemed highly too much of a coincidence.

Remus could not help but wonder if there would come a day in the future when he might need that ability by his side during his transformations, Wolfsbane Potion notwithstanding, though there was the possibility that both Tonks and Sirius in their Animagus forms could keep him company during.

He cursed himself immediately for thinking such an unhelpful thought during this time. _Tonks. Tonks, focus on your partner, Rem_ , Lily advised him.

 _She needs you now. You'll have time to discuss…that…later, Remus_.

Remus gave the tiniest of nods that Tonks missed as her head was cast downward, gazing at her lap as she fidgeted with her fingers nervously, and patiently waited for his partner to regain control of her ability to speak to him.

Tonks unsteadily picked up her gaze to carefully assuage her partner's reaction towards the story of her part in Ollie's death, accident though it was, and within her gray eyes was a horrible vulnerability that sent a spiral of warmth through Remus's chest, so powerful it ached with a sudden fierce protectiveness. By the time she finished speaking, her entire body was shaking.

"I—I understand if you will not forgive me, Remus," Tonks whispered, her voice came but her eyes glistened with trapped tears that she refused to let fall. She coughed once to disguise the crack and dip in her voice and returned her attention to an empty spot on the wall behind Remus's head to avoid looking the man square in the eyes, for she did not want to see the hurt within.

That horrible, wretched antagonizing hurt for keeping this a secret from him. Though, it did not escape Lupin's attention that she did not relinquish his hand, for which he was secretly grateful. He liked the warmth she gave off.

"I kept this part of my past and my…Animagus ability a secret because it is dangerous for me to speak of. I—I've been afraid to transform again in case it happens again," Tonks whispered, flinching as she recollected how it felt as though she had lost control the night that Ollie died. _When I murdered him…_

Tonks at this moment needed something from him, anything, to indicate that he understood where she was coming from and that he sympathized. Tonks was not seeking his forgiveness; she was not asking for that.

Only empathy. All she asked of Remus was that he find it within himself to understand. And Remus could empathize more than she knew, and more than he had ever let himself let on during the early days of their new partnership. But now, he decided to let Tonks see it.

She had, after all, opened up her heart and soul to him, and it was only fair that he return it in kind. He owed her that. After a moment spent in agonizing silence, watching Tonks bit her bottom lip as the uncertainty of not knowing how Lupin was going to react to her confession, he said to her, "You will have to find it within yourself to forgive me too. I also have not been completely honest with you. I should not have kept the nature of my condition a secret, Dora."

And just as Dora had painted him a vivid picture of her reactionary behavior towards the Death Eaters had played a hand in her former partner's gruesome murder, Remus did the same for Nymphadora now.

He told Tonks of his father, how, when Remus was just a young boy, having recently turned five, he spoke out against werewolves, thinking them to be savage beasts, and something he had said had angered a particularly violent and savage werewolf by the name of Fenrir Greyback, and as he spat the name of his attacker more than spoke it, he saw Tonks give a visible shudder at the mention of the well-known werewolf, now in league with Lord Voldemort.

How, in retaliation against Lyall Lupin, Greyback purposefully positioned himself near the Lupin's family's residence on the night of the full moon and viciously attacked Remus when he was only five years old. His parents managed to save his life but at a great cost.

He would never again be made whole, and he would always be a fully-fledged werewolf with more than a few side effects.

By the time he had finished his own story, Tonks continued to clutch onto both of his hands, squeezing them as if afraid to let go, and he felt his heart skip a beat as she raised his knuckles to her lips and pressed a chaste kiss to them.

Suddenly, he wanted her to do it again. Her lips were parted, and her eyes wide with incredulity and disbelief, fresh tears welling once again in her eyes.

"I am _so_ _sorry_ ," she whispered reverently. "How have you managed alone all these years? You have lived through violent times and have had to sell your soul as a result. You—you should not have, and as long as I remain your partner with Dumbledore's permission, then you shall not be. We aren't meant to be alone. And as for me…" Tonks paused, her voice cracking as it trailed off slightly. "It was a huge mistake for me not to speak of it, Remus, and…I'm sorry. I can only hope that you don't think any less of me for it, for even knowing of your condition, I think no less of you, Remus. If anything, it makes you that much more special in my eyes… You are _strong_. When the rest of the world turns its back on you when they learn the truth, you do not let that stop you from living your life. And though it's painful, you keep going. _Strong_."

The look of shock and incredulity must have been evident on his face, for Tonks offered him a sad smile and as if to emphasize her point, pressed her hand against his chest, and he could have sworn his heart rate increased tenfold.

Tonks touched his cheek with her other hand and kept it there, setting his whole face aflame as a light pink blush speckled its way along his cheeks.

"Don't bother trying to deny it, Remus," she insisted, sensing the doubt in his light brown eyes. "It's nothing to sugarcoat. You risked your life to save mine from Crouch. If…if I had known, then I never would have done it. Truly. You are a good man. With a good, _good_ heart, and an even more kind and gentle soul. I only hope that you can find it within yourself to forgive me."

Her plea and apology escaped her lips as a half-choked sob, and as she took a few shaky breaths, Remus mulled over the details of her story in his mind.

"Don't apologize," he answered steadily. "You have done nothing wrong, Dora. I don't blame you for keeping what happened to your former partner a secret, Tonks. But I would consider you a fool to continue to allow yourself to think that it will happen to me. It _won't_ ," he promised her, putting a heavy emphasis on the last word of his statement. "I won't let it," he heard himself say, giving her hand a squeeze.

Tonks shook her head in protest, lowering her gaze to her lap, a single tear running down her pale cheek. She did not seem upset anymore, at least.

But moved. "I should have told you much sooner, Remus. I'm sorry…"

Remus inhaled a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he felt his partner shift on the bed and scooted even closer so that their thighs were practically touching one another. She was close, much closer than she had been before.

He was not at all sure what to make of this unexpected closeness from the young witch. Tonks's left hand was resting against his cheek, and the other splayed against his chest, still firmly pressing against his heart, feeling it beat.

Her close proximity sent his heart racing and his blood pressure spiked.

"Dora…what…?" He whispered her name with such _urgency_. He blinked owlishly at the young Auror and without Remus even becoming aware of it, he glanced down slightly and saw that his own hand had come up to press against the back of her skull, and his left hand rested on the flat of her stomach.

All throughout their conversation, Lupin had been struggling to tame himself, to quell the Mad Beast within the confines of his chest that tugged and strained at its chains, restricting his body from the irresistible call of her aura.

Remus was finding it increasingly difficult not to just shove it all aside with a murmured curse under his breath. He was _here_ , on her bed, she was _here_ , and the world was _theirs_. Lupin placed both of his hands on either side of her hips, aware that his hands were no longer taking direction from his mind.

His fingers came up to grip almost painfully tight on her waist and raked down the material of her black jeans, and he heard her soft gasp of surprise as music to his wolfish hearing. In this moment, his senses had been seduced, by her, this—this She-Wolf, if the form of her Animagus was in fact, the truth, and he could no longer think straight. Lupin's hold upon Tonks's hips tightened even more.

He practically growled with the effort to restrain himself from acting on this overwhelming urge that ached so badly.

He _wanted_ it. The thought plastered a vibration in his mind.

Was he ready for it? The love of a good woman? He had never experienced it for himself, thinking himself to be unclean and unworthy of a woman's love.

His friends in times past had said it was pleasurable, particularly James and Lily, and to a lesser extent, Sirius in his private trysts throughout Hogwarts in their sixth and seventh year with various girls from their same year.

So much so that the _seedier_ types, the wizards that tended to frequent Knockturn Alley, would hand over Galleons and Knuts to any witch willing to put up with their desires to experience it. The Mad Beast within his chest gave another guttural roar, and he decided that yes.

Yes, he was. He wanted… _her_. _Just her_.

Lupin visibly flinched as the Mad Beast's roaring seemed to ring within his eardrums. His fingers twitched with the effort to restrain himself from doing anything he knew that he would regret, though his hands were urging him to explore and it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to resist the calling.

Tonks was too young for him, he was too old, almost ten years their distance, the rational side of his mind was arguing in an attempt to quell this.

And she was as fragile as a dove. And if he were to let the Beast within taking control, there was no doubt in Remus's mind that he would hurt Dora.

But…there was another side of his personality that didn't give a damn.

It took Remus a fraction of a second to realize Tonks was speaking to him, and she had asked of him a question, and he blinked rapidly, forcing the Beast within to stay quiet for a moment so he could hear her question again.

"You don't…you do not hate me, do you? Please don't _hate_ me…" Tonks was practically begging him now, and very close to near tears again.

She was biting down on her bottom lip, hard enough for it to bleed.

" _No_!" Remus answered and immediately drifted one of his hands down to fall over the top of hers. "I could _never_ hate you, Dora. I hope you don't hate me, either," he murmured, feeling momentarily relieved that for the moment, the uncontrollable heat between his chest had ceased the Beast's urgings.

"How?" Tonks breathed, her gray eyes wide and round as she desperately searched Remus's face for any semblance of the honest truth.

"How what?" Lupin blinked, suddenly feeling dazed and confused.

"How could I possibly hate you, Remus?" The very concept of such an idea seemed to greatly disturb Tonks, for her face rapidly paled and looked stricken, her lips parted slightly in shock and she looked as though Lupin had slapped her. "Because you kept your condition a _secret_ from me? After I told you that I _murdered_ my former partner? Why do you think you are at fault?"

Remus ran his tongue over the wall of his teeth as he struggled to think of an apt response to the question that she had just posed to him, but Tonks wasn't finished just yet.

"But Lupin, you are a difficult man to hate. Can't you _see_ that? You saved my life. More times now than I can count on my fingers," she murmured, glancing down at her hands resting in her lap as she nervously fidgeted with them. "You are a _good_ man. Kind, even to those who don't deserve your unfailing kindness and your mercy," she scowled, and a dark look crossed over her pale features, and Remus could tell without even having to ask that she was thinking of Umbridge. "You're _kind_. Even when you don't have to be, and that is the thing that makes you beautiful." Tonks shook her head and swallowed back a sob. "But you are incapable of seeing yourself as I do."

Stillness filled Tonks's bedroom as Remus stared at her, at an utter loss for words, his mouth open, but nothing was coming to him as he struggled to think of something to say in response to his partner's statement.

Never _once_ in his _life_ had someone spoken to him in this regard, not even Lily said such things to him. Remus raised his eyebrows at Tonks, they shot so far up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his hair.

His first natural instinct was to brush off her remarks and deny everything she had just said, but the darkening look resting in Tonks's eyes warned him against it. In fact, in the two weeks of their increasingly growing warm friendship, Remus could not for the life of him ever recall seeing such a strange look on his partner's face. Intermingling and potent mixtures of sadness, uneasiness, sincerity, and…something _else_ , a foreign emotion he could not quite identify.

If Lupin was being perfectly honest with himself, it both frightened him and held him captivated and enthralled by her gaze, and unable to pull away.

"You have sad eyes, Remus," Tonks pointed out, a pained expression on her face. "You see yourself as immoral, something not right because of your condition. This—this horrible anger that you feel, you keep it bottled, this coldness that is not like you at all, it's directed towards _yourself_ and this world that you live in that does not treat you fairly. You do not care for yourself."

Remus looked away and lowered his head in shame as her words hit him like a block of ice square in his chest, allowing that one stubborn lock of his light brown bangs to fall into his eyes, and Tonks could tell Lupin did not want to accept her words as fact.

Tonks heaved a small sigh of frustration as the young witch realized that what she had just said was not merely enough for him. She dared to scoot a fraction of an inch closer, and if she were any closer by this point in their conversation, she would practically be straddling his lap.

Tonks was not at all surprised when his hands gripped onto her waist tightly, though the glower he shot her like a defensive, caged beast ready to sink its claws into her flesh if she dared to cross that boundary of their friendship _did_.

"You punish yourself for your condition, Remus," she whispered, reaching up a shaking hand to card back that stubborn lock of light brown hair. "You still _do_. But what happened to you when you were five is _not_ your fault."

" _Why_?" Lupin spat, looking down at the bed. Remus was growing exhausted, she could see it, and she wondered if after this they would return to the party downstairs, but it did not stop Tonks from seeing the shadow of the wolf dart across his features and into his eyes in her partner's face, and she realized that the man and the wolf were one and the same. Complements and curses of one another, and to attempt to separate the two would be disastrous.

"You feel powerless, Lupin," Tonks spoke, raking her hand through his hair, and she bit the wall of her cheek as a shudder of…something traveled down Lupin's spine, though he made no effort at all to remove her hand. "Because of your lycanthropy and the regulations put into place for your kind, the Anti-Werewolf Legislation makes it almost impossible for you to maintain a job that matches your extraordinary skill set, and as such, you feel as though you have no purpose in this world. But we _all_ feel like this at times, Remus."

"Like what?" Remus asked, furrowing his brows into a frown.

Tonks's voice had faltered halfway through her speech to her partner and trailed off because she soon came to the realization that she spoke of herself.

Quick to recognize her sudden mistake, Tonks turned away and sighed. They were much alike. They both felt the same things. Wanted the same thing.

Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose and swiveled her head back around to regard Remus, whose light brown eyes had darkened with such intensity, glistening with some unspoken emotion that she wasn't sure what he might be feeling at this moment.

"You have…you've been burying your pain, Lupin," Tonks whispered by way of responding to her partner's question.

"Pain?" Remus repeated, sounding as though he could not believe her words. "Who said I was in pain?" Remus spoke again, his voice solemn.

Tonks merely proceeded to say nothing and instead offered a sad smile and rested her cheek in her hand. "You did not have to say it. Your expression speaks for yourself. You have sad eyes."

A pause in response was nothing Tonks could have hoped for, as Lupin closed his eyes as if he were fighting back against something terrible and losing.

They stayed closed as if he could not bear to look upon her. Tonks felt her brows knit together in confusion as she processed the hurt she felt inside at the man's silence to her what should have been an obvious statement, but could not understand for the life of her why she felt so disappointed by his sullenness.

"Dora…" murmured Remus, his fingers on her waist tightening slightly, sending a spiraling heat through Tonks's system. "After…after what happened in the library, then…you must know that I…" His voice trailed off in silence.

Tonks felt her gray eyes widen in shock as she looked up, Remus still continuing to keep his eyes closed and his jaw clenched shut with the effort to restrain himself from doing… _something_ , though what that was, she didn't know. Was he…was he talking about what she thought he was talking about?

"Know what?" she whispered hoarsely in response, and Lupin was no fool.

He knew Tonks was not ignorant of the fact that ever since that moment in the library, there had been that look exchanged between the two of them, though no words were spoken, and it was then that something had changed.

And all the anxiety Remus had felt for the past two weeks had inevitably led up to this moment, the two of them alone, and uninterrupted for a change.

Lupin's gaze drifted down towards her lips, thinking that they had never been this close before, and as he allowed his wretched sight to ghost across the features of his partner's pale face, he realized tonight Tonks wore a different expression, and it hit him square in the chest, this painful realization that Remus soon recognized that his greatest fear had perhaps come true.

She _did_ feel the unimaginable foreign thing that had churned inside of him now for weeks.

Remus wasn't even if sure if either of them knew what it was, but both of them knew they were broaching the point of no return, and neither seemed compelled to walk away first. "Don't you know, Dora?" he tried again, lowering his voice, and deepening it slightly so that only Tonks could hear.

Tonks did not answer him. Her gray eyes widened as her irises widened and remained transfixed on his face. He felt as if they were on the edge of a cliff, and both of them about trip down it and fall towards the sea below it.

 _Don't… don't do this…_ the rational side of his conscience was screaming at him not to, that he would regret this with every fiber of his being if he did.

With a slightly shaking hand, Lupin cupped Tonks's face and he could feel the young witch stiffen slightly before leaning closer into him just now.

The effect this had on him was anything _but_ insignificant. But Merlin, she was so beautiful, and the sudden intensity of her gaze suddenly made him feel self-conscious.

"Remus?"

Tonks spoke his name with such gentle grace, her voice barely above a whisper, and just the sound of his name on her tongue caused his heart to thrum erratically against his chest, and he swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat, and he looked up briefly, only to accidentally brush his nose against hers.

He could swear he could see his incredulous expression reflected in the young woman's glistening gray orbs, and it felt like he was going to implode if he did not do something about this problem soon.

He knew she didn't care for him back, but he couldn't resist. He leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching. Dear Merlin above help him, he couldn't fight against the thoughts that were going through him. Her very smell was flooding his senses now...

But he had no chance to ponder over this before Tonks closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his.

Remus froze at the unexpected intimacy, the line she had just crossed, his light brown eyes wide and unblinking in shock. He completely expected Dora to recoil away in disgust and explain away the slip in her balance at any second.

But that second for him never came.

She leaned up and captured his mouth without warning, giving him virtually no time to think or react, but they fit so perfectly together, it was like they were made for one another, and he could swear he heard the Beast within practically purring in pleasure, and Remus could not help but let out a sigh.

Tonks's mouth was just as soft as he'd imagined it to be during his nightmares, and he grazed his hands across her collarbones, and he felt Tonks's fingers grip hold of his sweater, her hands splaying across his chest for support.

He had never been kissed before, and he was afraid it showed, as he had no idea what he was doing, but Tonks didn't seem to notice or care about it.

Lupin felt Tonks lean into him, enticing him to hold her as close as he possibly dared, and a horrible, terrible, fiery ache bloomed in the pit of his stomach and spread throughout him, rendering him breathless, not caring.

His partner continued to kiss him, never once flinching, or turning away in disgust, and continued to tear down the walls of denial and stone he'd built around his heart and anything and everything having to do with Nymphadora.

Her lips were warm, so incredibly warm, and felt as though they thawed out their initial shock as they moved in sync with his. Lupin could hardly find it within himself to close his eyes. He'd never been kissed before, and he worried that if he did, then Tonks would disappear from before his own wolfish sight.

Remus cringed, though she seemed not to feel it at all as James and Lily's 'helpful' suggestions piped up in the darkest recesses of his troubled mind.

 _Is that the best* you can do, Moony_? James was sounding appalled. _Body language, Lupin. You have to show her you care, otherwise, she'll get the wrong impression that you don't like it. Don't be afraid to, you know, really get into it, Moony. Touch her, feel her move_. _Make her want even more…_

 _ **JAMES**! _Lily scolded her husband, though she sounded more amused more so than frustrated. He could swear he could hear Lily let out a sigh of exasperation. _As much as I hate to admit it whenever James is right_ , _I'm afraid my husband as a point, Rem. But we're so happy for you. Your first kiss! I think this one might be it for you, Lupin. What if she's it? The one? You're doing so well. Use your hands. Don't be afraid. If she hated it, she would have broken it off already…_

Lupin practically growled in frustration as their kiss continued, and in the effort to wave away his friends' voices in his mind with a curt wave of his hand, he almost succeeded in knocking over the lamp that rested on the night table.

Remus had never felt anything so sensual and empowering in his life, and it felt as though everything had suddenly become heightened, like the two of them were instantly transported to another place, another time. Just them.

The kiss obliterated every thought. For the first time in forever, Remus's mind was locked into the present. The worries of the day evaporated like a summer shower onto the hot pavement. His usual mode of hurrying from one thing to the next was suspended, he had no wish for the kiss to end.

Drunk on endorphins his only desire was to touch her, to move his hands under her smooth summer layers, and feel her perfect softness. In moments, the soft caress has become firmer, he savored her lips and the quickening of her breath that matched his own.

A kiss like this was a beginning, a promise of much more to come.

Everything was _real_. The tiny moan Remus heard Tonks give out was real, their breaths intermingling and becoming as one was so incredibly real, and he knew, when he felt the tip of his tongue touch hers as he cupped the back of her head and pressed in softly, tilting her head to the side and deepened their kiss as he gently made Tonks open her mouth even further, Lupin knew he'd never feel anything as intense and right as this again, and probably never would.

Lupin felt Tonks's hands come up to grasp and play with the ends of his hair, which sent shivers of pleasure down her spine, her fingertips leaving sparks of hot flames in their wake.

They hadn't had enough, and Remus could feel it as he reluctantly broke their kiss and he met Dora's gaze and saw the fire within her gray eyes.

Both of them were panting now and the heat that seemed to radiate from her skin was overwhelming, and the Beast within his chest gave a roar at the unexpected sudden departure, demanding that he do it again, give himself to her. Lupin wanted nothing more than to allow himself to surrender completely to it, to this heat that she gave off if she would have him. If she'd say yes.

"Did I…did I hurt you?" Tonks gasped, noticing how he blinked owlishly at her and raked his fingers through his now-tousled light brown hair.

"No," he stammered, not sure what else to say. Tonks fell silent for a moment, regarding him with those glistening gray, doe-like eyes of his that held him ensnared, and Remus knew he couldn't pull his gaze away even if he tried.

"Would…" Tonks bit down on her bottom lip and hesitated again. "Would you let me do it again?"

Remus blinked, not at all sure what she was asking of him. Do what again, he had to wonder what it was that Tonks wanted of him. Bite him? Kiss him? Prove to him that he wasn't dreaming, that what transpired between the two of them just now was real? Whatever it was, he found himself nodding.

Dora could have asked him to bottle the moon's rays for her, and he would have done it.

Though he realized that as her arms began to reach up and wrap around his neck that if they did not stop this and _soon_ , it would inevitably lead to something much more dangerous and he did not stifle his groan as he could feel Tonks's leg run unknowingly against his aroused flesh, which on fire and ached so terribly bad with the scorching heat this woman gave off, and it had awakened the Mad Beast within him, and before he lost all his sanity, Remus quickly tore his lips from hers the second he heard approaching footsteps.

Though for the first time in his life, he felt truly… _alive_. _Free_.

Tonks realized it too and quickly relinquished her hold on Remus and raked her fingers through her hair, attempting to smooth down a few strays.

"What have you _done_ to me, Dora?" he murmured, whispering it incredulously into the shell of his ear as he pulled her numbly to her feet.

Tonks's eyes widened at his question which wasn't a question, and finally realizing what had almost transpired, she flinched as the door flung wide open.

Sirius stood lingering in the doorway, looking thoroughly cross and disgruntled as he folded his arms across his chest. "There you both are! Molly was worried for you, Tonks, when you did not come back downstairs and she said there's dessert, and Lupin, she knows _you're_ the chocolate addict, so she was hoping you would…sample it..."

But her cousin's voice trailed off as he looked at the pair of them, his gaze lingering on their pink faces, flushed high with color, at their panting.

At the protective and almost painful way that Lupin's hands hovered over Tonks's waist, the way Tonks was actively refusing to meet his gaze.

It was only too obvious what he had almost walked in on, and they'd been caught.

Sirius felt the broad grin erupt over his handsome features before he could stop himself.

"Something tells me you've already _had_ dessert, Moony," he added with a snort which earned him a venomous glower from the both of them. "Am I…am I interrupting something here?"

To which both of them responded at the same time in unison.

"Yes," snapped Lupin irritably, one of his hands still resting in her hair.

"No!" Tonks exclaimed vehemently, shaking her head, and relinquishing her hold on Lupin, and before Remus could so much as say another word and shoot out an arm to keep the celestial-like creature by her side, she ducked out from underneath Remus's arm, her face pink and darted out into the hallway and downstairs before Lupin or Sirius could so much as say another word.

Sirius felt quite flabbergasted as Lupin threw out his arms in exasperation and brushed past Padfoot, his shoulder shoving against Sirius's as hard as he could without injuring his best friend, and without another word, as he followed Tonks back downstairs where the party for Ron and Hermione still commenced.

Remus furrowed his brows into a frown as he followed after the young witch who had effectively stolen his heart before he'd even realized it was gone, and who he now knew himself to be hopelessly and desperately in love with. Though before he caught up to Tonks, he risked one last glance over his shoulder, and shot his best friend one last look of deep suspicion and a slight mistrust, despite the two of them having already made amends, there was still some minor tension and distrust towards him on Moony's part.

Sirius was left standing in the doorway, frowning at their odd behavior.

" _What_? Was it something I said?"


	31. His Obsession

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**

Back and forth. Back and forth Barty Crouch Jr. went, pacing, his footfalls practically creating indentations of his boots in the hardwood floor beneath his leather boots. He seized and tugged on tufts of his thick dark hair and pulled on them in agitation. "This accomplishes _nothing_ ," he growled angrily.

He could not stop thinking of how _his_ Alice had left St. Mungo's with that—that filthy half-breed _wolf_ that smelled disgustingly of old pinewood trees.

When she should have left with him. He could provide for her, much better than the disgusting dog could. Why she left with that man remained an enigma to him. One that he had spent the better part of two weeks pondering.

Crouch sighed and pinched at his temples. Merlin, but if only sleep would come for him, but it was not meant to be, for visions of his Alice, the new Alice, flooded his mind. Her pale skin was taunting him in heathen ways and the heavy, sweet smell of honeysuckle and lavender of her hair would not leave him and hung in his nostrils. Everywhere he looked, he swore he saw her silhouette.

Why could he not rid himself of his Alice's image? Why did it bother him so, to see the girl leave St. Mungo's with the half-breed, who was of rights, no concern of his. He could easily be killed, not worth the trouble of torturing. So, why, then, could she simply not leave him in blessed peace, and what was even _worse_ , why could he not shake her rejection of his advances from that damned stubborn corded muscle in his chest? Was Merlin really so cruel, and Fate to be so unkind to deny him her?

"How _dare_ she?!" he snarled through gritted teeth, unshed moisture glistening in his dark brown eyes, though they were not tears per se, but rather, unbridled rage. Crouch growled in frustration and swung out an arm only for the sleeve of his overly long black leather trench coat to catch on a nearby vase and send it plummeting to the floor. "What, does she think that the Wolf _loves_ her? She should not believe in it, and if she does, then she is even _stupider_ than I thought for refusing me. Love is _stupid_ and it does not exist...she'll learn...oh, she'll learn," he snarled through bared teeth. "I"ll make her see," Crouch breathed, feeling his throat hallow and constrict.

This only succeeded in furthering his ire, and in his wild frenzy of emotions, thoughts of her that refused to part from his head, and her monstrous betrayal at siding with the Wolf than him, he kicked out viciously at a shard of the broken vase with the edge of his black boot and sent it flying across the room, only for the shard to hit the opposing wall and shatter, at the precise moment the slightest flutter of movement caught Barty Crouch's eye.

When he saw whom it was, his already wide eyes widened even further if possible, and he immediately bent his right knee and knelt at the Dark Lord's side as Lord Voldemort entered the living room of Crouch's safe-house, an impassive expression on his bone-white face, his eye, slit-like pupils narrowed in suspicion.

How could he not have sensed his Master?! He was silent. Silent. Crouch murmured a half-hearted apology and continued to bend the knee as the sound of the creaking floorboards caused by the Dark Lord's bare feet grew closer, and soon Lord Voldemort was standing directly in front of Barty Crouch himself.

"Milord. It is an honor to welcome you into my…home. There can be no greater pleasure," Barty heard himself saying in almost a hoarse whisper as he knelt on the floor, absolutely refusing to meet the Dark Lord's piercing gaze.

"I assume, Crouch, that you have a _good_ reason for summoning me here in the middle night, for I have been plagued by the matter of Harry Potter's life."

Lord Voldemort's voice echoed in all corners of the decrepit living room. "I need not remind you that I am in the mood for a _flaying_ , and Nagini would have herself quite the delectable snack if you do not provide me with good—"

"Milord, there is a—a witch consorting with a werewolf who has been endangering the pureblood community with her ideology that she would have our kind mate with those _beasts_ , and she must be stopped. She and the Wolf, milord. Request permission to deal with the matter personally myself, for she and I have… _unfinished_ business, sir," Crouch interrupted before Voldemort finished.

All the while speaking, Crouch never once lifted his gaze to meet his Master's. Skepticism fled Barty as he lifted his chin slightly to meet the Dark Lord's inquisitive gaze as he bade him rise. He was sure those red eyes that looked at him flared with a cold antagonism. He wet his lips and his fingers clutched onto the table nearby for support as Barty rose from his kneeling position then.

"Pray to tell, what 'unfinished business, Crouch?" the Dark Lord spat, sounding listless and thoroughly bored, his back turned towards Barty as he instead feigned interest in looking out the window. "Spit it out. I don't have all night," he whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, sending a chill down Crouch's spine. "I do not take kindly to my…loyal followers looking for trouble, Crouch. We cannot afford to attract unwanted attention to ourselves at this time."

But Crouch bent his head after clicking his tongue, turning his back on the Dark Lord and pinching at his temples with his thumb and forefinger, just long enough for Lord Voldemort to absorb the vexation that glistened on Crouch's brow and shimmered in his stead. Crouch muttered inaudibly.

"What?" Voldemort insisted, curling his white spindly fingers into a protective fist over his wand. Crouch was perhaps his most loyal follower after Bellatrix Lestrange and Severus Snape, and he was willing to be more lenient.

Though if this were anyone else, he would have already killed them for trying his patience and summoning him here in the middle of the night for no reason. "A young woman by the name of Nymphadora Tonks, sir. You might recognize her as Bellatrix Lestrange's niece, milord. She has…wronged me, sir."

A muscle in Crouch's jaw twitched as at last he swiveled his head back around to regard Lord Voldemort, who, if he weren't mistaken, bore an expression of almost what he could describe as… _amusement_. If he felt anything at all. Crouch had always had his doubts about the Master.

"She has consorted with werewolves, milord. She is…"

Barty scrunched his nose in disgust and resisted the urge to gag at this next thought, though it warranted speaking.

"I believe that she is of a mind to taint her pureblood heritage, sir, by…mating with ' _it_.' She would breed with this—this _Beast_ , milord. The woman bears a striking resemblance to…somebody that I used to know," Crouch finished, biting on his tongue hard. "It is a…a personal affair, milord. I should request permission to deal with the… little problem myself, sir. Please."

A thick heavy silence befell the room and Crouch licked his lips nervously. He could not recall a time in his life when he asked of the Dark Lord anything, so for this to occur was…something new. Barty let out a hiss, waiting.

"I see. I see, Crouch," Lord Voldemort repeated slowly, his voice listless, and then Lord Voldemort proceeded to throw back his head and laugh, and every chortle of the Dark Lord's lungs only succeeded in making Barty Crouch's eyes wider.

It was…not something that happened often.

"Ah, but Crouch, you truly _are_ a player of the game. Has this 'Tonks' woman been refusing you again? But then again, why would she not, Bartemius? After what you attempted to do to her if what Dawlish says is true, it is… only natural. _However_ , you are correct in the fact that we cannot allow the Prewitt line to become even more tainted. The last and great noble family, that the Lestranges have familial connections to."

When Barty did not respond, the Dark Lord took it upon himself to continue as he paced about the room slowly. Barty watched the Dark Lord's black robes swishing and billowing with his movements as he did so, transfixed, mesmerized by the fabric of the robes.

"I have heard…disturbing rumors, Crouch, from the others. Rodolphus and Bellatrix. They say that Bartemius Crouch has lost his mind, that he's dragging himself further into the pits of despair and all for the sake of one little _girl_. I find that most peculiar and troublesome. Is one female worth all of this effort to you, Crouch. She is...special to you, is that it? Is that the reason?"

Now, Lord Voldemort did not sound angry, merely intrigued.

Crouch stiffened at the use of his father's name for him, though he swallowed down past the lump in his throat and favored silence as an apt response.

"Let them talk. I walk in your footsteps, milord, but I will not be deterred from this. I cannot allow Prewitt to taint her bloodline— _our_ bloodline—further!"

When Barty Crouch Jr. turned back around to face the Dark Lord, the man was smirking sadistically from ear to ear that almost moistened the dark pools in his brightest follower's glistening dark brown orbs that held several secrets.

It seemed to take a minute or two for Lord Voldemort to find his voice, and when he spoke to his loyal servant, his voice was dangerously soft and quiet.

"Do you really think that I do not _know_ what kind of man you are behind closed doors? Our entire army knows what you _are_ , Crouch, they _hear_ what you and your… _women_ do," he added, scrunching his nose in utter disgust. "Even if you were to…deal with the matter of Lestrange's niece and the _dog_ , you would force yourself on her like the bastard that we all know you to be, Crouch."

To that, Barty had nothing to say, he merely proceeded to blink at his Master owlishly in shock and he dipped his head as a show of submission, respect.

"Perhaps…perhaps I could find it tolerable if you were to, shall we say, take care of the werewolf first. Perhaps the man could be of use to our services."

Crouch sneered and felt his lips curl upwards in disgust. "The Wolf bears the unmistakable signs of trying to live among our kind, milord. I doubt that Fenrir Greyback will accept him into any of his encampments underground, sir."

"And the woman? What would you do once the _dog_ is held captive?"

"An heir, sire," Crouch heard himself confess, and was surprised to hear himself admit it. The moment the words left his mouth, silence persisted in each crevice, every crack within the wall. "With your permission, of course, milord."

Lord Voldemort seemed to bask in the silence of the deaf servant across from him. So, preoccupied with thoughts of this woman was he, that the Dark Lord was of a mind to be inclined to believe that Crouch did not hear a word.

He noticed the imbalance on Barty Crouch Jr.'s shoulder, how he oft would touch it, and wince, as though it pained him. A wound of some sort.

_From where?_ Voldemort's frown deepened. Crouch even as a young man new in his ranks had always been subject to delinquent fights, broken noses, black and purple bruises. Occasionally, it would intrigue him, but most often he did not care. Lord Voldemort felt the skin of his face pulled taut and tight as Crouch waved his wand and the bottle of opened wine on the table magically lifted in the air and soared into his free hand not clutching onto his wand and he raised the bottle to his lips and drank heavily. He scowled at the almost childish behavior, but then, Crouch had always been rather _childish_. Throwing himself upon woman after woman.

"You go at that bottle, Crouch, like it has its lips pressed against yours." Lord Voldemort watched, with the briefest flickers of amusement in his slit-red eyes as Crouch's mouth pursed into such a rigid line, his thin lips almost disappeared, and almost reluctantly pulled the bottle away from his face and slammed it down on the table, though the Dark Lord detected the hint of wrath.

His voice was crude, and Lord Voldemort watched Crouch shy away.

Crouch regarded the Dark Lord with what Tom Riddle could only perceive as hatred and venom in his glistening dark orbs, which he found strange.

"What news of your progress regarding your…distinguished guest?" Lord Voldemort pressed Crouch, eager for a status update regarding Crouch's new arrangements, per the man's specific request, which Tom was still attempting to ascertain his reasons for placing one of his own servants in the man's house.

Though his most loyal follower was not even _listening_ , not heeding his words. "…She is so lovely…do I even deserve her?" Lord Voldemort frowned and immersed on Crouch's words and felt no shame in listening to understand.

There was a strange tinge of melancholia in Crouch's voice, and he thought it almost obscure, strange in a way, to hear Crouch speak in this manner.

Barty was known for his violent and manic stature among his ranks.

So, this…was _new_. Very, very new, to hear him speak and look this way.

He supposed the smart course of action in this regard was to force the boy to return his mind to thoughts of helping him obtain the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, and unraveling further the mystery of Harry Potter's survival that fateful night in Godric's Hollow, and yet….he considered himself a merciful lord.

Tom Riddle, the Merciful. It _did_ have a rather nice ring to it…

Perhaps if he were to allow Crouch to pursue this woman, troublesome though the so-called 'rumors' were of Bartemius's disturbing and lustful behavior, if he was to fully trust Bella at her word of Crouch's fixation on this young woman, her niece, then perhaps it would quell the insatiable thirst for bloodlust and allow his mind to return to more important matters at hand.

"Very well, Crouch," he said at last. He clasped his long and slender fingers together while almost lovingly fingering his wand. Unlike others, the Dark Lord's fingers were bone-white, thin, shaped by prominent phalange bones and knotted where the joints curled around the ends of each long and short bone in his ghostly pale hands. There was no muscle tone or fat definition and Crouch inexplicably found his gaze drawn to it.

"I grant you permission to do what you must, Crouch, and be prudent about it, if it will alleviate this little _problem_ of yours and grant me back the honor of having your full and undivided attention. Do I make myself clear? Do not make me say it again. _Kill_ the wolf, take the girl, keep her as your plaything, marry her, it matters to me not what you do, Crouch," Lord Voldemort sighed, sounding almost exasperated as he pinched the bridge of what should have been his nose, where it used to be once, with his spindly slender thumb and forefinger. "But I need not remind that this—this _girl_ and siring an heir is not your only responsibility. If you should—"

"—Crystal clear, milord. I shall not fail you." Crouch responded in kind to his Master's request by bending the right knee and kneeling in front of the Dark Lord once more, before Lord Voldemort gave him a curt nod of his head.

The loud _crack_! of the Dark Lord Disapparating from Crouch's living room filled his eardrums. Barty Crouch Jr. emanated a tense and shaking breath as he rose to his feet and strode towards the window and looked out at the rain.

_She used to tell me that Merlin was in the rain_. Crouch clenched his eyes tightly shut as a memory of his precious Alice flooded his mind, and his senses…

_She is so lovely…my sweet Alice…_

* * *

The night was hot and heady for mid-September, shimmering with strange tranquility and peace, the students of Hogwarts safe and snug in their dormitories. Ease and comfort seemed to have found its way again into their hearts. Most of the students were sleeping peacefully. All but one seventh-year.

Despite the warmth of the sun during the daytime, the nights here could get quite cold. No more than an hour ago, the sky had been painted awash with hues of red, orange, and pink, all color mostly faded, leaving only a black canvas with no stars to be looked upon.

The darkness was thick, the sky itself so low and dark, the air so chilled that it hurt your lungs just to breathe. Night came like the spell of enchantress Morgana herself, water to stone, earth to iron, green grass to frosted white. There was no hint of warmth left, and it was not the chilled air, nor the sound of the whistling winds that caused a young-seventeen-year-old girl to wake. It was neither of those things with roused Alice Prewitt from her sleep.

Her throbbing heartbeat, little more now than a mass of corded muscle, beat absolutely relentlessly in the confines of her chest and threatened escape.

She dreamed of one of her own classmates, her friend, hurting Frank.

Alice let out a muffled whimper and curled in on herself in sleep, her fingers clutching tightly over the goose feather down blanket Lily had found for her earlier, given Alice was still battling the last remnants of a vicious head-cold, a deep red wine color embroidered with a Gryffindor lion. The cold of the night moved in to meet the warmth of her blood, her defense against such a chill.

The young brunette could feel it wash over her skin, again and again, only to be met by the pounding of her racing heart, again and again, and again.

Her body felt cold. Colder than the memory of ice, stone, and steel. A half-formed sob found its way to Alice's lips, yet her tongue refused its release, and she swallowed it back, but it did not stop her from crumpling, twisting and curling further in on herself in her bed, burrowing underneath the blanket, praying to Merlin and anyone above that would listen to her feeble pleas for release from this sorrow and torment. Every night it was always the same dream.

Her boyfriend, Frank, screaming at her own friend, Barty, to stop, but what he was doing, Alice couldn't see. These evenings when this happened for the young redhead were almost unbearable, though she would not oft wake, though she tried to. The nights that she could not stand the most, however, were the ones like tonight in which the memories of these two days that haunted her the most changed, becoming warped and false in the confines of her mind.

Failing to reach Frank Longbottom in time. Pleading with Crouch and a woman not to do this, clenching her eyes violently shut as she felt the sharp pelt and sting of her former best friend's open-handed smack across her face in the middle of the throne room, finding herself just short of being ravaged.

Then, that dark-haired demon, he who she had once called a friend to her, would come for her, and then this prince of a man would smile at Alice. His smile was cold and did not reach his dark brown eyes, and he rarely if ever smiled at her anymore. Not since she had announced to him one day in Potions after class that she was dating Frank, officially, following a weekend trip to Hogsmeade over winter break.

His smile was wicked, devoid of warmth, and his eyes, oh, his eyes! They glinted of Death.

And then…he would come for Alice, a sharp silver dagger in his hands.

Crouch would twist the blade in his hands, all the while sinking it deeper and deeper into Alice's chest in her nightmares. Her skin would tear to shreds as the knife rotated, the sound of her muscles and nerves being gouged growing even louder. Alice's screams rang in her ears.

Then, without warning, Barty Crouch Jr. jerked the knife all the way back, until the shiny metal had disappeared inside her and the jeweled handle adorned with the finest gold coat and adorned with rubies was pushing against Alice's broken skin. Her cry was a brilliant sound, guttural chokes mixed with an agonized scream, hot tears pouring down her face.

He would smirk at her and pull the blade out of his now deathly white victim. Alice sank to her knees, continuing to scream, convulsing, and trembling like a rabid animal, thick blood, crimson, garish and sticky redness flowing freely from the gaping hole in her back.

The cascade of the disgraced Prewitt girl's life force gushed out in all directions, scarlet liquid squirting upwards and painting Crouch's pale face red. Then he would turn away from her as her pleas for mercy grew quieter, the sweet tang of blood lingering in Alice's nostrils, on her tongue, settling there like iron, bitter poison, and she would scream.

It was these nights that were the worst, when Alice Prewitt would wake, freezing cold, beads of sweat upon her delicate brow, and drenched with a fevered mind, skin hot despite the chill of the air, and a scream at her lips.

The night she recovered from the last vestiges of this brutal head cold, Alice Prewitt lay in the wake, though she did not dare open her eyes, knowing full well that she would find no safety in the sanctity of her dreams, or more accurately described, her nightmares, for that was what this was, though Alice knew that even in the daylight, she was beginning to have difficulty discerning the truth of reality from that of her dreams.

A soft, mewling whimper that was more of a half-choked sob willfully set free from its confines of her chest, though Alice could not bear herself to open her eyes.

Not when the likes of that dark-haired demon, Crouch, lay in wait to mock her and Lily at every opportunity, to scorn and mock the pair of young women for dating the likes of James Potter and Frank Longbottom, as soon as dawn crept over the horizon at its petty pace on the morning of their graduation.

A scream tore from her lips and Alice Prewitt let out another pitiful whimper and buried her face deep into the smothering silk fabric of her plump pillow.

She sought that sweet, precious sanctuary which would not come for her nor whisper its soothing remarks into the shell of her ear until the dawn of a new day, and in some ways, a new beginning rose with the sun.

If Alice Prewitt did happen to remove her face from her pillow and if she were to open her eyes and sit up on the sofa in the common room, where she had ventured out in the middle of the night, not wanting to keep the other girls in their dormitory awake with her violent coughing spells, she would be surprised to discover the shape of a black shadow silently watching her troubled sleep.

A shape in the form of a man…

Crouch lingered in the Gryffindor Common Room, watching her sleep…


	32. Tea and Sympathy

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO **

Tonks felt as if her small world within the confines of the Order's headquarters had come crashing down around her, and no one was there to catch her when she fell. Her body shook, her hands felt clammy, and she was exhausted. Exhausted, confused, miserable, depressed, broken-hearted.

Tonks felt like she was dead inside, and she was sure, yes, she was sure, that her outward appearance now reflected how she felt on the inside without even having to take a look at her reflection in a nearby mirror. Her tongue felt dry. Her throat felt as if someone had thrust a handful of itching powder inside.

Her eyes were dry and scruffy. Depression is the unseen, unheard, silent killer. It's the pain that's too much to cope with, too hard to deal with and so misunderstood. You can't escape it no matter how hard you try, because it follows you around like a black shadow that's on the inside, eating you.

Tonks felt as though she stood on the brink of something she couldn't quite describe, even if her very life depended on it. The weight of everything seemed to press down on her shoulders and she struggled to keep going forward. It was too much. All of it. What had happened between her and _him_.

She did not think she could bear to revisit his expression in her mind again, for how Merlin could be so cruel as to torment her so like this?!

Tonks assumed that by this point, she would just have to accept facts.

And the facts of the matter was that Remus Lupin was not interested in her romantically, he would never be hers, and as such, she would have to enter into a relationship if at all, that her society could accept and respect, and that was _not_ , sadly, Remus John Lupin.

Sirius, thank Merlin, seemed to understand where Remus was coming from and responded in kind by instead choosing to spend increasing amounts of time around Tonks, something which Tonks felt irked Remus to no end.

Though secretly, and Tonks would never admit this to anyone, least of all Lupin, she was admittedly grateful for the company.

That, someone, was on her side for a change, and she hoped that Lupin could see what a _fool_ he was.

The young witch could feel the bile rising in her throat and all she wanted was to throw back her head and scream. It had been a grave mistake to kiss Lupin. A terrible, horrible, and an all-around bad idea. She'd not been thinking.

What had she _done_?!

Tonks furrowed her brows, thinking over the events of a few days ago, and coming to the grave conclusion that she had, in fact, overstepped a personal boundary too close into their… new relationship by kissing Remus the other day, and she wondered if _that_ was why he had purposefully been distancing himself from her.

Oh, he still remained polite and friendly, of course, that was the same, but things had _changed_ ever since Sirius interrupted him. He was moodier, sullen, and smiled less, which she thought odd considering all that had transpired. Their shared experiences surrounding the revelations of their boggarts.

Though she hoped that in time, Remus would come to her with whatever was ailing.

_Perhaps I'd been wrong to push him so hard. It was my fault. At least tonight, Dumbledore paired him with Snivellus._

At that lovely mental image of the two men who despised one another working together for an entire evening, Tonks snorted and rolled her eyes.

 _Maybe the separation from me for a night or two will be good for him_.

This morning at breakfast, while Tonks had been nursing a piece of buttered toast and a glass of milk, she had practically felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach as Lupin had walked in, Mrs. Weasley had been at the stove stirring a pot of porridge, and his face had partially turned from hers the moment his gaze lingered upon her where she sat seated at the table's end.

Her pixie cut over the last few days, instead of its usual dark pink hue, had reverted to its natural color, a light mousey ash brown, like her father, Ted's. In some small ways, it bore a striking resemblance to Remus's hair, minus the gray, but when Tonks closed her eyes and scrunched her face and tried to revert her hair to its preferred hue, her powers had failed her twice.

When Tonks had risen from her seat to help herself to another piece of toast and she had thought to reach out her hand to place upon Remus's arm, but as if sensing her intentions, Remus had almost as a knee-jerk reaction, though a forced one that caused him great pain, judging by the look on his face that he'd given her this morning was any indication for her to go off of, moved away from her and started back outside of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, murmuring a half-hearted excuse about needing to meet Severus and that he could not stay for breakfast.

Mrs. Weasley and Tonks alike had frowned at him, at his retreating silhouette, and by that point Tonks had turned away, completely missing the look of desire and longing Remus had shot his partner before leaving her alone.

Her hand had been suspended in the now empty space where Lupin's shoulder had once resided, and Tonks had been forced to do the only thing she could. Her hand fell limply to her side as a muscle in her jaw and behind her left eyelid twitched in shame and regret for pushing Remus too far and too soon.

She had thought, and perhaps she had been mistaken that he felt it too. Suddenly, she wished for nothing more than to cut off the offending limb that had attempted to reach out to Remus Lupin, to convince him to stay.

Tonks had thought that, considering everything they'd been through, that Remus had felt that unfamiliar fire of warmth in his chest just as she had.

Maybe she had been wrong in that regard. She had pushed him, and now Lupin was just like all the others.

She had pushed him away, and she was the one responsible for this. Tonks knew she was the one who pushed him away.

And now…there may be no way of rekindling their friendship. _Damn_.

Tonks swore through gritted teeth and clenched her eyes. _I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have. I hope that he'll forgive me. In time. My fault_.

It wouldn't have been the first time. Tonks wondered if perhaps Remus knew that she was keeping something from him. In this case, it was her feelings.

But…whatever was happening between the two of them, she could _not_ allow herself to feel it, for she had tried with Ollie, and look what happened.

Lupin could not know of her developing feelings towards him. What would she even _say_ to him anyway? That she liked him a lot, and never wanted to hurt him, but by pushing him away, she had already hurt him following the incident in her bedroom with the boggart. What would _he_ say?

Tonks scowled, feeling the edges of her mouth turn down in a frown, and she glanced down at the book Sirius had given her clutched in her hands.

"No such legacy as rich as honesty," she quoted under her breath, not knowing that Mrs. Weasley lingered in the doorway of the parlor.

It was four days following the get-together celebrating Ron and Hermione's appointments as new Gryffindor Prefects, and Molly furrowed her brows at Tonks, who was resting in the armchair of the living room, her legs draped over the armrest and crossed over each other, her nose buried in a rather huge compendium of Muggle playwright William Shakespeare's entire works.

The young Auror skimmed the passage of _Much Ado About Nothing_ , not realizing she was murmuring the words under her breath out loud.

"'She will die if you love her not, And she will die ere she might make her love known.'" Tonks supposed that, in some small way, this passage as it pertained to her life could not have been more correct when it came to _him_.

Tonks winced as she heard her voice falter on the words and she glanced down at the page, fully aware of someone's piercing stare at the back of her skull, and Tonks let out a huff of agitation intermingled with fear.

Tonks, sensing that someone was staring at her, glanced up from her book, a look of exasperation on her face and she sighed, slamming her book shut and setting it aside on the night table, furrowing her brows into a frown as she swiped a lock of her light ash brown pixie out of her eyes and let out a tired sigh.

"Oh, but Molly, please _don't_ look at me like that, I can feel you burning a hole into the back of my skull from all the way across the room. I...I promise you, I'm _fine_ ," Tonks begged, biting her bottom lip as she sat up straighter in her chair and fidgeted with her fingers.

It did not escape Molly's attention that Remus, over the last few days had seemingly distanced himself from his new partner, and Tonks was behaving rather coldly towards Lupin, and she wondered if something had happened.

Sirius had returned from the second floor that night with a strange grin plastered on his face, though when Molly had prompted Black, he had refused to speak of it, saying if she wanted full details to go to either Lupin or Tonks.

"Dear…are you quite all right?" Mrs. Weasley was staring at Tonks with a rather perplexed look on her kind and matronly face. "You're looking pale."

Blinking, the young Auror reluctantly tore her gaze away from the book of Shakespeare's finest works and away from the strange image of his face that had suddenly appeared in her mind without warning, the intensity of his gaze that night that she had kissed him, and he had kissed her _back_ , and relished it.

So, if _that_ was the case, and it seemed as though he had enjoyed it immensely, then why did he _leave_? Why was he distancing himself like this?

Tonks could only assume at this point that the fault was hers. He was not ready, and she had pushed him, and once again, ruined what otherwise could have been beautiful, just as she had with Ollie.

_Maybe it's better that I leave…_

"I…yes," Tonks stammered, perhaps a little too quickly than was normal, and she felt the heat creep to her cheeks as she met Molly's quizzical gaze. "I…I am fine." But she wasn't fine. Not at all. Far from it, and it showed on her face.

Mrs. Weasley offered a curt nod in response, though Tonks was not a fall, and she could tell the matronly witch remained unconvinced of her answer.

After a while spent in silence still observing her from the entryway of the parlor, Mrs. Weasley spoke, absently twiddling her wand in between her fingers. "I hope I am not intruding into your personal affairs, Tonks, but I've noticed the change in yours and Lupin's behavior over the last few days and—"

"Nothing happened," retorted Tonks immediately, looking up quickly and she gave a muffled yelp as she felt a muscle in her neck pull and she winced, gingerly rubbing at the back of her neck with a tender hand and flinched.

 _Great. Now Mrs. Weasley's going to suspect something happened_.

She knew that she must look positively desperate in this regard. "Did—did Sirius say something to you? Or Remus?" she asked, sticking out her bottom lip slightly.

The young witch watched as Molly gave a curt shake of her head no, her ginger curls bouncing slightly as she did so. "No, dear, neither of them said a word, at least…nothing of the likes of which you seem to be referring to, Tonks," Mrs. Weasley responded gingerly, looking a little shocked as she spoke.

Molly clearly hadn't anticipated the dawning look of horror in the young Auror's eyes. Though her curiosity was like a cat, killing her, gnawing at her insides, until she couldn't stop herself from asking the one question on her mind. "Dear, did something happen that night that you went upstairs to get rid of the boggart? When you and Remus did not come down, I assumed you ill."

Tonks felt her lips part open slightly to speak and had been about to give an apt response to Mrs. Weasley, but upon seeing the concern etched upon the older witch's face, she quickly came to the realization that if her friend, for Tonks very much considered the woman a friend and like a surrogate mum to her at this point, had come to her wanting to help, then it only seemed like the natural next course of action for the Auror to take would be to confide in her.

Her feelings for Remus felt like charging dragons pulling in opposite directions against their chains. She could no more abandon one than she could a child if she found one lost and wandering the streets of London with no parents.

Coming to Remus, allowing him to help her heal, would break her. For Remus considered himself unworthy and unclean, undeserving of her affections. To come to Lupin for anything other than friendship, she knew, was forbidden in his mind, and yet, she felt to stay away from him was painful.

So here she sat perched in her chair, her arms wrapped around her knees, locked in her foreign feelings of love, an emotion she never thought she'd feel again following Ollie's murder, that only sought to bring her more sorrow.

For by getting close to Remus and allowing him that in return, Tonks had allowed her heart to stray where it ought _not_ to have, and now, her mind had to pull it back within the confines of which it was permitted to roam.

His words to her when she'd attempted to discuss it with him at the party rocked her mind, which was a stark contrast to his strange, passionate behavior upstairs, and Tonks knew immediately that Remus was lying, attempting to conceal his own feelings, as much as she was.

 _As much as I want it, Dora. We shouldn't. I am too old, too poor for you, and too dangerous with my condition. I cannot do this to you. I won't_. _If you are smart, and I know that you are, Dora, you'll stay as far away from me as possible. I would only bring you pain, misery, and heartbreak. Do not ask me to condemn you to my life. I don't want to see you get hurt, Tonks._

And with that, Remus had effectively turned his back on Nymphadora.

That one powerful statement left it moving in foreign ways, ways she had become unaccustomed to these many years. Lupin at this point was an echo. But one with the power to tear down the walls of her heart that she'd built high and deep, refusing to let anyone get as close to her as Ollie had once.

So, though Tonks felt as though there was now a part of her soul that needed Remus by her side, wanted him, was growing to care for him deeply…

Most likely, she knew she would have to walk away from Remus. In this world, emotions this strong were considered suspicious and looked down on when it came to those afflicted with lycanthropy, and Tonks knew she had more priorities to think about right now than the health of her heart and mind.

And if that wasn't a wild set of conflicted emotions, she didn't know what was.

Tonks furrowed her brows and frowned, folding her arms across her chest. Every one of them was important, every one of them now a part of her. The only option for her at this point was for her to find a way for them to charge in the same direction, to pull together instead of against one another.

The only problem was, Tonks didn't know how to make that happen.

"If this is _love_ , then I do not _want_ it," she whispered bitterly through gritted teeth. "He can take it and keep it for all I care. I do not want him…"

In truth, if she was being completely honest with herself, Tonks had decided not to think about what had happened following the incident with the boggart, and the few days following Lupin's dismissal of what had happened, she continued to isolate herself within Grimmauld Place and keep as busy as possible.

She had not really seen him since, save for this morning at breakfast.

And she was _glad_. Tonks hardly knew what she would do or say to him if she bumped into him again.

Not now, anyway.

Besides, after his cold words of dismissal, Tonks came to the realization that he too, like her, had been chasing but a dream. What they each wanted of the other, it could never be. It simply was not possible. Besides, she wasn't even sure that he felt the same in return.

Though he had seemed to enjoy the kiss she had given him and wanted to go further, it did not provide the young Auror with an adequate excuse for his behavior.

Her greatest secret, her greatest lie, even more so than attempting to hide Ollie's murder from herself and burying herself in her own pains the last few years, was that she knew herself to be developing _feelings_ for Remus Lupin.

 _Feelings_! Feelings, Tonks always believed, were like temperatures. The attraction is warm, Curiosity is warmer, Anger is boiling. Hate can torch, but it can also freeze. Love... Well, that's a temperature best left under neutral.

Their world would _never_ approve of such a match. The Werewolf and the Metamorphmagus. But none of them could ever understand her feelings. Not her mum, not Dad, not even Mr. and Mrs. Weasley or Ginny. Her heart now felt like it belonged to a man that the world could never learn to love.

And it was this fact and this alone that caused them both to pull away.

If Remus were to burst through the door at this very moment, Tonks wasn't sure what she would say to the man in this regard, or he to her, for that matter.

Now that things had changed.

"The truth is, Molly," Tonks began nervously, fully aware that she sounded more vulnerable than she had ever done in her entire life, as she cast her gaze down at her lap, weaving her fingers in between her knuckles, "Something…something _did_ happen that night, and…it was not supposed to happen, Mrs. Weasley, and following the boggart, he…"

Mrs. Weasley nodded in response as she waved her wand and conjured a chair and pulled it up close to Tonks so she could sit across from the young witch while she waited patiently for Nymphadora to speak, giving her what she hoped was ample time to collect herself as she smoothed the skirts of her dress.

Somehow, Molly sensed that Tonks needed time to gather her thoughts.

"We were…talking, and…" Tonks's voice cracked and once again, Tonks found her voice wavering and faltering, as was her resolve, and she found herself unable to speak of the event and her breaths became quick and labored.

She saw within the confines of her mind what had been circling within it ever since she had crossed that invisible threshold and dared to press her lips against his. Tonks could still feel Remus's touch, his scent, how he smelled of autumn, of pinewood and the forest floor, the way he'd looked at her after.

It was as if some small part of himself had transferred directly into her, and that part of him still lingered within her, somehow. Tonks let out a tired sigh and furrowed her brows into a contemplative frown, resting her cheek in her hand. Mrs. Weasley's kind, un-accusing tone broke her out of her musings.

"He kissed you." Mrs. Weasley finished her thought for her, albeit rather gently, for which Tonks was grateful, for it saved her from having to state the obvious. As Tonks nodded and glanced down at her hands, she was surprised to find that her fingers were still continuing the incessant behavior of weaving in between her knuckles. Molly frowned as Tonks glanced up, noticing the young witch's frown.

"I am…terribly sorry, dear." Molly sounded incredibly sad and yet her voice was also clipped and had hardened as if trying to suppress emotion that Tonks was not quite sure what that was. "Had I been there, I could have done something to prevent Remus from doing it. Did you hate it, dear?"

Tonks raised her head so quickly that a muscle in her neck pulled the wrong way and sent a sharp swell of hot, fiery pain up her neck and through her right ear. She yelped in response and clamped a hand to her neck in the vain hopes of soothing the fiery pain, and she flushed as Mrs. Weasley stared.

"Hate it? Wha…?" Tonks repeated faintly, watching, confused, as Molly's expression quickly changed. "Why would I _hate_ it, Molly? N-no, I didn't…"

Molly felt her cheek suddenly become kissed pink like a spring rose, the blooming color standing out against her slightly freckled skin as she flushed.

"Forgive me, dear, but you spoke of it just now as though the experience frightened you, Tonks." Mrs. Weasley glanced down at her wand and decided to stow her wand away in the pocket of her housedress before she accidentally caused it to rain indoors or snow or anything else that added to the awkwardness.

Molly continued to stammer and attempt to correct herself as the blush continued to spread its way along with her already rosy cheeks at a rapid pace before Tonks leaned over the arm of her chair and laid a warm hand on Molly's.

"It—it wasn't like that at all," Tonks quickly emphasized, feeling the ghost of a smile creep onto her face and she allowed Mrs. Weasley to see it. "But…" Her voice trailed as she paused, hesitating as she thought of how best to phrase exactly what was on her mind. "Nevertheless, the…experience and Remus's behavior following…it…has left me feeling a little bit… _confused_. It happened so quickly, and it got interrupted and ended before I even understood what was happening," Tonks sighed, removing her hand from Molly's, and resting her cheek in her hand as she propped her elbow up against the chair.

Molly mutely nodded, biting the inside wall of her cheek. "You…you enjoyed it, then? You liked it?" Molly heard herself asking, and she herself was not even aware she'd drawn in a breath and held it, waiting for Tonks to speak.

Mrs. Weasley watched as the corners of Tonks's mouth lifted upward into a soft, reminiscent smile and it seemed like it hurt her because of the cut on her lip that Molly knew she'd gotten from daring to go against Crookshanks when the stubborn cat had dared to try to go after her little pet Bowtruckle.

But Tonks did not seem to care as her gray eyes clouded over with a strange mist, as though her mind had taken her back to that precise moment.

Tonks could hear the slight lilt in Molly Weasley's kind, soothing tone, and she felt her own blush start to speckle along her cheeks. As embarrassing and awkward as it was for her to discuss what had transpired, she could almost swear she felt the weighted burden slowly ease up from her slender shoulders.

"Well, Remus was…he was…very gentle at first, Molly, but then I…" Tonks heard the crack in her voice as she swallowed down past the lump forming in her throat, suddenly wishing she had water. "I found myself moving of my own accord," Tonks hastened to explain, her face reddening like mad, and she quickly averted the matronly ginger-haired witch's knowing gaze. "It was as if someone else was in control of my movements, Molly. Like I had been hit with the Imperius Curse or something like I was watching myself from above. It is…strange for me to speak of it this way, but it's what I felt."

Mrs. Weasley nodded in understanding and took a moment in silence to wrap her yellow cardigan tighter around herself as a particularly chilly end of September breeze wafted through the drafty living parlor of Grimmauld Place.

Molly felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards into a smile of her own that she shot the young witch, and she leaned over and clasped Tonks's hand.

"I am very happy for you, dearie," Molly replied warmly, and Tonks cocked her head to the side and regarded the older witch in silence, at a loss.

She genuinely did sound like she was, so that was something, at least.

"You could not find a better partner suited for you than Remus. I am sure he is happy as well. I think that the two of you are perfect for each other."

The moment Mrs. Weasley uttered the words, Tonks's head turned sharply to the right towards her friend and all traces of her reminiscent little half-smile immediately disappeared, and the younger witch looked down.

"I'm not so sure, Molly," Tonks whispered faintly, her face paling.

"Dear Merlin Above, Tonks, whatever on earth do you mean?" Mrs. Weasley decided she did not like the look at all of Tonks's rapidly paling face.

Molly furrowed her ginger brows into a frown as the much-younger witch promptly turned away and she heard Tonks emanate a tense exhale.

"He—he dismissed me the second we came downstairs the moment he realized his mistake." There was a hardened edge to Tonks's voice, one that did not at all sound like the bright and optimistic young Auror of the Ministry.

Molly did not understand and said as much. "Forgive me, dear, but I'm afraid I don't understand." Molly offered a nervous chuckle as she tucked a stray strand of wavy red hair behind her ear. "Mistake?" she repeated, looking quite flabbergasted, suddenly wishing that more than anything, Tonks would face her.

But she did not. Heaving a heavy sigh, Mrs. Weasley removed her wand from her housedress's pocket and conjured a steaming mug of tea and a plate of cookies. "Here, dear. Have some hot tea and a biscuit. You'll feel better."

Tonks swiveled slightly around and accepted the mug of warm tea gratefully, raising the rim of the cup to her lips and drank heavily. "It's good."

Molly nodded mutely, though something the young witch had said just now gave her pause. "What makes you think Remus thought it a mistake?"

Tonks found that she could not immediately answer Mrs. Weasley's query, as a vision of the antagonizing hurt on Lupin's face that night following the pair of them returning downstairs played back through her mind like she was revisiting it in the Pensieve in Professor Dumbledore's office. She hated it.

The moment she realized she had misinterpreted Remus's actions, his words, his expression for the last two and a half weeks…as if he'd been speaking Parseltongue or some other language that she could not understand…the moment her words failed her was the very moment that Tonks's heart broke.

A light chittering interrupted Tonks's thought process, and she blinked and was startled back to reality as Ptelea's concerned chirping for his master reached her eardrums. "On you hop, then, Ptelea, come on," she sighed, holding out her index finger so the tiny Bowtruckle could hop onto her left shoulder. Tonks stifled a half-hearted giggle as one of his leaves atop his head tickled her skin lightly and brushed against her cheek as he nudged it.

Ptelea's way of showing affection and the little woodland creature was no doubt wondering why she had stopped reading William Shakespeare aloud to him.

During her readings, especially in Macbeth when it got to the final duel, Ptelea would often amuse her by acting out the swordfights for her entertainment and die as Macbeth in horribly dramatic ways, each one more dramatic than the last. Tonks always loved it.

If Molly was surprised by this, she hid it well. Tonks blinked in surprise as soon as the Bowtruckle was resting against her shoulder, and she took her time to reply, but it was the one thing that tended to dampen her thoughts.

Even now, several days after he had kissed her. Well, technically, _she_ had been the one to initiate the first kiss, to see if he felt for her the same fiery ache, that terrible ache blooming within the confines of her chest, thinking if she did not test her feelings for him, then she thought she would have burst into flames.

But she _hadn't_ expected him to reciprocate her kiss _or_ take the lead, and it only added salt to the tender wound that was her heart, this damned stubborn, corded, feeble muscle in her chest at his rejection.

"Lupin seemed shocked, Molly. I might even take it a step further as to call him horrified by our kiss when it…ended," she growled, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Sirius's interruption. "Like he was…frustrated, I guess, but I don't understand why he was, Molly!"

Molly nodded, sympathetic to the young witch's plight and her distress, having been in her position a time or two before when she was dating Arthur back when they were still students during their time at Hogwarts, understood.

More than Tonks could know. "You'll have to forgive me, dear," Molly began cautiously as she set her wand on the coffee table in front of the pair of them and sighed, slumping her shoulders as she rested her back against the chair.

Mrs. Weasley bit the inside wall of her cheek and ran her tongue along her teeth as she pondered over the exact right thing to say that would put Lupin's seemingly strange behavior into perspective for the bright young Auror, who, if Molly was not mistaken, while incredibly smart in her line of work, was rather inexperienced, just as Remus was when it came to matters of courtship and romance.

Molly herself was admittedly feeling rather too embarrassed to continue speaking of Remus along these lines, for something within her did not feel quite right in discussing the man whom she considered a dear friend without him here.

But she did not want to upset Tonks even further than she already was, and as Molly mulled over the facts, at least what side of the story she'd gotten from Tonks, for she had yet to hear what Remus had to say in this regard, it was then that a single thought materialized.

Albeit not a pleasant one, but one that needed to be voiced, and Tonks needed to hear what she had to say, and now.

 _Merlin, give me strength_. Molly briefly closed her eyes and shot a quick prayer to the heavens above, no longer giving any thought to the consequences of the question she was about to pose to the young Auror, and she asked Tonks.

"Tonks…" Molly began slowly, biting her tongue. She needed to get this right. Mrs. Weasley visibly flinched as the younger witch sensed a sudden change in the atmosphere, and perhaps a turning point in their conversation thus far.

A forlorn Nymphadora turned in her chair and brushed her light brown bangs out of her eyes and was observing the matronly older witch pensively.

Mrs. Weasley hesitated, really not wanting their conversation to head in this direction, but sensing she had no other choice, sighed and regarded Tonks.

"When you told me just now that Remus was _frustrated_ and…cut you away that night, I do not believe it was necessarily because he was angered at you, nor did he find you at fault for what transpired between the two of you upstairs."

Tonks drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs and leaned forward slightly in her chair as Mrs. Weasley's cheeks flushed red, and she continued on.

"I am sure that Remus does not blame you at all, dear, for what happened. It is only natural when two people feel such a strong connection to one another for things to…" Mrs. Weasley paused to collect her thoughts, and one glance over at Tonks was more than enough for the older witch to know the truth.

Nymphadora, whether she knew it or not, was practically hanging onto Molly's every word, and it soon became even clearer to Mrs. Weasley at the moment that, as smart as Tonks was, with her street smarts from her training as an Auror, and the knowledge that she gained from reading in her leisure time, the young witch was still in so many ways, incredibly naïve, and had yet to learn the way a man's mind worked, of which she was clearly ignorant in this regard.

"I…well…" Mrs. Weasley found herself stammering, taking a moment to clear her throat somewhat awkwardly before continuing. "The point that I am trying to make to you, Tonks, is that I think Remus has chosen to distance himself from you starting that night because had Sirius not walked in and accidentally interrupted, then I believe he thought himself incapable of restraining himself. I don't think he's angry with you or displeased with you in any way. If anything, quite the opposite. That, and that reason alone is why he shies away from you. Because he believed that he could not control his own...urges," she finished lamely and promptly looked away.

Tonks felt her gray eyes widen with shock as she hung onto Molly's words, and by the end of Mrs. Weasley's statement regarding Remus's abrupt change in mood, she felt a sudden shift within herself and a brand-new mood engulf her.

"If that's _true_ , then Remus Lupin is being incredibly…" Tonks huffed in agitation, stammering as she rose from her leather armchair, frustrating herself by not able to find the proper description for her partner's sudden, moody behavior.

"Beastly? Wolfish?" suggested Molly helpfully, the corners of her mouth twitching.

" _Arrogant_! Stubborn! Pigheaded, thick, and _stupid_! So very _stupid_!" exclaimed Tonks violently, slamming down her copy of Shakespeare's works still laid out on the table, startling poor Ptelea in the process as she practically yelled.

Molly furrowed her brows at the sudden shift in Nymphadora's attitude. She let out a tired sigh of exasperation and folded her arms across her chest.

"But surely, Tonks, you were aware of Remus's feelings for you, and your feelings for _him_? The two of you have become… quite _close_ , these last few weeks, dear. I would have thought, given everything, that it was obvious, child."

Tonks sighed and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger and collapsed back into her chair, not wanting to pace the floor anymore.

She did not look at Molly as she spoke. "I thought that Remus and I had come to a mutual understanding with one another, Molly, yes, of course, a—and there were moments when he and I seemed to truly connect with one another, b—but they were sudden and—and…" Her voice broke as it trailed off.

"Out of nowhere," Molly finished the statement for Tonks in a quiet, subdued voice, and she could tell the effect her words had on the young witch was almost instantaneous. Mrs. Weasley watched Nymphadora Tonks come to the end of her heightened sense of anxiety, which was sure to send her heart racing against her chest and her blood pressure by this point had surely spiked.

Tonks groaned as she sat down slowly in the chair next to Molly and looked hesitantly towards Mrs. Weasley and bit down on her bottom lip in fear.

Molly merely proceeded to stare at Tonks rather placidly, setting her face to a casual indifference. Though she firmly believed Remus was taking a ridiculous stance on this, if the two Order members and partners could not come to a mutual understanding and reconcile, then the tension would be unbelievable.

After a long pause, Molly finally found her voice. "My dear, are you sure these sudden onsets of feelings were _really_ and _truly_ out of nowhere, as you have said?"

This time, Molly decided to Merlin's beard with her choice of words and threw all caution to the wind.

"You and Remus seem to share quite a deep connection to one another; unlike anything that I have ever seen before in my life…"

Tonks's round, almond-shaped eyes slowly glanced upward to meet Molly's kind brown eyes, and though the young witch did not respond immediately to Molly's question, Mrs. Weasley immediately had her answer then.

Just that one look was more than enough for Molly to know that by questioning her like this, that Tonks was slowly chipping away at her denial.

The only question remained was if Tonks would be honest with her.

Molly could only pray for her and hoped that Sirius was having better luck in conversing with Remus than no doubt she would have if she were to try.

Mrs. Weasley sighed and handed the plate of biscuit to Tonks, who glanced at the cookie with a look of exasperation on her face, but reluctantly took one.

"That's it, dear. Tuck in and have another biscuit." She fixed Tonks with a rather pointed look and settled back into her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "And you'd better tell me everything, and don't skip the details, dear. I cannot help you if I don't have all of the information, Tonks," Mrs. Weasley heard herself say warily.

It was going to be one _long_ afternoon.


	33. An Unexpected Conversation

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE **

These were the nights that displeased him the most when sleep would not come. Snape sighed and stiffened hard against his perch on top of the wall. Severus stifled a yawn and shook off the moisture in his sleep-deprived black eyes.

The night was warm indeed. Severus Snape's pallid eyes stared on the shelves of thousands of prophecies and Snape found himself fidgeting with his pinkish tipped fingers, clad in black woolen fingerless to keep them warm, his only defense against the chill and repressed a shudder as a cold breeze wafted his way again.

Snape furrowed his brows into a frown and rested against an unoccupied wall that served more as a bench in this case to suit his needs, and what he wanted was _rest_ , allowing his feet to dangle precariously off the ledge and folded his fingers together and rested them idly in his lap.

He glanced down at his black trench coat and dark gray trousers and brown leather boots, thinking his former _partner_ no doubt would have been pleased with his efforts to attempt to remain inconspicuous to the Muggles that went about their mundane lives, most of them never knowing of the wizarding community's presence.

_Good_. He liked it that way. Being alone. It was better for him, and he preferred it.

Though Fate, it would seem was _not_ so kind. Fate, this cruel bastard, in this case, possessed a name, and its name tonight was Albus Dumbledore, for the Headmaster had demanded Severus and Remus serve on a mission and guard the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic after hours.

A figure nudged beside. _Lupin_.

Severus felt his body stiffen instinctively out of a reactionary response. The werewolf gave him a rather wan look before offering a slight dip of his head, a minuscule amount of respect towards the Potions Professor, but it was more than enough for Snape, despite their differences, he supposed. But still… Anger with Remus Lupin boiled deep in Snape's system, hot as lava.

It churned within, hungry for destruction, and Severus practically felt the fires of fury and hatred were smoldering in his small, narrowed black eyes as he weighed the pros and cons of the various and creative means available to him for exacting revenge against one of the golden trio that made his life in Hogwarts living hell.

And yet… even now, as Snape met Lupin's eyes for that briefest of moments, the boiling within his bloodstream still ensued, though not quite as potent as years before when they were both students studying at Hogwarts.

He was not looking at his former schoolmate whom once he considered an enemy. No. Severus knew that he was looking at someone whom Lily had once respected and admired. Called a friend. Just as _he_ had once been her friend.

Severus could not quite quell the feeling, uncomfortable as it was, that there was something within Remus Lupin that he felt it his responsibility to mend. For Dumbledore's orders, tonight had been explicit. _Look out for the man. Keep an eye on him, Severus_ , he had said. _Watch over him_ , he had said.

Professor Snape had initially balked, claiming they were of the same age and Lupin did not need a _babysitter_ , and could look out for himself, but the Headmaster was not hearing nor having any of it and bade Snape come anyway.

When Lupin dared to meet his gaze again, Severus could still see the hateful eyes back when they were both students together, and he was even more aware that being forced to work together on Dumbledore's orders was merely not enough to suffice the angst that the werewolf had grown accustomed to throughout his miserable, lonely years. In that way, he supposed, they were alike.

For both were alone.

_He hates me_ , Severus thought, biting the inside wall of his cheek. _He still hates me, even after all this time. I can see it in his eyes. He'll die hating me_.

Snape emanated a tense exhale through his nose, feeling the unbridled tension that lingered in the air between the two men as they sat idle against the wall in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries, Lupin's eyes starting to grimace.

"You disgraced yourself, you know, the night in the library," Severus prompted in his usual droll baritone, just to see if his comments could elicit a verbal response from Lupin. "Mrs. Weasley and the Headmaster has told me everything thus far that has transpired between you and your new… _partner_."

"We sorted it out," Remus snapped by way of response, rather curtly.

Severus snorted and found it difficult not to roll his eyes at Lupin's clipped tone.

" _Obviously_. Your face does not _look_ like the face of a man who is at ease, Lupin. Do not _lie_ to me. It is quite plain to not only me but the rest of the Order as well that you have not 'sorted it out.' Your _partner_ , Nymphadora Tonks," he spat, her name as venom on his tongue, "the witch frightens you, does she not?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest. "You'd be wise not to lie. No _lying_ to me, Lupin. I'll _know_ if you're lying, so do us all a favor and speak the truth," Professor Snape lifted his wand slightly, and was barely able to stifle his small, crooked half-smile as he allowed the illumination from the ball of light emanating from the tip of his wand to bathe Remus Lupin's careworn face in the otherwise pitch-black darkness of the Department of Mysteries after hours.

He took the opportunity of the momentary silence to study the other man's movements, his wide range of facial expressions. He could practically see the wolf's emotions darting in those light brown orbs of his. A wide range flickered wildly throughout as he no doubt was thinking of _her_ , of his wretched partner.

Self-loathing. Disgust. Yes, even the slightest flickers of fear, indeed.

The look on Remus's face was evident enough for Professor Snape without the man even having to draw breath and formulate an apt response. He snorted. "I surmised as much, Lupin. _Good_. You ought to be frightened of her, Remus. I'd consider you a _fool_ if you were not," he answered coldly, and it did not escape Severus's attention of how his calm, baritone voice, his choice of words, they sent a tremor down the werewolf's spine, though Remus did his best to repress it.

The man had spirit. Severus could give his fellow Order member that much, at least, despite the two of them despising one another. An admirable trait for a _wolf_. Severus could feel the edges of his mouth turn upwards in a smirk.

He folded his arms across his chest before burying his hands in the pocket of his coat. Though it was almost time for the two of them to wrap this up, Severus was admittedly not quite ready to leave yet. Dumbledore had bid Snape talk to Remus tonight, and it would seem Lupin's mind still needed time to process the fact that the two of them, perhaps for the first time, were _conversing_.

It seemed an age before Severus spoke again, and he heaved a heavy sigh.

"I am afraid that I must bear the blame of the…current predicament you find yourself in, Lupin." He watched in silence as Remus's head whiplashed sharply upwards as the man regarded the Hogwarts Potions Master with a look of incredulity and disbelief shimmering as unshed moisture in his brown eyes.

"The choice to appoint Dora— _Nymphadora_ , as my partner, was Dumbledore's," he answered airily, blinking owlishly at Severus in sheer shock.

Snape sneered as he recollected how Lupin had almost let slip the term of endearment for his former partner. _Dumbledore was right, then_ , he thought.

His smirk widened, having already anticipated that would be the answer the wolf would give, and he had not even needed to dip into the man's mind for it. "And yet, _you_ are the one who ultimately agreed to the union, _wolf_. In the end, however much influence you think the Headmaster has on you as the Order's founder, the final decision to become that wretched succubus's partner was yours, and well…here you stand before me when you could be with _her_."

It did not escape Severus's attention how Remus's posture stiffened, nor the growing look of anger in the man's normally kind eyes. For a brief moment, Snape could not help but wonder if the two would almost come to blows again. He had not and nor would he forget Remus's volatile behavior that night.

Snape continued prompting the man. "I wonder if you are beginning to regret your decision to agree to be the witch's _partner_?" he spat, hearing the anger dripping from his words. "It does not take an intellectual genius to see you are…troubled. I take it the girl has gotten under your skin, as she did mine, albeit with _you_ …" Severus's voice trailed off and he quirked a dark brow Remus's way. "I sense that it is in an entirely… _different_ way. I recognize the look in your eyes well, _wolf_ ," he spat, disgusted. "She's bewitched you somehow, hasn't she? I knew it. The tell-tale signs are all there. I recognize it well."

When Lupin did not respond and merely proceeded to shoot a slightly distrustful and apprehensive look, he sighed.

"Wretched little succubus. I thought as much she'd try to get closer. You are…an intelligent man, Lupin. I like to think I am one as well…"

Lupin blinked; a look of incredulity etched upon his lined but admittedly still handsome face. "No one disputes that, Severus. Not even the many who despise you," he answered matter-of-factly, giving a nonchalant shoulder shrug.

"I wish we could converse as two honest and intelligent men," Severus drawled, actively avoiding looking at the werewolf on purpose, instead out at the many shelves of prophecies, those white orbs, each one with a different future.

"I…wish we could too," Remus heard himself say, blinking in surprise. This sudden shift in Severus's personality was unexpected and had caught him off guard, and the question tumbled unchecked from his lips before he could stop himself. "What is it that you _want_ , Severus? Did Dumbledore say something?"

Severus brushed away Lupin's question with a curt wave of his hand.

"The Headmaster and what he may or may not have said to me prior to our… appointment is irrelevant to our discussion, and do not attempt to change the subject, _wolf_ ," he snarled through clenched teeth and rooted jaw. "What _I_ want is immaterial, though since you asked, what I seek this very moment, above all else, is sweet, blessed _silence_ , of which you are _interrupting_ , and I think I shall not find it until I attempt to discuss with you whatever is ailing you. The fact that Dumbledore has chosen to pair you with me is punishment enough, Lupin. Why he punishes me like this, I know not why, for I have done nothing wrong."

Remus scowled. "Punish me as _well_ it would seem," he growled, abruptly turning his head away from Snape for a moment. "My partner _hates_ you, Severus," Remus answered by way of response, his tone clipped and hard as he lowered his wand, so the light was not thrust deliberately into Severus's face. "I cannot help but wonder why that might be…Have you said something to her, done something to her during your appointment as her partner to cause her to despise you?" he snarled, baring his teeth, and Severus, ever the intuitive man that he was, could immediately tell the wolf was still thinking of the night he'd informed them of Tonks's disappearance straight into the path of a Death Eater.

Not knowing at the time she'd Disapparated straight into Crouch's path, there was still a small part of Professor Snape that believed the wolf would hang this over his head for the rest of his life, though the current hostility he was exhibiting did, at the very least, confirm one thing: that Tonks had kept silent.

_Silent_. For if the witch had said anything of their conversation in St. Mungo's, undoubtedly, the werewolf would have broached the topic at some point during their appointment with one another, and he had not yet done so.

Severus had not been anticipating Lupin's statement and he felt himself falter, and would have fallen off the ledge had the other man not shot out an arm to catch him as he fumbled to regain his balance on the wall, shooting Lupin a dark look as Severus violently wrenched his arm away, though not before giving a brief nod of his head in acknowledgment.

"Your precious _succubus_ does not hate me, despite what she _or_ others might tell you, _Lupin_ ," growled Severus, wondering how in the seven hells this conversation had taken this unexpected turn. "Nymphadora's 'hatred' of me, and yours in your own way, I suspect, is nothing but a weak transformation of her own shame and insecurities. It is all that she hates about herself, and yet lacks the courage and conviction to face alone."

Remus Lupin in the eight hours of guard duty was proving to be quite the mystery, his presence around Snape buzzing like a fly he could not swat. Severus swiveled his head slowly to regard the werewolf, his eyes full of loathing.

Though not necessarily for him, but rather, his insufferable partner. She had somehow seen within the many layers of his soul and exposed a vulnerable side of him that he had sworn would never see the light of day again. She _saw_ it.

"It is far easier for Nymphadora to lose herself in the theatrics of her own mind, if you will, than it is for that witch to swallow even an ounce of the bitter truth," Severus heard himself comment. "I had hoped that the ah…appointment of your new…partnership, would bring some small measure of peace to that accursed wretch's soul if only to save me the torment of having to listen to her."

"You despise Tonks," Remus breathed, sounding angered. "Why?"

Severus sneered despite his best efforts not to. "I do believe that is a hint of _affection_ in your voice that I hear for your partner. Has the _wolf_ finally found its mate at least?" he jeered meanly, the edges of his lips curling upwards. He sighed and promptly looked away from Remus, who was regarding the Potions Master as though Severus had accidentally sprouted horns atop his head. "Miss Tonks is a spiteful young creature with nothing on her mind but to come up with increasingly aggravating ways to annoy me and the rest of the Order."

Professor Snape could not be sure, given the dim lighting in the deserted Department of Mysteries, though he was certain the shadow of a smirk darted across Remus Lupin's face and it set his blood aflame yet again. He sighed tiredly.

He waited for Lupin to speak, to say something to break the silence. He had half-expected the wolf to grow fangs and dig them into his neck for the way he spoke against Nymphadora Tonks just now, but when it did not come, Severus groaned and pinched the front of his temples with his thumb and his forefingers.

"If you do not wish for an end to your partnership with the Auror," he brought up quietly at the bequest of Dumbledore, lowering his voice an octave, "then you will need to learn how to reconcile past these differences, no matter what transpired between the two of you these last few weeks, wolf. To work _with_ her. It is essential if you are seeking reconciliation, though why you would want to is _beyond_ me," he growled, rooting his jaw as he thought of the vibrant pink-haired young witch's obsession with annoying him with her constant prattle.

Severus scoffed as Lupin's cheeks immediately flushed pink in embarrassment and shame as the werewolf promptly looked away and avoided his gaze. "Passion is a grave mistake, wolf," Severus growled angrily, sensing the man's thoughts. "Your kind mates for life, do they not?" he tormented, relishing in the growing look of discomfort in Lupin's posture. "Like you, no doubt have learned for yourself. Know this now, and you may survive your…partner, yet."

Remus furrowed his brows into a frown and quirked his brows towards Severus Snape, saying nothing. It was not only what the man had just said to him, but the things that he would not say. The tinge of melancholia in his black eyes.

He could sense that Severus had a reason for speaking to him of such a topic and given that they had arrived at a point in their conversation where neither could abandon it without there being questions raised that demanded answers, the best he could hope for were that Severus arrived at his conclusion.

For that, Remus supposed he could not blame his former classmate. Snape was still actively looking away from him, wand twirling idly in his hands.

"We are both still considered young, wolf. You might feel like giving in to it. Passion. You think it the nature of your…affliction, but every human suffers it at one point or another. Do _not_ give into it. This is my one and only piece of advice to you."

Remus gave a curt nod to signal that he was actively listening, for he was, his ears had practically perked up the moment Severus opened his mouth to say more than two words to the man ever since their begrudging partnership this morning following that awkward encounter with Tonks at the breakfast table.

"Why tell me this?" Lupin asked, furrowing his brows in a slight frown.

Severus paused, running his tongue along the wall of his teeth, studying the werewolf's tired and rugged features. Two-day stubble lingered along the man's sharp, angular jawline, the dark circles underneath his eyes growing darker, more pronounced as the hours laying in wake dragged on at a snail's petty pace.

"Because the undeniable tension between the two of you is proving to be a _problem_ , wolf. She is a _complication_ for you the longer this little 'problem' remains unsolved, and like it or not your wretched little partner might be the one thing that tames the madness within you," Severus replied coldly, and Lupin could detect no hint of malice or deceit in his tone, which Remus found strange. "Women know more about feelings, emotions. _Love_ ," he spat, sounding disgusted and scrunched his nose in revulsion, as though just the thought of the very concept sent a chill of repulsion down his tensed spine. "Men, however, we do not, and we are admittedly much slower to grasp these concepts. Your partner is a… _difficult_ woman to please. I still think your best bet at dealing with her incessant habit of talking is to poison her, then that tongue of hers that must be hung in the middle so it can wag at both ends stays silent, and we're left in sweet, blessed silence," he growled, glancing sideways at Remus Lupin.

He snorted. There was no mistaking the flicker of re-ignited hope that now lingered in the man's light brown eyes, though the wolf's face was neutral.

Severus groaned and thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand and dragged his hand down along his cheek in exasperation.

"I never thought I would ever be having a conversation of this caliber in my life, let alone with a _dog_ ," he growled irritably through gritted teeth. "But the Headmaster believes that I could have provided some assistance, so that is your answer as to you 'why.'" He heaved a tired sigh and glanced at Lupin out of the corner of his eye. "There it is. You're getting to be quite good at this, you know. That look. Ah, but if looks could carve out lungs, mine would be carved out in no time, _Lupin_. You and I are much alike." Severus said it so matter-of-factly that Lupin startled.

The werewolf made an odd little strangled sounding noise from the back of his throat and slowly swiveled his head and regarded Severus incredulously.

"I fail to see how that is, Severus. _How_?" he demanded angrily.

"You and I, the world holds _no_ place for someone like us. We are both cast aside. Discarded. Unwanted. Un-valued, unappreciated for our talents. The Wolf and the Betrayer, for that, is what I _am_. I held the title the second Dumbledore…" He started to say it, and caught himself, for he could not—would not—reveal the nature of Albus's agreement to anyone—especially not this—this _dog_. Snape practically growled with the effort to resist his temper imploding. "You and I, Lupin…if we're going to be damned, then let's be damned for what we _really_ are. What we leave behind in this world is not as important as how we lived during our time on it," he snarled, a muscle in his eye twitching.

Severus ground his teeth in anger and squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and slowly swiveled his head to regard Remus, who, he was surprised to see, actually appeared to be listening to him, perhaps for the first time in life.

"Why are you always… angry?" Lupin asked though he did not sound put off with the Potions Professor. "Tonks was right. You _do_ have sad eyes, Severus. Even when we were in school, you've always had this look about you. I've always wondered."

Now it was Severus's turn to make an odd little noise at the back of his throat and he felt his eyes widen and his anger resurface. _So, she did talk, then_.

"Did she say something to you?" Snape snapped, clenching and un-clenching his fist. _By Merlin's beard, I'll poison her. I swear I will if she talked_.

"Tonks?" Remus furrowed his brows. "No. Why would she? I don't need another to tell me that you are a sad, sorry excuse for a man, Snape. I see it in your eyes, just as I saw it in my partner's eyes when you came to headquarters for a meeting. She gave you this…this look," he commented, and it did not escape Severus's attention and eyes like that of a hawk's, that the man's expression softened at the comment. "You have sad eyes for a man who claims not to care at all. Sad eyes for a _killer_ ," Remus growled angrily, his face paling. " _Why_?"

At this, Severus felt his throat dry up as it gave away too much of himself.

He managed a small, albeit slightly nervous laugh. "You don't know that, _dog_." Snape bristled and puffed out his chest slightly. "How are my eyes in _any_ way at all relevant to our topic of discussion? They _aren't_. You are deflecting, Lupin," he accused hotly. "I grow tired of this. I _knew_ there was something strange of you the moment I laid eyes on you when we were younger, and not because of your lycanthropy. I swear to _God_ , Lupin, if we do not discontinue this conversation immediately and you do not cease to press this issue, I'll _strangle_ you myself," Snape snapped, though he sighed and pinched his front temples and groaned.

There was a thick, uncomfortable tension that lingered between the two men before Severus spoke again.

"I could never be like you," Severus seethed, a muscle in his jaw twitching as it tightened and locked in anger. "You, out of all of them, were the righteous one, the light at the end of egregiously long tunnels. When I…when I joined Dumbledore, I sought to emulate that goodness, and still, your people do not accept me as one of their own. Your goodness annoys me because it cannot be mine. And as such, Lupin, I can never be like you…"

Remus sniffed in disbelief and managed a weak laugh. "Somehow, I find that difficult to believe," he snapped, maintaining the clipped tones of his voice. "Some men are born righteous, Severus…while the rest of us are doomed to…this," he growled, gesturing towards himself, more specifically, his scars.

Severus pursed his lips into a thin frown. "No one is born good or evil, Lupin. Destiny is but the excuse of a _coward_ , and if you believe that, you _are_ one," he snarled, taking to sit his weight on the edge of the ledge they were perched on, looming over Remus Lupin who was silently glowering at Severus.

Snape sighed. "When one has…been angry for a long time, you…you get used to it, I'm afraid. It almost feels comfortable, like…leather. Old leather. And then, it becomes so familiar that you can't ever remember feeling any other way. It's just how it is." Snape felt himself sigh and looked towards Remus; whose first impression of Severus was that his eyes as black as coal reminded him of a pitch-black night. "But that is not why I agreed to come here tonight, dog. We are not here to discuss me or my… _feelings_. I am not important. Your partner. We were discussing the current problem of your partner. Miss Tonks. You are going to have to be patient with the witch, as impossible of a task as that may seem, daunting as it is," he snarled, no warmth in his tone. "Learn to live with her, her faults, her flaws, the things that you _mistakenly_ find endearing. _All_ of it. I shall speak of this only once going forward," the briefest of smirks dancing across his sallow face as he regarded Remus Lupin's dawning look of horror and disgust. "What you seek at the end of all of this, no matter how it comes to a resolution, is respect. _Not_ passion, _dog_ , so get that out of your mind this very second, _wolf_. You must…make Nymphadora Tonks respect you, something that I failed to do." Severus furrowed his black brows into a frown and scowled heavily at him.

"Because you _berated_ her and _insulted_ her at every opportunity! Who would even _want_ to respect _you_ as a partner when you do not give them an adequate chance to get to know you, you keep everyone at a distance!" Remus yelled, his hand curling into a fist over his wand as he blanched at Snape's words.

But Severus held up his hand and effectively cut the other man off. "Immaterial to our discussion, Lupin. We are not here to discuss me and my shortcomings, of which I possess very few, unlike _her_ ," he snapped meanly. "What am I about to suggest to you would solve your little 'love' dilemma, and I suggest you take my advice to heart, _wolf_." Severus paused to draw in a breath.

"My… _problem_?" Remus asked, raising a brow incredulously at the Potions Master, but he did not move from his perch on the ledge and chose to remain calm enough to allow his fellow Order member to elaborate further.

" _Yes_ , because you see, I pondered this for quite some time a few days after Miss Tonks was reassigned to you. I had given you approximately two days before you would go to Dumbledore and request reassignment, though I would not fault you if you _had_ , and as such, lost ten Galleons to Kingsley Shacklebolt in the process. It takes a special type to put up with that screeching banshee, and you seemed just the type. The Headmaster was right in that regard, dog," he spat venomously, practically seeing the anger dripping from his words. "The reason why you have not requested relocation and a new partner, much less a new assignment yet, is because you are holding out for that little witch. Someone who if you were to pursue this, would never approve of, given your…afflictions."

Severus offered Lupin a dry, sardonic smirk and fell silent.

Remus blanched as he felt all the blood drain from his face.

_How_?! Severus _knew_. Somehow, someway, he knew, and he highly doubted it was due to his ability to practice Occlumency.

Remus had always known that Severus was a highly intelligent individual, but how he could have known was beyond him, for Lupin had thought he had been extremely careful in regards to the concealing of his feelings, save for that incident in the library, whenever he was around Nymphadora.

But Severus did not give him a chance to continue. He clasped his hands together and picked at a loose thread on one of his black woolen fingerless gloves, his only defense against the cool drafty air.

"They say that love is the death of a man's duty, _wolf_. You have allowed your sense of duty to the Order to become tainted, plagued by thoughts of _her_ , and I would see you do something about it before the entire organization suffers because of your actions. Or rather, more appropriately, your _lack_ of actions."

Lupin tried to focus on his breathing, but the anxiety bubbled inside his ribcage, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Severus _knew_.

The look of amused satisfaction on the man's sallow face, half shrouded in shadow, was more than enough. His chest felt hollow and constricted.

The panic continued to well deep within the confines of his chest, and he felt the beads of sweat break above his brow and he balled his hands into fists, feeling the sweat trapped beneath his palms as he shoved them into the pocket of his brown jacket. He needed an out.

But Severus was not about to let the matter drop, for the man leaned forward, resting his cheek in his right hand, black eyes glistening with intrigue.

"I _knew_ it," he breathed, sounding victorious. "This _witch_. She's bewitched you. You've fallen in _love_ with her, haven't you, wolf?" He leaned forward from his spot on the ledge and pinned Remus with his piercing black stare, rendering Lupin drawn to the man's gaze and unable to tear his gaze away.

To that, Lupin had no apt response to give. Severus's comment was so out of character from what he knew of the man, and his brain formulated no thoughts other than to register that he was completely shocked. "I…" he stammered, not sure what else to say in his defense. How he was even able to formulate a coherent thought in it of itself was admittedly a miracle right now.

Severus shifted at the waist slightly to regard his fellow Order member.

"You're in love with Nymphadora Tonks."

* * *

**A/N: God bless you, Severus Snape. Every time I write for our Prince, all I hear is Alan Rickman's voice, and it's wonderful. I hope my lovely readers are enjoying this 'different' side of Snape. I'm still trying to keep him very much in character but thought it might be fun for Remus & Severus to share in a dialogue for a change. **


	34. Of Unspoken Feelings

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR **

Poor Remus felt like his mind was _reeling_. Long after Snape had abandoned him outside of the Ministry of Magic, he had been left to his own devices, and he had not a clue what to do about it. Snape _knew_. He knew.

How could he have known? And furthermore, _why_ had it taken Severus Snape, of _all_ people whom he could have shared a dialogue with, for the revelation of the simple truth to hit him so hard as it had during that moment?

Why did Snape's words have such a profound impact on him?

Though when prompted, Severus refused to speak of how, which only further confused Lupin. He had thought during Order meetings, he'd been careful. He did not know how long he'd aimlessly wandered the sidewalks of London, but it was beginning to get cold.

The type of coldness that reached into his bones, as if his heart were a door left wide open to the chilled wind, slamming only to open again. The only thing to do was to keep moving, heading back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and hopefully the steady warmth of the hearth.

Though he knew that the moment he stepped through the door, he would undoubtedly be facing _her_ again, and he did not know what to say to her.

Professor Snape's words as their conversation had continued in the Department of Mysteries still resonated within the confines of his troubled mind.

 _"_ _I—I don't know what you're talking about."_ It had passed his lips as almost a hoarse and silent whisper, and he'd actively averted Severus's cold gaze.

Severus had responded in kind by furrowing his brows into a frown and cocking an eyebrow Lupin's way. _"No?"_ he had drawled. _"And here Dumbledore and Molly Weasley had led me to believe you were quite serious. I never took you as the type of man that would so coldly discard a young woman's feelings about. My mistake, but then it reflects you for the beast I know you as."_

At the Potions Master's words, Lupin had felt that hot fire-spark of anger ignite in his veins. Remus's temper was a slowly filling glass. There was no problem, no outward sign of fury until the liquid reached the top, then all bets were off. And if you were unfortunate enough to let it get to that point to be on the receiving end of the man's temper, and you were smart, you ran for cover.

To prevent himself from striking out in anger at Snape, Remus had bolted from his perch on the wall in the Department of Mysteries and had turned on his heel and Disapparated from the Ministry of Magic without another word.

Not wanting to linger in the bitter cold of the night any longer, he Disapparated and made to head for Number 12, Grimmauld Place, but he could not find it within himself to cross the threshold of the stoop and enter the door.

But when the familiar sting of ache touched his chest, Lupin bit the inside wall of his mouth and remained on the top step, taking a seat, unmoving, still.

Remus remained this way even when he felt the door open and he did not even have to look behind him to know that Sirius was regarding him in silence, and Lupin mentally cursed when his best friend's strangely icy glower angled at him, ready to fire off whatever brutally cutting remark he could think of to tear down his best friend for what he believed to be despicable treatment towards his cousin, one of the few family members in Sirius's life who were decent towards him.

Impatience had always been a part of Padfoot's personality.

"I heard Molly and Tonks having a most unusual conversation just now, Moony. It pertains to _you_ ," Sirius began through gritted teeth, sending the chills down Remus's throat. "That young woman in there carries feelings for you, and chances come and go, you and I both know this perhaps better than anyone, Moony. You would truly throw away a chance to make yourself happy over…?"

Sirius gestured wildly with his hands to the scars that littered Lupin's face.

"Yes." Remus offered a curt nod of his head, fixing the former prisoner of Azkaban and his best friend with a hardened stare and actively tried to avoid the trap of staring directly into Sirius's gray eyes that were in the moment, reminding him painfully of _hers_ and making him feel even more uneasy than he already was. Lupin did not think he could bear to look Tonks in the eye yet.

To look into those deep pools of gray, that stormy gray-blue ocean of hopeless grief. Grief, Lupin knew, that he had played an integral part in planting.

Sirius scowled and furrowed his dark brows into a frown as he took a seat on the top step next to Remus. "You should consider yourself lucky to have Tonks as a partner, Remus. She's becoming quite a good friend of mine, too."

Remus gave a jump at Padfoot's words and as Sirius rose to stand, he himself was hardly aware that his arm had shot out of his own accord and caught the man by his right arm before he could make the move to go back inside.

Sirius froze as Remus stood with him, and Remus felt the familiar hot spark of anger and jealousy and could not help but to read between the lines at Padfoot's comment just now, nor had he missed the way that Sirius's gray eyes had softened when he'd said Tonks's name. Lupin felt his throat as it hallowed.

Remus did not know what exactly what the recipe was in his cauldron of boiling feelings towards his rather unfounded jealousy of Sirius and Tonks.

Shame? Pride? Guilt? Lupin sighed heavily and earned the courage to meet his best friend's hardened gaze, Sirius's eyes dark at the rims, his pupils contracting in the darkness of night. "I…I want to know," Remus began awkwardly, "what your…feelings are, your intentions are towards Dora, Sirius."

Lupin watched as Sirius's stoically cold face towards his best friend's cold dismissal of his cousin's feelings towards him hardened even more and settled into what Remus could only perceive as one of venom as Sirius scowled at Remus.

"Why do I get the feeling I already _know_ what you're going to ask?" Sirius growled, almost sounding dog-like as his brows knitted together in concern and he shook his head in disgust. He glanced towards the pitch-black sky and threw his arms out in exasperation. "There's no _need_ for this, Moony, this petty jealousy of yours towards your partner does not become you. Nothing is there."

Remus's own frown deepened, but he continued to maintain his tight, ironclad grip on Sirius's arm and his best friend under his piercing, wolfish sight.

"Somehow, that's not convincing enough for me to believe you…" Remus growled the words as they escaped his lips and bit the inside wall of his cheeks and watched as Sirius's face paled in shock, a look of utter disbelief and outrage on the half of his face that Sirius could see that was illuminated by the lantern hanging on the wall.

Sirius let out a sigh of exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose, as though fighting off the beginnings of a splitting headache. He raked his hands through his thick tuft of dark shoulder-length wavy hair and groaned in exhaustion.

"I promise you right here and now, Remus, and I would promise this until the end of time if I must, that there is nothing between Tonks and I. She. Is. My. _Cousin_. What exists between Tonks and I is _purely_ friendship, Moony. Nothing more, and nothing less than that. If you _want_ her, then _keep_ her. _You_ are the one that broke _her_ heart, Moony, not the other way around. She is willing to _wait_ for you, don't you get it? But you're too blind and bloody foolish to acknowledge that fact for yourself. _You're_ the only one who says you can't have a normal life, but it could not be further from the truth, Remus. You can have one if you want it, but you've got to be willing to _fight_ for it. For _her_. That woman in there is your chance, Moony, but if you could see it. _Take it_ ," he emphasized darkly, watching as Remus's light brown eyes narrowed in shock.

Remus barely stifled the low warning growl that the Mad Beast was developing as a low rumble deep within the confines of his chest. In truth, he was still finding it incredibly difficult to believe a word Sirius was saying to him.

He needed the truth from Padfoot like he needed air. Tonks had told him repeatedly that there was nothing on her side of the argument, and it was not the young witch's integrity that he doubted, but that of his own best friend.

A fact that he reviled and hated, but he could not help these feelings.

"I want the truth, Sirius, right _now_ ," Lupin growled threateningly, baring his teeth, and leaning in so that the tip of his nose was practically touching Sirius's. "Cousin or not, are your intentions towards _my_ partner _noble_ , Sirius? Or—or have you just been… _using_ her this whole time for your own advantage?"

Sirius was looking as though Remus had hit him with a spell, for his face rapidly drained of color so fast and he swayed on the spot where he stood, that for a split second, Remus thought Sirius might fall upon hearing his accusation.

He was looking absolutely repulsed by the mere suggestion from his own best friend that he would even consider using such words against him. And then suddenly, Sirius was the one leaning into him, a look of utter rage on his face.

When he spoke, his voice had lowered an octave as he seethed, growing red in the face. "This jealousy of yours over Tonks had gone on long enough, Moony. Do you even _hear_ your words? Are you even _listening_ to yourself?! You stand there and dare to tell me to my face that I have nothing but honest intentions towards my cousin? Has no one here thought to ask Tonks what it is that _she_ wants?" Sirius growled, taking a half-step back away from Remus, and Lupin, who felt his own face grow ashen and beads of sweat formed on his brow as his skin pulled taut and tight with rage. "Not what _you_ or her _mum_ or Mrs. Weasley wants for her. _What. She Wants_." Sirius stepped further away from Remus and wrenched his arm out of Lupin's grasp rather violently, shaking his head immensely, as though disappointed in Remus's lack of response. "I would have thought that would have been obvious, Moony. Have you talked to her?"

"What are you talking about?" Remus growled, feeling a sudden shift within himself as the worst of his anger towards his best friend dissipated and was immediately replaced with confusion at the question Sirius had just posed to him.

Sirius was staring at Lupin with such an incredulous look in his light gray eyes, glistening with unshed moisture that was not that of tears, but a silent fury.

Their argument was growing cold and stale. Every word over-pronounced, slicing rather than tumbling through the air as the winds of this strangely cold summer night as August ended and September would soon be upon them, blew Lupin's bangs away from his face. The respect between the two men had not gone, it had merely been distorted, and Sirius and Remus both knew that unless they were able to come to an agreement here and now, then this disagreement would inevitably prevent them from understanding one another.

Sirius practically bristled in anger, puffing out his chest slightly as he moved to head back inside. "It's bloody freezing out here," he grumbled darkly under his breath. "And it's not my place to speak on such matters, Moony," Sirius answered, albeit rather stiffly, his facial muscles tense as his jaw locked up and he ground his teeth in anger. "The answer to your questions is in there, currently talking with Molly," he snapped coldly, jerking towards the closed door with his thumb. "We can't decide what kind of man you're going to be for you, Lupin. You have to decide that for yourself," he added sadly, as he opened the door, one hand on the doorway's frame to steady himself as he glanced back towards his best friend. "One of these days you're going to have to make a choice, and Merlin help you when that time comes. I can only hope you'll make the right choice: her. Tonks is the one you need to be discussing this with, Moony. _Not_ me…"

Remus watched as his best friend quietly closed the door in his face, and he flinched, thinking it almost would have been better had Sirius slammed it.

But he also knew that in more ways than one, Sirius was right.

What had Sirius meant by his words? That he needed to start making his own decisions? To choose what he wanted out of life and not let his condition make those calls for him? Was that it? His entire life, save for his parents, and his friends and the professors at Hogwarts, once people learned of his lycanthropy, he was reviled and cast aside, given the label of Mad Beast, Monster, Demonic…

He had come to the firm belief that no woman would ever grow to care for him, but Dora had. Tonks had accepted unfailingly every fiber of his being.

And she did not seem to _care_ that he was a werewolf, never mind that he thought she was undermining the dangerous nature of his horrible affliction.

Lupin heard himself emanate a tense exhale and he let out a frustrated groan, raking his hands through his thick tuft of light brown hair and wrenched open the door. "I must be _out_ of my _mind_ to even _consider_ doing this to her…"

As Remus crossed the threshold off the front stoop of Grimmauld Place and into the warmth of the entryway, he could hear low murmurings coming from the living room parlor. He flinched and swallowed past the lump in his throat, as he strode towards the kitchens to get a glass of water first. He'd need to be able to speak properly, and he couldn't do that when his throat was on fire.

All the reasons not to do this came flooding in as if his body chemistry had just sent them all a blanket invitation. He could feel the soft panic that would grow or fade depending on what he did next, what he chose to say to Dora. It would fade if he backed away, but then he would have to do this all over again.

Remus scowled as he felt a muscle twitching involuntarily at the corner of his left eye, his mouth forming a rigid grimace. This fitfully cold night following their conversation would spell out the conclusion they both needed.

Sirius was right. He needed to find out what it was that Tonks wanted.

If she wanted him…and just the thought of what her answer would be was enough to send a tremor of uncertain fear down the poor man's spine.

And her answer that she gave him would either see the dawn of something new begin or snap his dreams in two.

He sighed, feeling like he could stall no longer as he headed back down the hallway towards the parlor.

It was time to find out what _she_ wanted…

* * *

The pair of witches had been talking now for at _least_ forty-five minutes, and it had to be well into two o'clock in the morning, and Merlin blesses her, Mrs. Weasley showed no signs of wanting to retire to bed anytime soon. Not until she had gotten to the bottom of whatever was ailing their youngest Order member and her friend. Yet _another_ thing that Tonks knew she owed Mrs. Weasley for.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she mulled over Molly's next question, which was posed to her. "Are you sure there was _nothing_ between you and Remus that led up to this moment when he kissed you? A phrase exchanged, a look, a touch? These things don't just…materialize out of thin air, dear…A connection, a bond that seems to be as strong as yours, takes time to form…."

The young witch's frown deepened even further if such a thing was possible as she glanced down at her hands resting nervously in her lap, tapping restlessly.

She emanated a tense exhale and traced the lines of her inner palm on her left hand, her wand hand, and recollected the strange fiery sensation she had felt when Remus had taken hold of her hand that night and almost the second her hand was engulfed in his, the violent tremors of her nerve damage stopped.

It had been most peculiar, though the sensation itself was not necessarily unwelcomed. Pursing her lips into a thin rigid line, the young Auror frowned as she lifted her head slightly and looked rather somberly towards Mrs. Weasley.

Much to her surprise, Mrs. Weasley was offering her a kind and sympathetic smile. "My dear, these types of things are never quite that simple."

Mrs. Weasley let a dark little chuckle escape her lips and shook her head in bemusement, thinking that the next time Remus dared to walk through the front door, she would need to have words with the man on how ridiculous he was behaving, and the stance he was choosing to take on this matter.

Childish is what he was. _Cowardly_. Running away from this. From _her_.

Molly emanated a tense exhale and brushed a lock of ginger hair out of her eyes in frustration. "Often, feelings, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, they are infuriatingly confusing and leave you feeling dazed, wondering what it is all about underneath the surface of words and…physical gestures exchanged," she continued, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks. "Remus, if after what you've told me so far is true, does not merely…he doesn't…" Molly cringed.

But in the name of Merlin, how horribly, terribly _awkward_ this all was!

Mrs. Weasley wished for nothing more than a hole beneath their feet to open up and swallow her whole, and one glance over towards Tonks was more than enough. The older witch could tell that Nymphadora felt exactly the same.

Molly coughed once to clear her throat and continued. She had to hear this. "I believe that he does not merely lust after you, Tonks. Lupin cares a great deal about you, but also if I know that man, and I like to think after over two years of knowing the man, that I _do_ , that he cares more importantly what _you_ think about _him_. Since you and I are not Legillimens and cannot read peoples' minds, it's difficult for people like us to know what others think of you, but the one thing you can do that will help you above all else is search deep within. Observe yourself and question your _own_ feelings towards Remus and what happened. Obviously, this incident, shall we say, has affected you personally a great deal, Tonks. So…that leaves me with but just one question to ask you."

Tonks visibly winced, already know where Molly was heading with this.

"What is it that _you_ feel, Tonks? Towards Remus? When do you think of him? And you can be honest around me, dear, what has been said here today does _not_ leave this room," Molly answered solemnly, a grim expression on her face.

Tonks blinked owlishly at the older, matronly witch. It felt as though her brain stuttered for a good long moment and her eyes took in more light from the room and dust than expected, and her nose tickled as she fought back a sneeze.

Every part of her went on pause while her thoughts struggled to catch up.

Times changed. So did people. So did their conditions, much as hers had. Remus's unexpected arrival into Tonks's life, she knew, had changed her forever.

And bit by bit, she was drowning in just thoughts of her partner now. There was something foreign in her heart whenever she thought of Lupin, it was arbitrary. There was a reason this foreign, and in her mind, unwelcome emotion of love was invisible, undetectable with anything but their minds, Tonks knew.

Witches and wizards, all of humankind for that matter, were not evolved enough to be trusted with it. They would try to engineer it, alter it, use it, weaponized it. Staring back at Mrs. Weasley blankly while the older witch waited for her to respond to her question, Tonks found she was feeling rather speechless.

Unable to provide an apt response to Molly's query, but Tonks knew Molly was right, as usual. She had no choice but to search within herself and examine what lay deep inside the recesses of herself. Her feelings towards Remus.

Only then would Tonks be able to make sense of what had occurred, and perhaps better understand Remus's unusual reaction towards their kiss, and more importantly, how she was going to confront her partner, which she would inevitably be forced to do at some point, and she had no idea what to say to him.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown, still fully aware that Mrs. Weasley was waiting for her to answer, and what she came to the realization was, was that she could not express her feelings towards Lupin in a mere matter of words.

During the weeks of their partnership, she had been spending all of her time observing Remus's strange, almost possessive behavior towards her whenever he was around. During Order meetings, he seemed to resent the fact that Sirius always chose to sit next to her, and any time she attempted to converse with another wizard, be it Order member or a mere stranger on the street, he balked.

It was rather unfamiliar for Tonks to see her partner in this regard, and not at all like Lupin at all, for he was usually so quiet and reserved. Polite. _Kind_.

And then a few days ago, when he had kissed her, Remus had, perhaps inadvertently, whether he'd known it or not, had managed to expose her own feelings towards her the moment his lips pressed against hers, and it terrified her.

For if she did admit to herself what she had felt at that moment, then what was going to follow that? Heartbreak? More tears than she knew she held within.

"I…" Tonks stammered, attempting to gather her thoughts, blushing as she recognized Mrs. Weasley was regarding her with an inquisitive look in her kind, brown eyes, still waiting for her to answer. She painfully twisted her hands together as she wrung them repeatedly, frustrated with herself for not being able to coherently express what was on her mind regarding her feelings for Remus.

Tonks felt her eyes widen in shock as she pondered over whether or not Lupin had pulled away following that glorious, wonderful kiss that she could tell neither of them had enough of, was because he knew nothing would come of it.

For if he were to risk first dating her and one day even marrying her, and possibly, dare she even _think_ this next part, if there was the possibility that a werewolf and a human could sire a child together, an innocent life, then there was every remote chance that it would be born with some wolfish characteristics.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown, not knowing if that was the truth, for she had always been a firm belief that lycanthropy was passed one via biting.

She had never heard of a werewolf, of someone afflicted with Remus's unfortunate condition, pursuing a relationship with a human being before.

It was new, unheard of, and something that would shake the wizarding world to its core if it were allowed to happen, especially with the Legislation Act put into place. Tonks felt her lips part open to speak. "Molly, I don't—" the young witch started to say but her words were immediately cut off by the sound of the front door slamming, followed by the inevitable sound of heavy footfalls.

Two individuals entered into the front living room parlor of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, the first and foremost being none other than Remus himself.

Who was, it would seem, in the midst of being yelled at by Sirius, who was looking uncharacteristically somber and upset as Lupin stormed towards Tonks, looking much paler in the face than usual, and positively, utterly outraged.

" _Enough_ , Sirius! Be _quiet_! I will deal with this problem _myself_ without any interference from you!" Lupin bellowed, swiveling his gaze back towards the couch, and his expression of anger immediately dissipated as his light brown eyes lingered and settled upon that of Tonks, who was sitting by Molly.

Something in his eyes softened as his gaze lingered on Tonks, and he felt his face blanch as it promptly drained of color as Tonks's lips were parted slightly.

Though what followed even he could not have anticipated. Tonks shot a distrustful glance towards Emmeline Vance, who was looking strangely sympathetic. He thought it rather odd, considering there was friction between the two women, though what that reason was for Vance's behavior, he didn't know. Nor did he particularly want to know what her reasonings were, exactly.

Tonks, for her part, felt her posture straighten and stiffen as she abruptly rose from her chair, Molly, having sensed the young witch's discomfort, did the same. "Good night, Remus," she answered somewhat stiffly albeit cordially.

Remus winced at the coldness and curt edges of his partner's tone.

"I…err…I didn't know that you would…that you would be here, Tonks," he stammered rather awkwardly, suddenly averting Nymphadora's piercing gaze.

When his partner answered him, her voice was flat, her gray eyes listless. "Where _else_ would I be, Remus? Grimmauld Place is my home now. I cannot move back in with my parents. I can't go back to work yet, and I do not want to stay in an inn by myself. At least here I have…people to keep me company."

She did not mention Remus nor Sirius, though she thought it obvious. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and actively averted Lupin's gaze.

As far as situations went, the young Auror thought angrily, this _had_ to be by far the worst and most awkward encounter she had ever been faced wit


	35. Reconciliation

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE **

Tonks lifted her head slightly and blinked owlishly in shock as Mrs. Weasley was prompting escorting Sirius and Arthur out of the living room, though not before shooting the young woman a sympathetic glance and a soft smile as she glanced at Tonks over her shoulder and escorted her husband and Sirius to the kitchens, despite Sirius's intentions to stay, but seeing the dark look that his best friend shot him before turning his attention back to Tonks, he reluctantly agreed.

Tonks quirked a brow Sirius's way in minor disbelief at the way he went without putting up an argument for why he wanted to stay.

No doubt if she knew her cousin by now, and she liked to think she had a good idea of Black's personality, he'd probably steal a pair of Fred and George's Extendable Ears and slip them just by the crack of the door, as Remus gingerly closed it behind him, a look of frustration and exasperation on his lined face.

Tonks watched in mute silence as she waited for Remus to take the seat that Molly had just vacated and let out a sigh and glanced down at her hands.

"What is it that you want, Remus?" Tonks asked, and Lupin visibly winced at the flatness in Tonks's voice, and when the young witch lifted her chin and raised her eyes to meet Remus's, he hated the listlessness of her gray eyes.

The passionate fire that fateful night had dulled and the ash brown hues of her pixie cut made her already pale face look even peakier, washed out.

Lupin restrained the waves of staggering cold that hit him squarely in the chest just then as if hit by the Knockback Jinx, as he watched her turn away.

With any other person, be they witch or wizard, he would have disregarded the dismissal as their behavior when they learned of his condition.

But with Dora, he felt a strange requiem, and he hated that this had turned into a battle of sorts, but as much as he fought against the Mad Beast's tugging and pulling against its chains as the Beast within him constantly was aroused by the call of this woman's aura, they could not be so, and he had to make her see.

"I…do not deserve your friendship, Tonks," Remus began, cringing as he heard the unexpected coldness in his tones, hating that he did not sound like himself. He turned his head away from her so that he did not see the hurt within her. "Nor do I even deserve your trust, much let alone your affections, Dora. I will do nothing to you but cause you hardship and strife. I cannot condemn you in my life. I…I think that your life would be much better off with…" Without me, his mind finished, but Lupin found that he couldn't bear to utter the words.

As he turned back around to face Tonks, she was looking at Remus as though he had slapped her. Remus swallowed down hard past the lump forming in his throat and continued. "My mind tells me one thing. That I can't be around you anymore, Dora. It _hurts_ too much, to think about what I would do to you if we were allowed to be together, but…" His voice cracked, breaking as it trailed off.

Tonks blinked. Anger rose rapidly within her, but the young woman quickly stomped it down, refusing to let Remus see for an instant the profound effect his cold words had on her. Why was he always placing blame on _himself_?

What had happened between the two of them was her fault. She was the one who had kissed him and made matters worse for the two of them by overstepping that boundary so soon into their new partnership, but two weeks in. Unable to stop herself, Tonks felt herself stomp her foot out of frustration.

She turned to firmly grip both of his shoulders and forced Remus to look her square in the eye and meet her gaze. "Don't start this, Remus, please!" she snapped coldly. "Don't think for one second that this was your fault. I—I pushed you too hard, too fast, too soon. I should not have. I was the one who kissed you. The blame lies solely on me." Tonks felt the beginnings of tears prick and sting and blur at the edges of her vision.

"Why did you kiss me?" Remus asked quietly, and Tonks jumped, startled that he would ask such a question.

"I…" she stammered, playing with her fingertips as she weaved them in and out of her knuckles. Ah, but God, how she desperately wanted to tell Lupin the truth, that she cared for him greatly, maybe…maybe even was in love with him, but she couldn't. That small twinge of caution she still harbored towards his temper and what he would say if he were to learn the truth, told her not to.

And for that, Lupin had every right to be angry with her. She deserved whatever he was about to say to her, and to her surprise, Tonks found that her heart answered for her. "Because I…I care about you, Rem. I wanted to, is that not a reason enough for you? Because I don't _care_ , Remus, about any of it," she answered, hating hearing the crack and dip in her voice. "I don't care that you're older, that you're a werewolf. But…I can see that you aren't ready for it. For… for _me_ …" Tonks let out a shaking breath and blinked back more salty tears.

Her almost cracked lips parted with a barely audible whisper that for Remus held no argument. "Do you hate me, Rem?" she whispered hoarsely.

Lupin felt himself freeze and his mind started to scream in protest, and the answer left him without hesitation. "No. I…" _care about you. Love you_ , is what he wanted to say, but he could not bring himself to say those three precious words. For it would surely spell the beginning of something incredibly dangerous.

Tonks closed her eyes and let out a tiny, content-sounding sigh, seeming satisfied with the answer he gave, and without another word, wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled him tight, and every single bit of Lupin protested.

Remus felt her pull back suddenly as if she had been propelled backward by some unseen force, and he could almost sense the sudden shift within herself.

The laughter that he had grown accustomed to seeing over the last few weeks had completely evaporated from her gray eyes. Her warmth gone, and her focus was somewhere at a spot on the wall behind his head as she didn't look at him.

She lowered her head and allowed a lock of her ash brown bangs to fall in front of her eyes, effectively shielding them from Lupin's view, and he suddenly felt a surge of anger course through his veins. He wanted to demand she open them so he could look into her eyes. There was a part of him that hated Tonks's beauty.

Yes, _hated_ it, for he did not like how it made him worry that he would never see it again, and he wanted to keep her beauty for himself. To keep her for himself. Just as he loved and cherished Tonks's innocence, how it constantly worried and fretted him that she would lose it to another man, another handsome man, a younger one perhaps from the Auror Office when she was cleared to return to her job at the Ministry of Magic in another few weeks. But…but…

Remus flinched as Tonks slowly lifted her chin and her eyes locked with his. He had never seen Dora look this way, for her gray eyes held a listlessness.

A deadness, a horrible stillness. Perhaps if he were not a werewolf, then things would be different for them, but…

He did not get a chance to continue as Tonks finally found her voice.

"I had no right to get so close to you, Remus. I overstepped the parameters of our partnership. And though…I think that you feel it too, you don't think yourself worthy of my affections," Tonks answered steadily, her voice icy. "Given the nature of your condition. But don't you know there's more to me than _that_?"

Lupin's eyes widened as he took notice of the exhaustion and resignation in Tonks's voice. He realized, perhaps a fraction of a second too late, what he had initiated when he had allowed himself to get lost in her kiss. He had ostracized this bright young witch a promising future at the Ministry of Magic and if she chose to stay with him of her own accord, then Tonks would become like him.

An outcast. Shunned by their society. What had he _done_ to her?! He had ruined Dora, and any prospects she might have had for a good life here in London. If she chose to stay with him, then she too would be reviled an outcast.

Because of him. He was…he was not good for her. Dangerous for her.

"So…because you think that I'm too much for you, you wish me to leave," Tonks answered steadily, lifting her eyes at last to meet Lupin's gaze, and giving him a look of someone who had just woken up and realizing they had been chasing a fruitless dream. "I understand completely, Remus. You don't want me."

"Dora, no, that's not what I—" he started to say, but she had already turned her back on him.

Before she could take more than a few steps towards the stairwell, Remus grabbed her by the shoulders, albeit rougher than he would have liked, not wishing to have to resort to such drastic lengths in order to get her attention.

But Dora was giving him very little choice in this regard. As he gingerly turned Tonks towards him so that she was fully facing him, he winced as he noticed the sheen of glistening tears that welled in her light gray eyes. "Dora, you are misunderstanding me, more than…you can possibly imagine," Remus said, his voice soft and desperate. "I…want _you_ ," he whispered hoarsely. "Just you."

He froze. He'd never heard anything quite like that come out of his own mouth before.

Something in Tonks's hardened exterior shifted, and her expression softened just for a second. It was sweet like mo.

"But as you have _said_ , this cannot continue like this. _We_ cannot continue because you're ashamed of me. That's all this is. You're ashamed of what we could be," Tonks retorted, having to crane her neck upward to look Lupin in the eyes, given how much taller he was than her. She was much calmer now, as though something within her had given way, which Remus thought was strange.

Tonks furrowed her brows, frowning. "It's unacceptable. I— _I_ am no longer acceptable as a partner, as part of your life, your world. I overstepped that line when I dared to kiss. I shouldn't have done it," Tonks said hotly. "You're afraid to care for me back because you're afraid I would, what, break your heart? You of all people know I wouldn't. This. Is. War. We're needed right where we are. Our time on this given earth is precious, _why_ worry and wallow in self-pity about what could have been? Sometimes love hurts, sometimes it's painful, but if you truly care for me, then say yes. I want to hear you say it. You _look_ me in the _eye_ and tell me that you don't care for me," Nymphadora demanded hotly, placing her hands on her hips.

When he favored silence as an apt response—the only response—Tonks grew even angrier, and she felt herself snap the moment he so much as laid a finger on her. " **SAY IT**!" she screamed, balling her hands into fists and yelling.

" **NO** , Dora! That isn't fair, and you cannot ask that of me, because I'm _not_ lying to you," Remus roared, finally losing the last vestiges of his patience with her. Lupin, despite knowing that he really ought not to and this went against his better judgment, cupped her cheek, tilting it upward, forcing her to look at him. Her skin was just as soft as he knew it to be, much like the night of their kiss, and this only made the terrible ache within his chest spread that much faster.

He wanted nothing more than to completely surrender to her, to let this celestial-like creature he held onto a vice grip teach him whatever she wanted, but Lupin knew Tonks needed to hear this. "You _are_ better than me, Dora, did you not listen to a word that I just said?" Remus demanded incredulously but knowing that it seemed almost impossible that he could ever make see it. "You can do so much better than me, and you should," Lupin snapped, feeling the fire seeds of jealousy well deep within the pits of his currently churning stomach at the thought of envisioning this delectable creature with any other man _but_ him.

Tonks's lips parted open in shock and she took a half-step back and tried to wrench her wrist out of Lupin's ironclad grip, but he wasn't relinquishing his hold on her. "Like whom, _Sirius_?" she fired back immediately, face paling in anger. "I _see_ the way you look at your best friend, Remus, you're always jealous whenever Sirius and I are in the same room, let alone within fifty feet of each other, and it's pathetic of you, _and_ that kind of behavior is entirely beneath you," she added, pursing her lips into a thin, rigid line as she studied the look of dawning outrage on Remus's face. "You know, maybe you're right. Maybe I should do better than you, Remus, if _this_ is how you're going to be if we were to date," she snapped. "I can't be just solely friends with another man, not even one in the Order?! Is _that_ it? Maybe I should. Maybe I'll go sneak up to Sirius's room tonight after we're done talking in here and steal a kiss from my own cousin! He's still handsome, isn't he? Even after all those years in Azkaban Prison…"

Remus growled in irritation and this time he did not bother to restrain himself as his grip on her wrist tightened and he closed off the gap of space.

"I suppose you've fallen for _him_ then?" Lupin spat bitterly, narrowing his eyes as he regarded the young witch standing in front of him. "He always did get the women. Why am I not surprised? If that's the case, then you should go…"

Lupin felt such an immense wave of anger and antagonizing hurt clench at his chest until he felt as though he could no longer breathe. He did not like the fact that when she had uttered his best friend's name, it elicited such a dark reaction out of him. Remus knew that he did not want to see Tonks so upset over Sirius, especially not for him. He groaned as he felt that damned stubborn corded feeble muscle within the confines of his chest give another quiver, and he wished he could rip the damn thing right from his chest if this were what it felt like to love another.

"Black is a womanizer, Tonks, if there ever was one, you'd do well to keep your distance from him. _Stay_. _Away_ ," Lupin heard himself growl in frustration as he raked his fingers through his thick tuft of light brown hair.

Tonks's mouth was slightly agape in shock, and there was such a look of utter outrage on her face, that Remus would almost prefer if she had shouted.

Whatever she had been about to say was growing lost on Remus. He could no longer listen to this woman's words, for he knew she'd confirm his suspicion.

It was evident to him that she had taken a keen interest in his best friend and had made her choice, given by the look of shock and surprised awe within her eyes and Lupin decided he couldn't bear to see the pain within them again.

Without so much as another word to Tonks, he turned his back on the young witch, burying his hands in the pockets of his trousers and ground his teeth in sheer rage, thinking the next time he saw Black, there'd be holy hell to pay.

Why in the seven hells was his heart in such terrible agony over this? Why did it feel as though Dora had plunged her bare hand into his chest and ripped out his heart right from where he stood. Why did he suddenly feel such intense hatred, a wave of anger towards his own best friend as visions of the two of them together flitted through the front of his mind and refused to leave him in peace? _Why_?!

But before Lupin's outstretched hand could grasp onto the doorknob, the lock magically clicked, and Remus heaved a sigh of exasperation and slowly turned around to find Tonks's new wand raised in her wand hand, which was miraculously no longer shaking somehow, in her anger, she had ceased the tremors. "Remus. _Stop_." It was not a request coming from her, but a demand.

And then, Tonks was there, mere inches away from him, holding onto his shoulders with a grip so strong Remus wasn't sure he could break it even if he tried and wanted to, and strangely enough, he found that he did not want to.

" _Listen_ to me, Rem. Just—just give me a chance to explain!" Tonks pleaded tearfully, blinking back salty tears, and biting down on her bottom lip.

"Explain what?" Lupin barked harshly, his sorrow and immense hurt manifesting into an utter rage. "There is nothing to explain to me, Nymphadora. You don't need to justify your decision to me. I see more than enough, Tonks."

Remus grasped onto her wrists, fully prepared to gently remove them from his shoulders, but Tonks had other ideas and wasn't going to be going _anywhere_.

"No, you don't, Remus!" Tonks shouted, her face growing ashen the more upset she got, her eyes now ablaze with a myriad of different emotions that he could not tell exactly what she was feeling at this precise moment in time.

"I think I understand _more_ than enough," Remus snapped angrily, gently removing her wrists from his shoulders and stepped back a few paces to put some distance between himself and the young witch who'd violently broken his heart.

"Then please, why don't you tell me what you think you understand?" Tonks demanded, still bearing the expression of looking like she'd been slapped.

"Sirius always got the women. Now is no different." The jealousy dripping from Lupin's tone was unmistakable, and Tonks blinked owlishly at Remus.

"You…" Tonks felt as though her partner had slapped her, and he might as well have, for the way he was looking at her. The man was observing her with the gaze of a stranger, that aloof judgment with no strings attached. From up close, Tonks could tell he'd made some opinion of her just now. Her cold fury burnt with dangerous intent, and she could see in Remus's brown eyes as he dared to meet her gaze that he'd made a grave mistake with his remark.

Remus tended never to get worried about her frequent fireworks and showers of red-hot sparks that tended to boil her insides whenever she seemed to be within the presence of people like Snape, but it was these bitterly cold, slow-burning rages that consumed. Lupin let out a tired, defeated sigh and slumped his shoulders, turning away from her so she wouldn't see how much it hurt him.

Tonks exhaled slowly through her nose, felt the tension in the air, and heard the intensity in Remus Lupin's jealous tones. There were plenty of emotions behind those few words he had just spoken to her, and she knew he needed validation of his emotions, not some solution or apology from her right now.

Tonks took a deep, shuddering breath, steeling her nerves. All the reasons not to do what she was about to do came flooding in, as if her body chemistry just sent them a blanket invitation.

Remus was looking like he was about to break down and leave her alone, and that she could simply not allow, damn it.

_You need to say it and fast. He's going to leave you!_ A muscle twitched involuntarily at the corner of her right eye, her mouth forming a rigid grimace. With her arms folded tightly across her chest, she glowered at Lupin The man who had secretly held her heart for the last two weeks of their growing friendship…or whatever their relationship was to him, though she was about to find out for herself his feelings for her. One way or another, Tonks had to know.

"Wait!" Tonks pleaded desperately, catching the edge of his arm, and pulling him back with more force than she thought possible of herself. "Don't leave, Rem. Stay," she begged. "I—I didn't mean to upset you," she mumbled. "I…" But as she dared to meet his gaze, her cheeks flushed with heat and she lost her train of thought. His face was set, rigid, and tense. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he glowered at Tonks.

"Why? It's clear to me that you harbor feelings for my best friend, Tonks, and you have made your choice, Nymphadora. I can see it for myself. No need to justify yourself to me, Tonks."

Tonks felt her jaw lock up in anger and she stomped her foot, a release of frustration. "No! It's clear to me that _you_ do not understand, Remus!" she retorted hotly. "You're wrong!"

"Am I?" Remus challenged boldly, not seeming to want to hear her out. "I think I'm seeing this quite clearly for the first time. It was never me that you cared for these last two weeks!"

Tonks felt her grip upon Remus's wrist tighten as she felt Remus attempt to pull away. "I—it's no secret to those back at the Auror Office or anybody else knows me that…I'm bad at love, but you can't blame me for wanting to try, can you? You would know perfectly well who I've fallen for, if you weren't so busy sulking and feeling sorry for yourself to notice, Remus, you…insufferable…"

The young witch heard the crack and dip in her voice as it faltered.

"Don't you understand?" she whispered, and Remus froze, standing in front of her like a deer in the sights of an arrow, an incredible heat coursing through his veins at the term of endearment she had just bestowed upon him.

This was a first… His mind felt blank. He could not think. He could not act.

The only thing he could do at this point in time was listen to her. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and silently rolled freely down her cheeks in graceful tracts, and when she spoke to Remus again, her voice trembled with the weight of whatever it was that she was feeling. "I—I suppose I haven't been clear…"

Remus blinked owlishly, hardly daring to believe her words. Did this mean…? Tonks was not in love with Sirius? But why then, had Tonks not revealed her feelings before? Remus knew that what hides behind all the lies and secrets were truths that failed to get to the light. What concealed his pain was what kept reminding Remus of her every single night lately.

He felt so incredibly confused, but felt everything would be resolved right now, one way or another, he would learn the truth.

Remus drew in a sharp breath of air as Tonks closed off the gap of space between them, her face merely inches from his, the tip of her slender little nose practically touching his right now. She was close enough for him to kiss her. He was briefly tempted but resisted the urge. There were other things weighing on his mind right now, like finding out her true feelings for him. Remus faltered and took a step back, fumbling and almost tripping over the damn footstool off to the side of the room.

Words left him. He stared into the young woman's piercing dark eyes currently burning with anger, and his heart fell utterly silent now. She did not tell him of her feelings for him because she hadn't wanted him to encourage it?

Then it hit him. Tonks did not want Remus's acceptance. She did not want him to tell her that it was all right because it was not. She wanted to know if her feelings were reciprocated. "Tonks, I—I do not understand!" he cried, unable to see her motives clearly.

Why could this insufferable woman before him not tell him what she wanted? If it was _not_ Sirius who held her heart, then who in the hell possessed it? He watched as Tonks's rage seemed to dissipate and deflate, and her shoulders slumped forward slightly in defeat as she nervously reached fidgeted with her fingers.

Remus supposed he could see Tonks's reasoning behind wishing to hide her feelings. But he still did not understand why. There had to be more to it than that. Remus watched, frowning, so deeply confused and still hurt, as the beautiful witch reached up and took his face in her tiny hands. Her thumbs brushing over his skin with a featherlight touch, wiping away a stray tear or two he didn't know he'd shed.

"I suppose I haven't been very clear, have I?" Tonks whispered softly, a small giggle slipping past her lips in vain.

She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against his, her hands falling limply to her sides, though Remus quickly caught her hand and clutched onto it, afraid to let this angel in his arms go. "Remus, the one who I've fallen in love with, it's _you_." Tonks heard the crack in her voice, and she bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to bleed if she weren't careful, and she would be surprised if she even had a lip before the night was out.

Remus blinked, desperately wanting to say something, but he couldn't seem to find his voice. When he tried, all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech. As if stuck underwater, everything was slow and warbled as Tonks cringed. The young witch turned away sharply to avoid looking Remus in the eyes, so he would not see the tears forming within them, threatening to escape if she couldn't regain control. "I just want to know…if you want this, too, Rem."

Tonks hesitantly looked up at her partner. The swirls of emotions she saw within the man's light brown eyes as they darkened in anger and shock made her gasp. Lust and desire. Anger, but…another emotion, one she didn't know what it was, but before she could ponder it further, he didn't give her a chance.

Rems silently moved towards Tonks and pulled her shoulder, so she faced him, for she had turned away, preparing to leave, thinking his silence to be an adequate enough answer. In a surprisingly deft and graceful quickness that was unfamiliar even to Lupin, he cupped her face so as to feed on the shimmering glistening of passionate anger that welled as a fire within her gray eyes, that brilliant last ashes of a dying fire. Merlin, even in rancor like this, she was so beautiful….

She was suddenly stopped as his mouth covered hers. His warm lips were gentle but firm. He drew away quickly. Tonks could hardly swallow.

Heat engulfed her body as he pulled back slightly to study her face and reached up a slight and shaking finger to trace the outline of her lips and then her cheek.

"Is that…does that…mean yes…?" she whispered, biting her lip.

Lupin nodded mutely. "I want you," he responded, reaching up a hand to tuck a stray short wisp of light ash brown hair back behind her ear where it belonged. As soon as the last syllable escapes his lips, Lupin found himself interlocked in a kiss. The tender touch they share makes the room around them disappear. There isn't anything else in the world except for the burning flame of their love. Something about this feeling makes him feel like everything will be okay.

As he deepened their kiss and sealed his answer, he heard himself think it as he tilted her head to the side, his other hand pressed against the back of her skull.

_I want you. Just you_.


	36. I Am Hers, and She is Mine

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX**

The stench of dried blood filled the air, and the sickening stench of metal and rotting flesh blanketed the air of the upstairs part of the house in a choking aroma. Tonks supposed she should have been used to this by now, but the strings these scenes pulled hit her like a wave.

It did not help that the wind whipped around wildly outside of the house. There was no way she and Mad-Eye would be able to move the victim out of the creaking, abandoned house without losing evidence in the wind.

As the pair of Aurors walked into the house, wands at the ready, there was blood smeared on the walls and on the floor. Tonks crinkled her nose in disgust and fought back the urge to gag as bile crept up her throat and settled upon her tongue, bitter and disgusting in its acidity.

As they walked, they heard a horrible dripping sound, and upon entering the bathroom on the second floor, Tonks was met with a horrific sight. There were the victims, two of them.

Hung on the wall, with, " **Want to Know My Secret, Alice**?" painted in their own blood. This was not the end of the murders—they'd only just begun.

Blood flowed, thick and sluggish, from a slash across the man's gut. Tonks felt her face rapidly drain of color and as a result, did not hear the feet shuffling behind her. She was too busy eyeing the corpses on the wall with squinted eyes, holding the lighted tip of her wand to their faces as she inched forward gingerly for a closer look. Carefully, with the edge of her thumb and forefinger, she lifted the man's chin and Tonks felt her knees go weak. The world turned into a blur.

As did all the sounds, as the bright young witch looked into the lifeless faces of her parents. " _No_ …" she whispered hoarsely, briny tears stinging and blurring her vision, and she opened her mouth to scream for Moody, but nothing came.

The taste. The smell. Her vision. Everything was just gone. Tonks paused, trying to hold back the strange, foreign feelings rumbling inside the pit of her churning stomach, but she couldn't. A lone tear traced down her cheek, and just like that, the floodgates opened. She breathed heavier than she had before, as she gasped for air that simply wasn't there and wasn't coming to her lungs, no matter how hard she tried. Her throat burned forming a silent, choking, hysterical scream.

Was this what crying felt like? To really, _truly_ mourn another since Ollie.

In the young witch's intense silence Tonks somehow screamed with her whole body. Her gray eyes wide with horror, the mouth rigid and open, her chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging deeply into the palms of her hand. Tonks parted her lips to scream for Moody to move it and get up here when a pair of strong hands pushed her into the wall in front of her. It stung and sent swells of pain through her body.

A chin rested on her shoulder. Whoever her would-be-attacker was breathing into the shell of her ear. "Hello, little dove…it's so good to see you again, darling. I've missed you…I thought perhaps this would get your attention, sweetheart."

Tonks froze. _Crouch_. She felt her mouth open to scream obscenities at him, to tell him to get the hell off of her, when Crouch's lips clamped down on her ear. They were light at first, and then Crouch bit down harder. Tonks squirmed against the wall and let out a pained whimper. "Ngh—let _go_ of me!" she screamed. " **MOODY**!" she bellowed, and her cry for help became muffled as a strong hand clamped over her mouth, and she felt terror seize at her heart.

His teeth turned into a tongue, sliding over the rim of her left earlobe, and caused her to cry out, though it was muffled given his hand was over her mouth.

Crouch's two hands slid down Tonks's sides and landed on her waist, just above the hem of her black skinny jeans. Tonks had no idea what to do. She hoped this was a cruel joke, a dream, a horrible nightmare she'd wake up from.

The man's lips moved down to her neck and nipped at the tender skin, and for a half-moment, she believed the Death Eater would grow fangs and dig them into her neck, and she winced, knowing it would be bad. She bruised easily.

She knew he would leave marks that she did not want, and it seemed like Crouch knew this too.

"You could have _killed_ me that day, little dove, and you _didn't_ ," Barty Crouch Jr. whispered, almost tenderly into the shell of Tonks's ear. "I still have the bruises to prove it, sweetheart. Which means you want me alive. Tell me why. I could just…turn up on your doorstep and make you tell me, Alice. Come on, Al. Tell me. Don't shut down on me, don't play the hero…You are the _first_ thing, do excuse me, _person_ , that I _ever_ wanted, that walked away from me, darling. And I can't let that happen again," Crouch murmured angrily.

Tonks would have opened her mouth to respond but froze as her mother's corpse was more silent as the body of her mother slowly lifted her head, staring at her daughter and Crouch with heavily lidded eyes and a slackened, dry mouth.

Andromeda Tonks's cheekbones accentuated the skeletal look, and, in her gaze, her mind was robbed of emotions. Instead of bolting for the door or sending a jinx at Crouch to repel the disgusting piece of filth off of her, she stood still.

Tonks froze as her mother's corpse beckoned with fingers that rapidly faded to only a suggestion of form, and her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she quickly came to the realization that Crouch had turned her parents into Inferi. Her mother became more solid again, but this time, her skin bore many silver scars, thick and jagged against almost translucent skin, so pale, even in death.

Tonks began to think of new things. "I want to stay here with her forever." The thought soon became an intense desire and her insides lit with a fiery intensity dead set on making it possible, to stay with her parents, no matter what.

She felt her body crumple to the floor, blood that had gathered and pooled on the linoleum tile of the bathroom floor met the side of her face and her knees curled upward like an unborn baby still in the womb. It was then that she heard someone—was it Remus? —shout her name, over and over again, each time more frantic than the last. Tonks opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come. He was frantic, yelling, scared. Tonks tried to say his name, but couldn't…

Tonks could see Barty Crouch Jr. looming over her, sending her spine weak, and she remained frozen to her spot on the bathroom floor, unable to move. And then his head inclined. Antagonizing. His eyes boring straight through her. He lunged. And she screamed—

* * *

And then her own screaming woke her up, as well as a clap of thunder. An ominous boom startled Tonks out of her abysmal nightmare. Her cheeks felt wet and when she lifted a shaking hand to see what it was, the pads of her fingertips came away moist, and she recognized them to be wretched tear tracts. The sheets were wildly twisted around her limbs, probably because she had been thrashing in her sleep. Her heart pounded against her chest. Tonks shook.

The remnants of her nightmare still clung to her troubled mind, haunting her.

It had seemed so… _vivid_. So _real_. She'd never remembered her dreams being that grotesque. Another flash of lightning illuminated her room in Grimmauld Place in a blinding white light. Tonks let out a muted cry of frustration and terror as it continued to prick at her heart and buried her face in her pillow.

There was a horrible constricting on her throat like weight sucking her last breath from her lungs. It tightened, and when her lungs heaved to cough, and her fingers moved behind her head and underneath and felt the soft pillow and…

The locket. Her body remained numb and uncertain and…pained. _Hurt_.

Tonks's fingers clutched onto the golden locket's chain and gingerly pulled it out from underneath her pillow and bolted upright as another crack of thunder rent the air. " _Nymphadora_ …" A ghostly call, almost a snakelike whisper left her timorous. It seemed like a series of male voices were speaking to her in a chorus of whispers and tortured screams, and she knew it came from the device in hand.

Somehow outside, an owl hooted at a distance and she caught her breath with a halt. Every twitch to her body, every movement from the outside world left her with a severe sense of dread that washed over her body in a cold sweat.

_"_ _Nymphadora…"_

_"_ _Nymphadora…I see you. I feel your fears. I am your worst nightmare because I know it isn't your_ _own_ _pain you fear. You fear…for him. Your wolf. You fear the pain of those you love more, isn't that the essence of love? Did you think I wouldn't know? I can't feel love of course, poison that it is, but understanding it makes my art all the greater. I never take out a worthy adversary until they cease to try, their loved ones however are fair game._

_What is it to take another pawn off the board of life? Is it a crime or a mercy? Frankly, I'd rather it was a crime. The wonderful thing is you'll tell me who you really love with your actions, I won't ever have to guess your next best move. I dream of taking that you love and savoring the moment._

_Remus_ , she thought wildly through clenched teeth and rooted jaw, and she repressed the urge to scream and fling the damned cursed Dark object across the room. Quickly, her attention was brought back to Sirius's locket clutched in her hand, the aching throbbing in her temples betrayed her nerve-wracked body and everything was becoming a cacophony that swirled around in her tired mind.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown at the wretched locket as it whispered to call, called to her in its snakelike voice little more than a hiss.

No sight of someone else calling her name, so it _had_ to be the locket.

"Sirius was _right_ ," she breathed, her gray eyes wide and round. "It's _evil_." Tonks glanced over to see Remus stretched out next to her on the left side of her bed, his back facing her. Tonks allowed the tiniest ghost of a smile to flit across her features as she watched the slow rise and fall of the man's shoulders, trying to remember who had fallen asleep first last night. She thought it had been Remus.

The two of them had stayed up talking past midnight, Tonks pondering over what Bill Weasley and Fleur's wedding was going to be like in July, considering Mrs. Weasley did not exactly like her eldest son's choice of a fiancé, and the group had been forced to sit through a rather awkward dinner while Fleur Delacour prattled on about bridesmaid dresses and what color would go well with Ginny's red hair and her sister Gabrielle's blonde tresses and still look uniform, and after that, Tonks had blanked out when they'd started talking hair.

She emanated a tense exhale and raked her fingers through her dark pink pixie cut, scrunching her nose, and changing its color this early morning to a rich chocolate brown streaked with red and golden butterscotch highlights, just enough to give her pixie some depth and personality and not make her pale features look washed out. Not that she didn't enjoy the pink, she did, it was just that Remus had commented once since the three months of them now steadily dating and in a committed relationship with one another, that he favored more natural colors on her, which she appreciated.

She had always thought that, given the nature of her appearance, she should stand out, but with Remus, she was allowed to let down a few of those barriers, for he seemed to respect and cherish her as something to be safeguarded, _protected_.

Tonks scrutinized her reflection in the mirror, and gave her appearance a quick nod of approval, thinking she liked this color on her. It felt...more mature, in a way, she guessed. She was certain that at dinner tonight with her parents, that they would approve of this new change.

At some point, she supposed she'd still need to visit Madame Malkin's and buy either dress robes or a new dress for the occasion. "Bill and Fleur, you better be worth it," she grumbled darkly.

Currently, she owned nothing in her closet that was suitable enough for such a formal event. Her brows furrowing into a deeper frown, not wishing to wake him up, she pulled the duvet back over Remus's shoulders, smiling as he seemed to nestle deeper into the sheets, dressed as quickly and quietly as she could, careful not to make too much noise, slipping on a pair of black leggings, black boots, and a black knit pullover sweater, Sirius's locket still in her hands.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as the damned locket spoke to her in that snakelike voice, whispering thoughts of malice, wickedness, into the shell of her ear, tormenting her. She didn't know _how_ , but she had to destroy the locket, even if it meant not telling Remus where she was going.

At the thought of the memory of who she had left sleeping in her bed, it coaxed a soft smile from her lips as she headed towards the front door of Grimmauld Place. It had only been a few months, and she imagined herself just as shocked as Remus was, even after all this time of getting to know him.

Something she could not quite name had blinded her to the man's lycanthropy, and whatever that 'something' was, it was the reason she stayed.

And the reason she had kissed him. Several times now, and he had seemed to enjoy each kiss, though they hadn't…they hadn't… gone further.

A familiar aching whelm began to develop as heat within the confines of her chest and spread to her toes.

As much as she wanted for the two of them to experience a night together in each other's arms, what it truly meant to allow herself to surrender completely to Remus, at his whims and his mercy, she did not want to frighten him away. And he had not told her that he loved her. Perhaps he couldn't, for she had been able to sense that those three precious words were something to be cherished, not taken lightly, though it was the little things that he did for her that expressed his feelings and affection for her.

The kisses in the morning, the longing little glances he would shoot her, sneaking her small pieces of chocolate after she had returned from a particularly stressful day at work, now that she had passed her physical and mental evaluation and Kingsley and Moody had permitted her to return to her job, confined though she was to administrative duties for the next few months pending their investigation.

Tonks loved the way Remus held himself whenever he was around her. Tall and upright. Prouder. Nobler. More confident than before but not arrogant. He behaved like a man who was wholly devoted to her, and in truth, Tonks still wasn't quite sure how to react regarding that aspect of his personality.

She was not used to the attention he showered her with, nor did she consider herself worthy of how much he seemed to dote on her, but the few times she tried to broach the topic with her, Lupin immediately shut her down. Remus had a quiet confidence about him that spoke to Tonks solely of his worth, though perhaps the defining moment of that had come last week when it had been Lupin who had saved Ptelea from tormenting at the hands of none other than Kreacher.

And now, the little Bowtruckle had taken to Lupin more than it did _her_ , no longer blowing constant raspberries at the man, riding on _his_ shoulder more than hers these days, which Tonks thought an enormous, monstrous betrayal of Ptelea's affections, considering she had saved its life when it was little more than a sproutling from a Hogwarts' student's toad and had balked, but internally, she could not have been more pleased.

If Ptelea accepted Remus, then it was a start.

Lupin had a profound effect on Tonks without even realizing it. Tonks found herself often straightening her posture whenever he was present, inwardly challenging herself to be more like the graceful, quiet reserved man before her. She loved Remus's dignity. Complete submission and what she suspected was love for her, though he had not yet once said that he loved her. But Remus understood that she did not need his protection, but he offered it, nonetheless.

All of those things he did for her in silence, completely unaware of how his actions spoke for his newfound sense of character and better judgment these days. Remus never strove to be anything more than what he was in her eyes.

He never had to. And she cherished him and loved him so much for that.

The moment Tonks realized what was happening to her, she blinked and rapidly forced her thoughts to return to the more pressing and urgent matter literally at hand. That 'matter' of course, being Sirius's brother's wretched locket.

Tonks slid her wand into the pocket of her jeans, grateful Mad-Eye wasn't around to make a snarky remark about 'elementary wand safety' and to get her wand out of her pocket before she lost a buttock if her wand accidentally misfired.

She snorted and rolled her eyes as she made to grab her black purse off the coat rack and had a hand on the doorknob when his voice reached her eardrums.

"Trying to run away from me?" Remus's voice sounded incredibly hurt, and Tonks let out a muffled yelp and turned slowly around, the strap of her purse on her shoulder faltering slightly as she lowered her arm, and as she looked up, her gray eyes widened. Remus was standing on the bottom step of the stairwell, glaring down at her through the darkness of the pitch-black hallway, and his gaze drifted towards Sirius's locket, which she still held precariously by its gold chain.

Tonks shirked away as Lupin approached, teeth bared and snarling, not out of fear, per se, for she knew his 'time of the month' was approaching in another few days, and though it had improved for him drastically ever since she continuously made the Wolfsbane Potion for him and made it much safer for him (and her!) when he transformed, and slightly less painful, it did very little to quell the erratic mood swings and his sometimes volatile temper in the days leading up to the full moon cycle, and even four or five days following the cycle's ending.

"I—I was just…" Tonks stammered as she glanced down at the locket clutched in her hand, but Lupin interjected immediately and strode toward her.

Judging by his tone, he was laced to brim with antagonizing hurt and a curt impatience. "Trying to run away from me?" he snapped, sounding wounded.

Tonks's movements immediately stilled as Lupin's hand came to rest over the top of hers and he lifted her hand slightly to study the locket, his brows furrowed.

She lifted her gaze and looked at Remus is astonishment. His eyes glinted and shone in the darkness of the corridor. Like rich umber pinpricks against black.

His voice was almost dull and lifeless compared to the jovial tones of their conversation before they'd fallen asleep last night, with her nestled against his chest. Although Tonks right now could not quite see Remus's face, given how dark it was in this damned bloody hallway, the young witch could sense that Lupin was not angry with her for attempting to sneak off without telling anyone, but rather bitter. She didn't have enough time to process why this might be, though, and quickly dismissed the thought as inappropriate and unhelpful now.

Tonks sighed and wordlessly held up the locket to his eye level so that he could better see it. "I—I was taking this somewhere where it can be destroyed. Sirius says it can't be destroyed by magic, at least not any that he knows, so I'm going to drown it. I don't even know if it's going to work but I…have to try," she murmured lowly under her breath. "It's _evil_. It…calls to me in my sleep…"

If Remus was surprised by her plan, he gave no indication. Lupin seemed still hurt and offended that Tonks had attempted to sneak off without telling her where she was going ahead of time and had not bothered to rouse him.

Tonks furrowed her brows at Lupin's unchanged expression of hurt at seeing her hovering in front of the door. She sighed and ran her tongue along her teeth.

"Did you really think I was going to just…run off and _leave_ you?" Tonks teased, allowing the faintest smile to flit across her features as she took a second to shove the damned locket and its snakelike whispers that tormented her mind into the main compartment of her purse, feeling immensely relieved when they stopped. It seemed only to speak to you whenever it came into human contact.

"Well… _yes_." Remus murmured it, and his grip as both his hands came to rest on her shoulders to steady her was barely above a hushed whisper, ashamed.

Tonks's expression and her smile faltered instantly the moment she realized Remus was serious as he hung his head in shame and allowed that one stubborn lock of his bangs to fall in front of his eyes, effectively shielding her from his view.

Furrowing her brows in slight frustration, she caught his incredulous gaze in hers and held him captive within as she lifted his chin, cupping it in her hand and tilting Lupin's head upward, giving him no choice but to meet Tonks's gaze.

"I'm here right here where I'm standing, Rem. I'm not anywhere else," she murmured, echoing his words to her that fateful night when Tonks had asked him what he wanted out of their partnership. "If you were ever to hurt me, or lay a hand against me in cruelty, then I would leave," she murmured darkly. "But somehow, I don't think that you will, and until that day comes, I will not leave."

Remus's expression immediately went from suspicious and shocked to one that she could only describe as horrified. "I—I would _never_ harm you, Dora!"

He pulled a face and looked offended at the very thought, and his grip on her forearm tightened, as though Lupin thought that could keep her from leaving.

"Then you don't need to worry, Rem. I'm not going anywhere, Lupin," Tonks interjected gently, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'm staying. I'm with you until you…" Tonks bit her lip and looked away. "Until you don't want me anymore. Then…"

But she blinked rapidly as if trying to repress something.

"I don't want you to go, Dora. _Stay_. With me," Remus pleaded.

Tonks nodded. "Good. Because I have no intention of leaving your side, Rem. Not today, and hopefully not in this lifetime, or what follows after that."

She turned her head to the side and rested her cheek against his chest, breathing in the scent of the forest floor. He smelled of autumn. Of pine and oak.

Tonks exhaled slowly and wrapped her arms around his middle, allowing her eyelids to flutter all the way closed and she nestled her cheek further into his sweater to allow herself the moment of tranquility and quiet between them.

Though, after a second, her eyes flung open as she recollected her parents' latest message sent via owl to her. Her parents were well informed of her rather unorthodox relationship with her partner and wanted to have a discussion with him and had invited the pair of them over for dinner later tonight around six.

"Damn," she swore, clenching her eyes shut. "My _parents_! I forgot about the…dinner," Tonks whispered hoarsely, opening her eyes, and glancing up at Remus. Her voice trailed off as she heard a light, amused chuckling reach her ears. "What if…" She bit her bottom lip and stuck it out in a pout. "What if they don't…take kindly to the…to us…to… to you?" she asked, her voice a croak.

Lupin responded in kind by pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Don't worry. I didn't forget. Something tells me you've had… _other_ things on your mind. I didn't, Dora. I have not forgotten. And I will _not_ let your parents harm you over your… _our_ …decision. I don't care anymore what anyone else says about us, about our relationship. I know who you are, and you are a beautiful woman capable of making your own choices in this life, though it still baffles me why you chose me, I…I don't see you as anyone else but you. Just you. My…girlfriend, my partner and…"

He cringed as he trailed off. _My…wife_. Oh, but _Merlin_ , he was almost ashamed to confess that he'd thought that far ahead. His father had received his Patronus message requesting a good time later this week to meet, just the two of them. He had been hoping to ask his dad for his mother's ring. He didn't know when he wanted to ask.

_When the time's right, Moony, you'll know_ , James's voice piped up from the back of his mind.

Tonks murmured something inaudibly in response, and he blinked, startled back to the reality of his situation. "You're…" Remus paused, searching Tonks's face, searching her eyes as if he would find the answer within, allowing the pads of his thumb to caress her cheek. "You…mean a lot to me, Dora. And I will not let your parents hurt you. Or me. I solemnly swear," he promised her, and his tone sounded somber, and Tonks flinched.

She could tell he still thought of the rather violent way her mum and dad had reacted towards Remus outside of St. Mungo's.

After a second, she felt Remus relax into her hand and Tonks did not bother to hide her smile as it widened and stretched her mouth as she felt his hand gently drift to the back of her hair and pressed against the back of her skull.

"Come with me," she urged, suddenly remembering why she had gotten up in the first place and she could practically still hear Sirius's damned locket whispering thoughts of malice and lust to her, even from the pocket of her purse. "I…don't know what I will face against this thing, but we can't let it stay here."

Remus nodded, taking hold of Tonks's hands, covering them completely with his own and bringing her knuckles to his lips for a gentle and chaste kiss.

"Of course, I'm coming with you, Dora. You didn't think you could get rid of me _that_ easily, did you?" he joked and allowed a half-crooked smile to grace his features. "But…" Remus's soft smile faltered, and his brows came together in confusion. "Why _me_ , Dora?" He posed his question to her again.

It was not the first time they'd had this discussion in the last few months.

Tonks blinked, looking surprised by her question. "Why _not_ you? Because I feel the same of you, Rem," she told him softly, reaching up a hand to brush back that one stubborn lock of light brown bang that never ceased to fall in front of his eyes, no matter how often Mrs. Weasley trimmed it for him, her fingertips grazing his forehead. "You look at me and see only Dora. And I…I look at you and see only Remus. Not the… _wolf_ ," she finished, biting on her bottom lip.

Sensing he still remained somewhat unconvinced, Tonks's frown deepened, though something within sparked a fire in her chest, and she had no other choice but to reach up on her tiptoes and made her point with a soft kiss.

His lips brushed against hers. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate, and demanding. Tonks want to pull away before she lost herself completely, but she could not seem to. In his embrace, she'd become seduced, and would have been quite content to remain within Grimmauld Place if not for the damned locket that needed drowning, and sooner rather than later.

"Dora" he whispered slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. Tonks smiled, her heart fluttering at his voice as she clasped hands on either side of his face.

Never before has her first name ever sounded so wonderful a one, she thought, as she leaned in for another…

When she drew away, Tonks added in a slightly husky voice as she lowered it, resting her forehead against his. "That is your answer as to your 'why,' Rem."

Remus favored silence as a response, not wanting to ruin the precious moment between the two of them, but the soft smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth and the slight haze in his light brown eyes to Tonks spoke volumes.

Satisfied, Tonks offered Remus a coy wink and turned around, but was halted in her movements as his strong hand grasped tightly onto her wrist and did not let go. Startled, she blinked owlishly at her partner and turned at the waist.

"Wha…?" she asked, confused, as her voice trailed off into blessed silence.

"I'm _not_ letting you do this without eating breakfast. You'll pass out if you don't eat something, and that's of no help to either of us, especially you, love. You need to _eat_ ," he commanded, his tone hardening slightly, though something in his expression softened as he met her gaze and cupped her chin in his palm as she looked at him.

Remus did not give Tonks a chance to respond and dragged her away from the front door of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and down the hall to the kitchens. "I'm going to make us both breakfasts. We're _not_ leaving this house until both of us eat something. I'll make some for Sirius too, since he's up," Lupin sighed, stifling his smirk as he heard Sirius already up and about in the kitchen, barking orders at Kreacher to bugger off and go crawl in the air vent and just die.

"Should he come with us?" Tonks suggested, glancing down at her purse, and suddenly feeling guilty for not thinking to invite her cousin along with them.

Remus took one look at Tonks out of the corner of his eyes and nodded his agreement. "I think so. It would be good for him to get out of here for a bit. The locket belongs in his family, after all. It's affected him just as it has you…"

Tonks nodded and as Remus entered the kitchen and strode to the cupboard and gathered their plates, Tonks turned the exchange over in her mind as she sat at the table and joined Sirius. She was content with their talk for now.

But she still could not help but feel saddened that Remus still needed to be convinced of her affections, even after a few months of steadily being together.

Anger towards his affliction and Greyback surged within the confines of her heart and prickled the hairs on the back of her neck as it stung and heated, but she forced itself to quell and watched in silence as Lupin cracked open an egg at the stove, as she rested her face in her hands. Fenrir Greyback would get his.

When Tonks had cleared her mind and could think clearly again, Tonks was forced to silently resign herself to the fact that years of self-isolation and torment over his lycanthropy would not be simply undone with a few months of increasing closeness and affection, and dare she even think this part, true love.

Tonks sighed. She had accepted the fact that it would take Remus time to believe that she wanted to stay with him, to bask in the incredible heat he gave.

To hold his hand, to embrace him, stay with him, kiss him, love him in the only way that she knew how. Tonks decided that she did not mind though, in the slightest. She was content enough to demonstrate her feelings for Remus as often as the man would need reminding in the hopes that one day, he'd see it.

As Remus set a plate full of scrambled eggs and buttered toast in front of her and settled on the opposite side of the table, their gazes locked.

Sirius said something, though she missed the snarky remark because she was lost in his eyes.

_He is mine, and I am his_ , she thought, offering Remus a soft smile that he returned.

Unbeknownst to her as she shoveled the first bite of egg and toast into her mouth, on the opposite side of the table, Remus John Lupin was thinking the same thing.

_I am hers, and she is mine…_


	37. An Unlikely Partnership

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN **

Crouch furrowed his brows into a lined and heavily wrinkled frown as he stared at the creaking wooden sign of the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade as it swayed in the wind. By the looks of this ratted dump, there wasn't much to entertain, and as Barty Crouch. Jr. continued to stare at the door, Peter Pettigrew, otherwise known as Wormtail for his ability to transform into an Animagus rat, was immediately beginning to regret his decision to follow his new master here.

The Dark Lord had assigned Wormtail to serve under the tutelage of Crouch, not seeming to want to be encumbered by that of Wormtail's cowardice.

The shorter, stouter man's cheeks flushed with fear as animosity and trepidation engulfed him, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up.

If he could have had his way, which it ought to be noted in this particular instance in time, Pettigrew most decidedly could not, Wormtail would have turned around and scurried back to the safety and sanctity of Crouch's safe house.

Still, a burning question lingered on the tip of his tongue that had since up to this point refused its release out of fear of what Crouch's answer would be. and yet, he could quell it no longer, and the question tumbled unchecked out of Pettigrew's thin, wormy lips before he could stop himself as he nervously clasped his hands together and fidgeted with his fingers, weaving them in between his knuckles. "Why have we come all the way out here, Barty? The Three Broomsticks seems much more comforting and welcoming than this dung heap."

Crouch stifled his growl of frustration, thinking that this was the second time in his life where he wished he would have just been killed. It wasn't fair, that the Dark Lord had seen fit to peddle off Pettigrew onto him. The man was a coward, a bumbling _fool_ with no backbone, and was only getting in his way.

The wind on his hair, around him, that crisp cool fall air tasted sweet on his tongue like Licorice Wands, and Crouch closed his eyes wishing for nothing more than to remain here and drown out the incessant prattling of Pettigrew's concerns until the end of his wretched days and he never wanted to open his eyes again, for when he did, he knew that it would bring him to yet another phantom.

 _Alice_. When he opened his eyes, her form shimmered and waved, but then everything did on this dreary overcast day in October as every lick of moisture in the ground was sent skyward. She walked like she was painted onto the horizon with a fine brush, the artist of the masterpiece before him constantly touching up and making alterations, dressed in a set of flowing white robes no hand, magical or Muggle, could craft, and when Alice Prewitt turned and smiled at him as the cold autumnal bitter breeze wafted through the front entryway of the Hog's Head, he was sure that no other woman on Merlin's earth held such a smile.

His Alice stood barefooted in the late evening, almost translucent. And then, she shot him a bright white and yet ambivalent smile and turned her back to Crouch, disappearing in straight through the door of the Hog's Head Tavern.

There was the familiar gossamer of cold droplets beginning to trickle down his face, and he lifted his face to the sky as he realized it began to rain, and before he knew it, his legs, which were no longer taking direction from his mind, strode towards the front door of the Hog's Head, intent on following Alice Prewitt in.

Crouch watched with widened eyes as a single strand of Prewitt's short brown hair seemed to float lazily on the breeze, though to Barty, it felt as if Time itself had suspended, and it took him but three lackadaisical strides to pluck the strand of her hair into his hand. He suppressed a shudder as a horrible, whelming ache sparked in the churning pit of his stomach. Memories of his Alice—the one who he had allowed to escape his grasp—flooded his thoughts and fondled them.

Barty Crouch Jr. tightened the single lock of the woman's dark hair in his palm and made to give it an intimate whiff and allow the scent of lavender, honeysuckle, and eucalyptus to flood his senses when another scent wafted through his nostrils. The metallic tang of iron. _Blood_. _But where…?_ He thought.

Crouch blinked owlishly, stunned out of the vision as the hand that had previously been clutching onto the lock of the woman's hair was stained garish crimson in blood. He felt his lips part open slightly in shock and before he could ponder wherein the seven bloody hells this blood came from, his sight blurred, as if he were awakening to yet another premonition, another hallucination again.

But this time, a man's back faced him, and the slurred sounds of coughing pulled Crouch reluctantly back into the world of the living as he recognized Pettigrew's whining and slightly nasally tones as he asked again why they came.

It took him approximately five seconds for Crouch to ascertain that this was no dream and that his lovely, delectable Alice had vanished into the Hog's Head to remind him of the purpose of why they had ventured here to Hogsmeade.

"I told you twice, Pettigrew, do not make me say it a _second_ time, _rat_ , because you know more than anyone, I hate saying it twice," Crouch retorted through gritted teeth as he growled and spat the words more than spoke them, as his temper rapidly swelled, this vestiges of his patience tested, curling his hands into fists, and shoving them in the pocket of his trench coat, resisting the urge to strike out at the accursed little wretch, this whelp, in anger. "My contact insisted on meeting in secret, _quiet_ , somewhere where we won't be overheard, _rodent_."

"Yes, I'm well _aware_ of that, Master Crouch, but you have not even told _who_ it is yet that we're to meet here," Wormtail replied in a lowly whimper, more of a whine as he followed Crouch into the Hog's Head Pub, flinching at the dust that had settled and lingered into the grimy tavern. Pettigrew took a second to wipe the dirt and mud off of his shoes as they entered, though it did not escape Peter's attention that his master and companion did not bother to.

"Shut the hell up and be _quiet_. You'll find out why we're here soon enough," growled Crouch, his voice sounding much rougher and coarser than before, almost hoarse in a way, as though he were fighting off a splitting headache.

Crouch rested his hand on a wooden beam, a pillar of sorts as his glistening dark eyes scanned the length of the tavern, hoping to spot any sign of their contact. The rough wooden splinters cut into the surface of his smooth palm.

Muted conversations from but a few patrons gathered in small tables in the corners swirled in a dirty cloud of smoke coming from a few customers' pipes.

The stagnant stench of tobacco hid within the collaboration of mephitic odors. A sharp smell of drink that Crouch recognized as Fire Whisky flooded his nostrils, like black plumes billowing from the windows of a burning home.

There was even a hint of sick tainting the fragrance of the room that caused Crouch to crinkle his nose in disgust and pull a face. Even _he_ was beginning to have second thoughts about coming here, and he was quite surprised, considering what little he knew of his contact, that they had agreed to come here, after all.

The tavern curved into the room, dark in the barely lit establishment. Through the windows, which were coated with grime and a thick layer of dust, trickled the sallow light of the streetlamps outside. The smell changed over the years. Crouch couldn't recall the last time he'd stepped foot in the Hog's Head.

It had, to the best of his knowledge, always been a den of debauchery, alcoholism, and the great unwashed of Hogsmeade. It still was, even to this day.

No one came to the Hog's Head with anything _wholesome_ in mind.

The old bartender, a gnarled old man with an egregiously long and matted graying beard, who stood behind the dusty counter, merely proceeded to nod his head in a show of exhaustion as the pair of men passed by, Barty Crouch spotted their contact sitting stiffly, rigidly in one of the tavern's corners booth.

The wind and rain picked up outside, as the icy gray skies outside restlessly grumbled, and the thick blackened clouds were dragged down by the heavy rain.

The sound of emptiness was disrupted by the loud egregious boom of thunder that caused the one or two lights that did happen to be lighted to flicker.

"You came," their contact said by way of greeting, and Crouch stared. He had always known Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic to be a stout woman, but he had not quite expected her vast love of pink.

The smoke from various customers' pipes swirled around her figure, giving her almost a ghostly illusion, and for a brief second, Crouch thought himself mad.

Crouch smiled, albeit without showing his teeth as he slid into the booth opposite Dolores Jane Umbridge, leaving Peter Pettigrew to remain standing rather awkwardly with hands clasped behind his back, not sure at all what to do.

"Of course, I came, Madame Undersecretary," Crouch replied airily, though cautious to remind his tone around Father's former colleague and friend.

Barty Crouch Jr. lifted his gaze and swiveled his head to the left and gave a curt wave of his hand to the bearded old man behind the counter, gesturing for either a Butterbeer or a Fire Whisky. "After what had happened with the issue surrounding Father's…untimely and unfortunate demise at the Triwizard Tournament last year, I had assumed that you were no longer interested in associating with the…likes of my family name, Madame Umbridge," he began.

Umbridge responded in kind by removing the pink-dyed handkerchief from her nose, pulling a face at the thick stench of smoke and sick that wafted through the air. She made a show of slowly folding her handkerchief into a neat square and setting it aside before pulling her wand and pointing it at the table.

" _Scourgify_!" she murmured, and almost immediately, the thick layer of dust that coated the oak table's surface vanished and glistened like never before.

Only then did the aging witch feel comfortable with resting her pale hands on top of the tabletop and clasped her pink-painted manicured fingers together, and Crouch caught the glint of a hot pink rhodonite ring of substantial size on her right index finger. When she was settled, she reached across the table for her teacup, making yet another show of dipping a packet of sugar into her herbal tea.

Crouch scowled, feeling his brows knit together in quandary and glanced sideways at Wormtail out of the corner of his eye, who was nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as though skittish that a brawl would break out. Finally, Umbridge broke the thick, uncomfortable tension and spoke to him.

"This is important, Mr. Crouch," replied Dolores Jane Umbridge slowly as she leaned across the table, winding her right hand tightly into a fist over the handle of her teacup as she lifted the cup to her pink-painted lips and drank, all the while never averting her gaze from Barty Crouch Jr., studying the man over the rim of her cup with slightly narrowed eyes. When she had finished, she gave a little hem-ing cough that was more like a squeak, and to Crouch sounded like nails down a chalkboard that sent a tremor of revulsion down his wretched spine. "And there is no obstacle too great that will prevent me from getting what I want…"

Crouch's lips pursed into a thin line as he nodded in reluctant agreement, right as the old bartender strode forward with an overly sized mug of Butterbeer, before casting a wearied, slightly apprehensive look towards the trio and shuffling away, barking an order at a _goat_ of all animals to get the hell out from behind the counter.

The Death Eater was surprised at the Madame Undersecretary's relaxed manner, which bore such a striking contrast to that of Crouch's rigid, tense form, that Pettigrew began to feel nervous, sweat glistening on his brow, wondering if discourse would break out between the two opposing strong forces before long.

When Dolores Jane Umbridge's inquisitive and hardened gaze turned towards Peter Pettigrew as she almost methodically and slowly swiveled her head to regard Crouch's companion, Pettigrew gulped nervously and fidgeted slowly.

"I see you have brought a 'friend' with you to our appointment, dear?"

"Mmm?" Crouch asked, turning his head to the right to see what it was that Umbridge was looking at. "Oh. _Him_. No, no, this is my…servant, my little _rat_ , Wormtail, but his true name is Peter," as if the man were merely an after-thought. "You need not trouble yourself with the likes of him, Madame, his lips are sealed, _aren't_ _they_ , Wormtail?" he added, quirking a brow Peter's way.

"Y—yes, Master," Wormtail hastily squeaked, bowing his head in submission. He was vexed with the thought of further punishment coming to him, though it did nothing to quell the tremoring in his stomach, though by now he was used to his stomach coiling. He was surely used to it by now, having spent little over three months in Barty Crouch Jr.'s servitude, after his innards had grown tough on the wormy and corrupted bits of cheese and bread that Master Crouch fed him, taunting the man, saying he made a better rat than a human.

Umbridge waved a short, stubby hand away at Crouch's statement. "There is no need for that, Mr. Crouch. I trust your judgment. To the matter at hand which plagues us both, I'm sure you're wondering why it is I sought you out…I did not think that you would make our appointment and was prepared to leave."

Barty Crouch Jr. felt his brows furrow into a frown and quirked them at Umbridge.

How _dare_ this woman—Undersecretary to the Minister or not—think that he was not a man of his word?

He was, after all, like it or not, a Crouch, and under Father's strict hand growing up, their family upheld the law to the highest degree. Crouch smiled again, albeit without showing his teeth, before reaching for his tankard of Butterbeer and taking a huge swig.

"What business could the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic have with the likes of me? I cannot help but to wonder what business a woman of...stature such as yourself wants with an escapee, a fugitive from Azkaban Prison?" he wondered out loud, drawling the words as he folded his hands across his middle and sat back so his back rested against the rest of the tavern's corner booth.

Dolores Umbridge stared at them a moment, fully expecting Bartemius Crouch Sr.'s son's hands to be calloused and rough, if the rumors of what this man got up to with his 'victims' behind closed doors of his home, that old haunt, were true, but that did not appear to be the case here. Umbridge continued to stare at Crouch's son. He could not have been older than thirty-three or four.

The ruby and emerald rings that rested upon two of his fingers glinted in the dim light of the tavern, their only source of light from this miserable place.

Umbridge gazed at Barty Crouch Jr., the boiling within her bloodstream still ensued and ran through her veins, though not quite as potent as years prior.

Tonight, Crouch looked especially regal, dressed in a black leather overcoat that ran down to past his knees, a crimson shirt underneath, his dark hair tended to stick up in tufts every which way and had a mind of its own, it seemed.

Thick and lustrous, his dark eyes glistening in the light like mere pinpricks, and his usually playful Cheshire-Cat like smile had drawn into a somber line across his chiseled face. "I am the stronghold of my family name, Madame…"

"Indeed, you are, Mr. Crouch," Umbridge agreed, dipping her head in acknowledgment. "I can think of no one better suited to solve my 'little problem'. I believe you are familiar with a young man by the name of Remus John Lupin. He is a werewolf and a filthy, disgusting _half-breed_ ," she growled.

"Has this man offended you?" Crouch asked, wiggling his brows at Umbridge, setting his face to 'casual indifference' at the mention of the Wolf.

The very same werewolf, he might note, that had stolen _his_ Alice from him.

"He has," Dolores Jane Umbridge begrudgingly admitted, all the while pouring copious amounts of sugar packets into her tea, a dark scowl overcoming her pudgy features and her lips pursed into a thin line as she recollected the words the dog had _dared_ to shout at her. "I cannot allow such violent behavior to go unpunished, Mr. Crouch. As a Merlin-fearing man and presumably one who does not wish to find himself back within the confines of an Azkaban prison cell for the remainder of your days, Mr. Crouch, I require your assistance in dealing with this mutually-beneficial little problem. Your cooperation benefits both of us, so I suggest you heed my words, my dear. I know about you…" Umbridge paused, her voice trailing off as she pulled a face. "Fixation, shall we call it, with one of the Ministry's own Aurors, a Miss Tonks."

Crouch felt his posture stiffen and his heat sting at the declaration of his Alice's true name, though he gave no indication that he was at all disturbed by it.

Umbridge continued on as though Barty's odd shift in behavior had not disrupted her speech. "You and your family's name will go on for a thousand years, Mr. Crouch. Assuming you can find yourself a lovely little bride that suits your…strange and unusual requirements for a wife, my charming good sir," she added, sounding disgusted. The Senior Undersecretary watched as the Death Eater's face blanched and became devoid of color, though Crouch's son made no comment, and she smiled. "Fear not, for I shall let you have the Tonks child, she is naught but a thorn in my side, Bartemius, but there's one…minor…little _snag_."

Crouch, however, raised his hand to prevent Dolores Umbridge from speaking any further and completing her sentence.

Were this any other person, Crouch would have found himself imprisoned or in a ward of St. Mungo's before he could so much as blink and bat an eyelid, but because Umbridge could think of no one better suited for a job of this caliber, given that she herself could not act, as she was Senior Undersecretary to Cornelius Fudge and had certain standards to maintain and her own reputation to think of, she let it go this time.

"There are…always problems when it comes to women, Madame, but I must confess myself a man who rather _enjoys_ looking at pretty faces, and you are correct in assuming the rumors of Miss Nymphadora Tonks's beauty to be true. And if the follow-ups to these vicious lies that she has cohabitated with a _werewolf_ proves true, then I should be correct in wanting to prevent our pureblood lineage from being tainted even further. You were correct in your decision to call me."

"Indeed," murmured Dolores through gritted teeth as her inquisitive eyes carefully surveyed her distinguished 'guest' as she shifted her mug of tea in her hands. "I have not yet spoken to the child prior to her return to the Ministry regarding her…relationship with that—that _beast_ , that half-human… _thing_ ," she spat viciously, eyes narrowing in revulsion, "however, it's evident that he is bewitching her somehow if I am to believe my sources at the Ministry who are quite familiar with the young witch in question, and they tell me she spends increasing amounts of time around the dog, filthy half-blooded accursed wretch that it is. She is shown to be quite affectionate around it, which I cannot fathom as to why that might be. Perhaps he is using a Love Potion on her if I had to hazard a guess, though I find the rumors that a young witch, so bright and full of untapped pure and powerful potential, would willingly cast aside all thoughts of pride and dignity and lay with a _monster_ is…" Her voice trailed off and she did not complete her thought as she frowned.

"Beastly?" suggested Crouch, to which Dolores mutely nodded in agreement.

"Such _talk_ ," growled Umbridge, waving away Crouch's suggestion with a dismissive wave of her jewel-adorned hand, "is nothing but _slander_ , and I will _not_ breathe further life into a malicious, vicious _lie_. If word gets out that this woman is cohabitating with that monster and even daring to attempt to _mate_ with it, then it would discredit our Minister's efforts that Cornelius has worked so hard to ensure that the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act was put into place and instituted. It would invoke thoughts of rebellion amongst others of his sickly kind. And that is something the Ministry of Magic simply _cannot_ allow, my dear boy."

Dolores raised a hand to her mouth to cover it as she coughed, though Crouch was not at all fooled. It was but merely a poorly disguised girlish giggle.

She scoffed and laced her short, stubby fingers together, and leaned back.

"My dear man, you've been at that tankard of Butterbeer since our appointed meeting time commenced, and you do seem to be troubled, dearie."

"You see what you believe," Barty Crouch Jr. heard himself answer airily. "And I am here, am I not?" Crouch's frown deepened as he briefly averted Umbridge's gaze and looked out at the window at the rain still coming down strong. "Your warning that you provided to this…Auror, who is but a thorn in your side, as you put it to me in your letter when you summoned me here to meet with you, did not exactly go according to your little plan, did it, Madame Undersecretary? For the witch didn't heed your warning to stay away from _it_."

It was a moment before Crouch spoke again, and in Bartemius's arrogant triumph, the man smirked. Just a small pouting of the lips, a narrowing of his dark brown eyes, and tilting of his chiseled head. It was so subtle, yet so effective.

It was even more infuriating for Umbridge, who caught a glimpse of it after making the mistake of fully deciding to support and trust this Death Eater.

"What kind of bright young woman such as _her_ would seek the company of a hideous wretched half breed _werewolf_ , when she could have the likes of someone like _me_. What in the seven hells does the girl see in a _monster_ like that? It is admittedly beyond my ability to comprehend," growled Crouch, the briefest flickers of rage darting through his eyes, which made Wormtail increasingly nervous, still left to stand on his lonesome, though as quick as it had come, it was gone.

Umbridge heaved a tired sigh, wearily pinching at the front of her temples. Oh, but Merlin, she was getting a splitting headache and wished nothing more than for this little rendezvous of theirs to be over, but they had yet to get to the heart of the matter of their urgent conversation here.

"She is, by the literal definition of the word, my dear young man, a witch and something of a succubus. The fact that her own mother married a Muggle-born man is a disgrace to our wizarding community, and I would be remiss if I did not put a stop to this insubordination. She cannot be allowed to continue seeing the werewolf," she spat, the last word emitting from her tongue as though poison had settled on her tongue. "I cannot condone this behavior. It is unnatural, and it must be quelled before it escalates. The only reason that I have not yet…taken matters into my own hands, aside from my reputation, is that she is the Head Auror in our Auror Department at the Ministry, and questions would be circulating regarding her 'disappearance.' She cannot be permitted to continue to engage in unnatural behavior with the dog, for if our community were to learn of it, it would surely turn their stomachs, and the young woman would be shunned in our society, and it seems such a shame, for why would a wretched _beast_ steal away such a lovely little bride? The creature's poisonous mind is affecting that bright young girl's mind," snarled Umbridge. "I have warned her. I warned them both, and neither listened. I regret that the child did not heed my advice and take my words that day in St. Mungo's to heart, for if she had, I could have helped her to get back on track and on the path to righteousness and success. However, that time has now long passed her."

Umbridge knew she needed the young witch, the Tonks's only daughter, to serve a purpose, to be of use to her, to set an example to the entire wizard kind of what would befall them should anybody else get it within their minds to deem it 'natural' to want to consort with filthy _dogs_ and half-breeds like _werewolves_.

Just the thought sent a tremor of revulsion down her spine, and Umbridge felt herself shudder. "Regardless, this insufferable and inexcusable behavior must be stopped. I cannot allow this to continue, Mr. Crouch, and this little matter is where I seek your help," she began, somewhat cautiously, toying with the pink ring on her finger, though her gaze never averted once from Barty Crouch Jr.

Barty grinned, flashing a charmingly white smile that for a moment, rendered the Senior Undersecretary's blood to ice in her veins, for it was a predatory smile, almost animalistic, and the shadow of a monster darted across his features. "It almost sounds as if you are about to get to the point, Madame Undersecretary," Crouch drawled lazily, swiveling his head slightly to better look Dolores in her eyes, taking note of the darkening, almost purple bags under her eyes. "What promise could I possibly give to you now that makes covering up my escape from Azkaban and brushing those… 'unfortunate accidents' under the rug?"

"I have kept you from going back to Azkaban in chains, didn't I? I have…saved you, in a way, I suppose. You might even go as far as to say that I own you, Mr. Crouch. I gave you an opportunity, Crouch, to take care of the girl in your own way, and you have squandered it and made an utter fool of yourself. The task I set to you was perfectly clear, Mr. Crouch: seduce the Auror, get her away from the truth. She was, prior to her…accident, coming close to uncovering the truth. It would be rather embarrassing for me if the truth were to come to fruition.," Dolores murmured thoughtfully, reaching up a hand to pat at her curls. "But you could not even manage to handle one little girl even on your own." Umbridge clucked her tongue and shook her head in mock disappointment, ignoring Crouch's flushed face of outrage. "You are…quite fortunate, however, my dear, that I am a patient woman, and a merciful woman. I think there is but a way to solve our mutual problem and we both benefit from it. You will pledge to me your will, Bartemius Crouch, and I guarantee you will go free, dear. I swear it. Things are difficult with this woman," Umbridge snapped as she glowered at the handsome man across the way. "She is not so easily swayed by mere threats, which is why I believe that a softer approach, a more delicate touch, is required, hence why I have called you here because I know of your current little problem regarding an affianced."

Crouch's forehead became heavily lined as he scowled, his lips pursing into a thin, rigid line. "Father shortly before his… rather _unfortunate_ and sad _passing_ was of the belief that I will not inherit what remains of my family's fortune or his estate until I marry a pureblood witch. He has placed a powerful charm on the will, and I cannot gain access to any of it until I provide proof that I have married."

Dolores nodded, lifting the rim of her teacup to her thin lips and drank. "I deduced as much that that was your case, Mr. Crouch," she surmised slowly, lost in thought for a moment before setting the cup down. "It matters not that she married a monster, but I cannot— _will_ not," she quickly corrected herself, "allow our brightest Auror to become corrupted in this manner. The girl, this Nymphadora Tonks, she can longer be around that dog, for it taints her judgment and the child is not thinking clearly anymore and is no longer capable of deciding for herself. And no amount of Merlin fearing from _anyone_ will ever compel me to let that monster and this woman _breed_."

Crouch merely stared across the table at the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic coldly, his calculating mind working quickly to put together the pieces of information in his mind, to no doubt arrive at the conclusion that Dolores Jane Umbridge was about to reach.

Umbridge, sensing Crouch's mind going into overdrive, continued, lest the noble need further motivation to carry out his plan.

"I am certain it will not be a challenge for you, for the ladies tend to flock to you, do they not?" Umbridge snorted, shaking her head in slight disbelief. Crouch opened his mouth to retort, but Umbridge interjected before Crouch could say his piece. "I do not care how it happens, or what becomes of her _pet_. If you think the wolf, Remus Lupin, will be a problem for you, then you may kill him if you wish. Whisper sweet nothings into the girl's ear, seduce her with the promises you don't intend to keep, whatever it is that would drive the girl away from that beast and out of my best Auror's life. _Forever_. Do with the girl whatever you like once the dog is no longer a problem for you. Marry the girl, make her a princess, impregnate her with your offspring, it matters not. The girl is nothing but a constant thorn in my _and_ the girl's lives, Mr. Crouch."

"And you? What of you?" Crouch could not help but ask, as sensing Umbridge's growing tiredness, that their conversation was nearing its conclusion, as he rose to his feet and fastened his cloak about his shoulders, preparing to leave, scowling as he heard Wormtail's shuffling footfalls behind him.

"What I am proposing is no easy feat, Mr. Crouch," snarled Umbridge in a falsely sweet and honeyed voice, ignoring Crouch's question, thinking Crouch needed to mind his own business, instead of striding up from behind their table and coming over to the Death Eater, extending her jeweled hand for Barty Crouch Jr. to take and shake it in agreement. Crouch hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second and took her hand.

Crouch's cold dark eyes met Umbridge's steely orbs. "This 'little problem' as you like to call it, shall be dealt with, Madame. The beast will trouble your employee no longer. I can promise you this."

Dolores Jane Umbridge nodded, wearily rubbing her temples in exasperation as she escorted her guest towards the door to see herself out.

Crouch dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Until we meet again, Madame Undersecretary…"

Something about the man's tone prompted Dolores Umbridge to ask of the young handsome man who she had entered in a reluctant partnership with a final question. She paused, a hand on the hinge of the doorway to steady herself, before pulling her woolen pink cloak's hood up over her head and stepped out into the rain, her back still turned to Crouch and she did not look at the man.

"What of the _wolf_? What will you do with it once it's captured?"

Crouch frowned and fixed Umbridge with a glacier-cold stare and felt his usual Cheshire-Cat like grin re-emerge, and Umbridge did not flinch one ounce. "The dog may be a natural predator, a hunter with his abilities, but he never learned how to watch his back, which is a disadvantage for the werewolf, for he should soon have a _knife_ there. I should soon put it in a cage, if it pleases you, Madame Undersecretary. Maybe I should even put a collar around it. It will become my _pet_."

And with that, the Senior Undersecretary, departed, leaving Crouch to mull over what his future held and what his next steps should be. He decided that he no longer gave a damn, as long as the deed in question was done.

He should have killed the _wolf_ months ago when he'd had the chance and save himself this unnecessary strife.

And now, this _dog_ was interfering in his sweet Alice's precious life, implanting in the beautiful young witch's mind thoughts of sin and lust, and dare he even thinks this next part, desires of marriage and siring a cub.

Crouch shuddered in revolt as a tremor went down his spine. No. He could not allow that to happen. It was not in Merlin's plan for the beast, nor for Umbridge to allow this to occur. Madame Umbridge, or should she say, _he_ , would put an end to things before they escalated even further.

And as for the girl, for Miss Tonks, well…if he had his way with her, and he usually almost always did, then Crouch took that to assume that her days within the Ministry and in the wolf's life, were as good as numbered.

Her time was almost up.

* * *

**A/N: It was brought to my attention that a few readers were confused about Umbridge's early chapter in the story, so let me just clarify, that no, Umbridge is not aware of the Order of the Phoenix, however she suspects Dumbledore is up to something* and was able to recognize Lupin's wolfish characteristics from the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act. Hope this clears a few things up! And as for the partner thing, she doesn't know that Lupin and Tonks are partners in the Order, but rather she surmised they were partners romantically, so that's where that comes from. ** **?** **On with the story!**


	38. Siren of the Sea

**A/N: Not much to say for this chapter except Sirius makes one hell of a good friend. and technically guess I should have renamed the chapter Siren of the Lake, but it doesn't mesh as well, and considering I modeled the chapter title after a really good song by OceanLab, I'm not changing it, so it stays as is.**

**Enjoy! :)**

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT **

With a yelp of surprise, Tonks fell to the ground for what had to be a second time as she stumbled over what was either a twisted tree root or more accurately in this case, her own foot. The roots of the trees in the Forbidden Forest seemed to have a mind of their own and would have fallen had she not felt a pair of strong arms catch her by her left arm and promptly pull her to her feet.

"Thanks," she murmured half-heartedly, craning her neck upwards, and expecting it to be Remus, only to find it was Sirius who had caught her fall.

"That's _three_ times now, cousin. I'm starting to think it's a habit of yours to fall and you enjoy having dashing handsome men like myself catch you, Tonks," Sirius joked, shooting his cousin a lopsided grin, as his grip remained firm on Tonks's shoulders as he righted her fall.

Remus noticed the gesture and bit the inside wall of his cheek, shooting his best friend a slightly venomous glower, which Sirius promptly pulled a face at.

He felt ventilated at most, the sweat glistening on his temples evaporated the second that Black turned their back on the pair of them, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat and raking one of them through his mane of thick wavy hair.

Sirius was eyeing his girlfriend and Lupin felt his mind flare like wildfire, and he swallowed nervously, feeling like his throat was on fire and just parched.

But it wasn't water that he wanted. No, Sirius did not just think highly of his girlfriend, Lupin couldn't help but hypothesize, oh, _no_. Padfoot wanted her for himself, that's why he kept shooting Tonks all these knowing little glances.

"You all right, Moony?" Sirius asked, his brows furrowed in a slight frown. "You're unusually quiet this morning. More so than usual. What's on your mind?"

Lupin didn't answer. _Bedding my girlfriend, you idiot_ , his swirling vortex of mean thoughts ranted and raved. _Taking what's rightfully mine. Stay. Away_.

Remus shook his head and practically growled in frustration in an effort to quell the Mad Beast beginning to roar within his chest to elude him of his frenzied thoughts, courtesy of the monster within him that reared its ugly head in his mind during this time of the month.

_No. Sirius wouldn't do that. It can't be true. He has his own integrity and honor to protect. He couldn't. Padfoot wouldn't. He said there was nothing between them, and it's been months already. She's mine_.

Though when he stretched out his hand for her to take, he felt Tonks stiffen as she briefly met his gaze, and must have sensed the ire within, for she hesitated, and it stung and sent a swell of rejection through him. Finally, at last, she grasped her hand in his and allowed herself to be led towards the forest's edge.

She had been surprised when Professor Dumbledore had temporarily agreed to lift the ban for the three of them without knowing the real intentions towards their coming here, though Remus was surprised and seemingly put off that Tonks failed to share the true purpose of their visit to Hogwarts, claiming Sirius, now that he was a free man and cleared of all charges in Pettigrew's 'murder', wanted to see Harry.

Tonks furrowed her brows and scowled as Sirius promptly turned his back on them pretty much the moment that they Disapparated straight into the Forest, Apparating right near the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Sirius took one look at the dark, twisted path that lay in wait for them and crinkled his nose in disgust and pulled a face of apprehension.

"When you mentioned a quick trip to Hogwarts, this wasn't _exactly_ what I had in mind, Moony. Tonks. You must be _out_ of your minds. I'm _not_ going in there! Merlin only knows what the bloody hell is _in_ that forest. Giant spiders, unicorns, other werewo…"

Sirius caught himself as he'd been about to say other werewolves, though upon noticing Moony shoot him a particularly dark look, decided against it, and he huffed in frustration and pinched the bridge of his nose in anger.

"This was _your_ idea, _your_ plan, _you_ go in there! I'm not dying tonight on account of that locket. Merlin's beard, no way in the seven hells will I. I rather enjoy living. Death is so boring, especially with so much _excitement_ going on..." Sirius protested hotly, his gray eyes glistening with a strange mischievousness that both Remus and Tonks had noticed, though neither of them chose to comment.

Tonks felt her jaw drop open in shock. " _Your_ locket! You can't stand there, Black, and tell us you're _not_ coming! Are you afraid?! _Coward_!" Tonks immediately fired back, her hand on her hips, and stomped her foot in a moment of agitation as she watched Sirius's retreating form. She glanced towards Remus, who was looking paler than usual, and her brows furrowed and came together in quandary. The latest full moon cycle was still a few days away, though the volatile moods of the man who secretly held her heart was always a gamble which version of Lupin you were going to be dealing with. The quiet, reserved former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, or…

The sometimes violent and short-tempered, slightly wolfish version of himself. Tonks shot him a quizzical look, though she had no time to ponder it.

Sirius scrunched his nose in playful disgust and seemed not to take offense to his cousin calling him a coward, for he stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes.

"Something tells me the two of you can handle this on your _own_. I've got better things to do than babysit you lot. Like go visit my godson," Sirius snorted, scoffing slightly and shaking his head in bewildered bemusement as his gaze lifted upwards to meet Remus's, and therein the man's gray orbs sparked an understanding, though what emotion he was feeling, even Remus did not know.

Sirius furrowed his dark brows in contemplation as he recalled a conversation with Arthur and Molly he'd had in the kitchens but just a night ago.

_"_ _Our friend Remus is in love,"_ he had said contemplatively over toast.

" _With?"_ Arthur couldn't help but ask, though it should have been obvious.

_"_ _Her."_ Molly and Arthur had known exactly to whom Sirius was referring, just by the intonation of Sirius's unusually somber and quiet, contemplative tone.

Admittedly, both of the Weasley's were a little bit surprised by this inference, for they had fully expected Remus to resist entering into a relationship.

_"_ _How do you know? Did he confide in you?"_ Arthur asked eagerly.

_"_ _No. It's in the way Moony talks about Tonks. It's in his eyes. There's…something there, between the two of them. I can tell. It's hard to explain_ ," Sirius had added, sighing. _"I don't think either one of them is aware."_

Sirius snorted as his gaze drifted upward and meet Remus's burning hard stare, his normally light and kind brown eyes had darkened, almost angered, though he recognized that growing look of almost an insatiable lust and hunger.

The twitch in his jawline and occasionally behind his right eye. The rigid stares towards his girlfriend, how he almost seemed to shake at resisting a calling.

Sirius rolled his eyes at the amount of restraint his best friend was putting himself through.

It was the Mad Beast within him, and if he did not leave the two of them to it, there was going to be seven shades of holy hell to pay, and he would be paying dearly for every second longer that he lingered, and Black decided it wasn't worth the ire or to be on the receiving end of Remus Lupin's temper during his time of the month. He chuckled at the look in Remus's gaze as his gaze flitted from Tonks to Sirius, lingering on her. The growing look of anger in his eyes as they remained on her.

He wanted her, to disappear into the abyss with her, and Sirius knew his presence here was not wanted, and he did not want all to be here in the first place.

Why should he, when he could be up at Hogwarts with his godson, showing Harry some of the secret passageways that not even the Maurader's Map could pick up? He heard his sullen exhale and the throbbing of his own heartbeat.

Lupin continued to fume in silence, bothered by Padfoot's presence, and his fists curled into shaking balls at his sides, resisting the urge to strike at something in anger at Sirius knew to be his unwanted presence on this little jaunt.

Tonks briefly called Remus's name as she walked ahead of Lupin further into the Forbidden Forest, and as she called Moony's name over her shoulder, Sirius could see for himself that there was a powerful force, a bond between the two, a glimmer in her soft gray eyes that were so like his own that lit her face.

As he turned his back on his best friend and cousin and headed away from the Forbidden Forest to head towards Hogwarts to surprise Harry with a visit, Sirius considered the look again and wondered if, when he returned to Grimmauld Place, if he should tell Molly and Arthur that Remus had more than likely figured it out by now, and he hoped that his friends' first experience was a memorable one. He snorted and shoved aside any inappropriate thoughts for now.

"We'll ah…meet back at the front of Hagrid's Hut in two to six hours and regroup. Build a bonfire and catch up. Get some wood in there for a fire while you're at it," Sirius growled, shoving his hands back in the pocket of his jacket and turning away, ignoring Remus's incredulous look of disbelief on his face.

Tonks felt her mouth drop open in utter disgust and astonishment at his words.

"Two to six _hours_?! You've got to be kidding me! That's too long of a gap, we don't need _that_ much time, Sirius!" Tonks shouted, hardly daring to believe what nonsense was spouting out of her cousin's mouth, and she shot an incredulous look to the golden locket clutched in her hands. "Destroying this thing isn't going to take _that_ long. What the bloody hell are you playing at, huh, Black? Is this your idea of a joke?!"

But Sirius had already stormed off out of her line of sight, though not before turning back around and shooting Tonks a rather rude hand gesture and shot his best friend a furtive little wink, a strange ambivalent smile on his face, and he disappeared out of the forest, out of her vision and her earshot, and Tonks let out a startled gasp that resembled that of enduring pain, causing Remus to glance down and actualize that his hand was gripping tight enough on her delicate bird-like wrist, so tiny and bony, that he was afraid he'd broken it.

Remus suddenly felt guilty, not realizing that the Mad Beast within was pouring out his anger and unfounded jealousy towards his best friend into his ironclad grip without giving a hint to what Tonks might be feeling right now.

Lupin held onto Tonks a little while longer, his eyes speaking a world of gratitude for the young woman in his arms that his words merely couldn't convey.

The strange expression he bore on his face made Tonks's breaths hitch in her throat, and her skin prickled with a not-completely unpleasant fiery hotness.

For a moment, she wished for this moment to suspend in time, that she might spend eternity in Remus's arms, and she would be more than happy to.

The moment Tonks turned away and his gaze soon met her backside, his ire, and annoyance at Sirius's toying with his girlfriend remained, and as it remained there, a different hue of hunger gnawed at the damned corded feeble muscle within his chest that was his heart and sent a flood of warmth spiraling to his system.

He… _wanted_ her. Right _now_ , there, and then, Forbidden Forest be damned, it didn't care where they were, the blooming ache swelling to rapidly uncomfortable levels in his chest was too much for him to bear.

Lupin suddenly wanted nothing more than to release the unbridled tension, to let go of the familiar disturbing and overwhelming ache that gathered.

His thoughts wandered back to that part of himself that he attempted to tamp it down and locked away from Tonks, from the rest of what he deemed 'polite' society, thinking himself unclean to ever experience the physical love of a woman, let alone _her_.

He let his eyes close and breathed slowly through his nose, letting his lustful thoughts wander where they pleased. Though, when the logical side of his mind not tempered by the Mad Beast realized what he was doing, his eyes flung open and he cursed himself inwardly for thinking of it all.

A strong and unrelenting urge and he wanted her so bad he almost ached, and with each passing day, and especially now, Remus found the wait more unbearable.

_To hell with the waiting. Your thoughts of nobility and honor and wanting to wait for marriage are old and outdated, Moony_ , James piped up, and there was a hint of deviousness that Remus would have suspected from Sirius, but never from James. _You could take her right now if you really wanted to_.

Lily, as always, was much more polite in her advice to their friend.

_Be polite. Don't…force yourself on her like a wild dog in heat, that's not your way! You can control your urges a little while longer, can't you? Besides, YOU were the one that told us you wanted to be married to her first before you'd ever let it get this far, Rem.  
_

Remus, though as much as he loved his friends' advice, were not helping him, and all it took was one low guttural warning growl from the back of his throat to quell the Potters' voices, and James and Lily Potter instantly fell silent.

But still…the troublesome, irksome thoughts of lust and desire would not leave him alone. They ran in succession in his head, one after another, setting his skin aflame and pushing the forlorn man to acknowledge what he'd been denying ever since the two of them had reconciled and dared to enter into a relationship.

_Why the hell should I have to wait? I've waited for months. You would really try to wait until you marry her? It's been over three months. Screw the waiting. I want…her._

He knew where his heart lay, and what he wanted out of this life if Fate would be so kind. Or rather, _who_ he wanted.

_I want…her. Just her_.

Remus felt a strange twitch of ire on his eye as the surging heat coursed through his bloodstream and set it aflame, and he swallowed nervously as Tonks walked ahead of him, oblivious, unaware of the inner turmoil he battled.

As he examined his partner, examined the strange red and purple bruises on her collarbones, battle wounds of Crouch's attack on her all those months ago, the scars, and this next part was a sick, truly twisted and monstrous thought, but Remus loved Dora that way. He loved his She-Wolf's fierce gray eyes, and stiff face whenever she caught someone staring unprovoked at her scars as if she wore them like battle wounds, badges of honor. She did not shy away from them at all.

Tonks must have sensed that he was staring at her, for she grazed her eyes on Remus and bit the inside wall of her cheek and furrowed her brows in a frown and held out her hand for Remus to take, and he had to jog to catch up to her.

The way she was regarding him now in silence had re-ignited the fire within him that swelled into the wanton ache, and he was sure Dora sensed it.

Tonks drew in a deep breath and turned her face to the crook of Lupin's neck, and she didn't even have to think as she leaned up on tiptoes to kiss him.

She started a trail at his collarbone and traced her lips gently to his ear. Tonks gently nipped at his left earlobe and Lupin let out a shudder as the pleasure wave traveled down his spine. "That tickles, Dora," he murmured, his voice low, to which she responded with a light laugh of her own that sent a chill of...something down his spine. "I…want you," he blurted out, and unsure why he did, and he cringed at the horrible awkwardness of it all and felt the maddening heat creep to his cheeks. "I…want you, Dora." She stopped moving in his arms and twisted her neck to look him square in the eye, her brows knitted in confusion at Remus's outburst.

Tonks responded in kind by baring her teeth teasingly, and she could have sworn she heard Lupin growl with the effort to restrain himself against…something, and Tonks heard herself give a tired sigh. "You've already _got_ me, Rem. Should I be surprised? It's only natural you want to keep me around, Remus. I am, after all," she added, a note of pride in her voice, "one of a kind and there isn't another like me in all the world," she joked teasingly. "But come on, I don't like this forest any more than Black does, it's dark in this place. I hate it. Dark and creepy, but don't tell him I said that, or he'll _never_ let me live it down. There are _spiders_ in here, and Merlin only knows what else, and I don't fancy meeting up with anything that can eat us," she added with a shudder as a tremor of fear went down her spine and she moved away from him, the locket of Sirius's brother still clutched in hand. "We should go."

Remus remained frozen to his spot, staring at her backside. She had…she had _missed_ it. It _hurt_. It hurt as hell. He didn't know what that outburst had come from. The young witch turned away, completely missing the dawning look of outrage and antagonizing hurt in Remus's eyes as she had missed his intentions.

With Dora, it was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life, and he could not, for the life of him, fathom why the bright young witch had such a vice grip on him, though he made a mental note to ask his father when he visited on the morrow. It was such a rain that her unintentionally casting him aside did nothing to quell the fiery ache in his chest, nor did it budge his desire for her.

If anything, it only intensified.

Tonks let out a muffled scream of surprise as her boot caught the edge of yet another damned gnarled twisted tree root. She would consider herself lucky by the end of this little venture not to have broken any toes. It would be a miracle.

This time, Remus was the one to catch her, and she was grateful for that.

"Thank you," she managed to gasp out hoarsely, panting heavily as she gasped for air and rolled her neck to crack it and flexed her fingers, letting the damned locket slip from her finger and onto the ground. Noticing the strange look in his eyes and the glistening unshed moisture in his darkened brown eyes that now held a tint of yellow to them the closer the full moon approached, she wiggled her brows at him slightly and turned away, seeming somewhat apprehensive and... _afraid_...of him.

After a moment, she spoke.

"Remus. Do you need to…have you been…I—I don't…what I'm really trying to say is that…" Her voice trailed off as she craned her neck upward to look at him. "I _see_ the way you've been looking at me," she confessed, her voice a hushed whisper. "I _know_ what you want to do, and the answer is yes. I just…want you to be sure. This waiting to…be with you, in that way, it's a self-preservation thing, because…" Tonks paused and looked away, sounding pained. "Because once we take that next step and are _this_ intimate with each other, then…I really _will_ be in love with you. So, please, Rem, for my sake, I—I need you to feel the same way, Lupin."

As if to emphasize her point, she gave his hands a gentle but firm squeeze, and he let out a hiss as her fingertips grazed along with his scars, those fingertips of flame.

"I need to know that this is something you want, that you'll keep me, that you want me to keep you. Forever. That's…that's all this is, Remus. Have you ever…? Have you ever made love to…another woman, Rem?" she whispered; her voice soft, and it sounded as though just the question was causing her great pain and jealousy at the thought of him with another.

Lupin startled as his mind worked on overdrive to process it and he blinked owlishly as he realized the two of them had somehow come to a clearing in the Forest and now stood by the edge of the Black Lake. The heat in Lupin's face was too much to ignore, and he imagined he looked as red as Molly's red hair.

"I…I… _no_ …" he stammered, and made to look away, though Dora did not give him a chance as Tonks made a sudden grab for his arm and rolled up his sweater sleeve. The one that was covered in dozens, no, make those hundreds, of angry red and white jagged scars—bite marks from the early days of his affliction.

His heart skipped a beat, and Tonks did not react. Did she know already? Remus had to wonder how much of his past she knew and could piece together.

Lupin had skipped over the details of the worst parts of his transformations as a young boy, prior to the Wolfsbane Potion's conception. "How long, Rem?"

It was all Dora asked of him. Lupin let out an agonized groan and closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around her middle and inhaled the intoxicating whiff of honeysuckle and eucalyptus as he buried his face in her hair. She smelled of fall.

Tonks did not press him for an answer, which surprised him a little if he was being honest with himself.

"You know," she whispered, the pads of her fingertips ghosting across the dozens of jagged markings on his arm, the bite, and scratch marks. "Your heart's intentions show you where you're going, and the physical scars you bear on your body show where you've been." She paused and wriggled her way out of his ironclad grip somehow, and Lupin could hear her footfalls fade. "You don't need to _worry_ , Rem. I've never…done this before, either. We'll go slow if that is all right with you. I'm learning too, just as you are, love." Tonks lifted her face to his and touched her nose to his and nuzzled it slightly, meaning to kiss him which he had willingly anticipated, but the moment he leaned in to press his lips against hers, Dora pulled away, and chagrin and annoyance at the resistance swelled in his chest, and he heard the Beast within growling. "I want you…to have me, Rem. Like you want me to stay with you…"

Her voice was fainter, and Lupin frowned as he noticed the locket was gone off the ground. She had picked it back up and was heading towards the edge of the Black Lake. His lips gaped open as she stopped at the edge of the lakebed.

Whatever Tonks was doing to him, it left him gaunt and utterly spellbound.

The lake loomed in front of her in an almost dark and daunting crystal, as if calling to her. Ripples played on its smooth surface and it smelled of sweet moss. Tonks knelt and her fingers touched the water and made even more ripples that continued out to the middle of the lake and dispersed into nowhere.

Perhaps, she mulled, ripples were like fame, riches, or power. The moment it grows and extends across the surface, it's nice, and then it's gone in an instant.

But the touch of it though was delish. Biting the inside wall of her cheek, she perched herself on a boulder and pulled off her boots and shrugged out of her sweater meant to protect herself from hungry eyes, though she could practically feel Remus's piercing stare burning a hole in the back of her skull as she discarded most of her clothes until she was in nothing but her black bra and undergarments, the locket in her hand.

Lupin felt his eyes widen at the boldness of the move, not having anticipated she would be stripping down next to nothing near the Black Lake, of all places. "What are you _doing_ , Dora?" he croaked, feeling the heat creep to his cheeks as he regarded his girlfriend in such an intimate manner. He flushed, the head creeping ot his cheeks.

He felt as though he had no right to see Dora in such an intimate way, he felt as though he were intruding on something private. And yet...the Wolf within him was practically purring in pleasure at the sight. She was truly delish. "What if—what if someone _sees_ you? _Get back here_!" he called out, his fingers twitched as his arm lunged out to grab at her, but his body had stiffened, and he felt frozen and rooted to his spot, stuck.

He silently watched his girlfriend. Her well-shaped hips, his grandmother if she were still alive, would have called them too skinny, not childbearing hips.

She fed her bare feet on the water, her toes wiggling and wiping the moss off the stones. The coldness of the water almost made her gasp and she dipped her feet further wading into the water, Sirius's brother's locket clutched in hand.

Lupin felt his eyes widen and his eyelid gave another twitch in irritation as the hot fiery flames of lust and desire for the woman from his dreams continued to surge through his bloodstream and he began to have highly inappropriate thoughts of his girlfriend, the overwhelming want developing as an ache so bad that he thought if he did nothing to tamp it down, then he would surely implode.

"Get _back_ here!" Lupin barked, but it was already too late.

The water engulfed her knees and soon she submerged herself almost all the way, so the only visible part of her form was her head and neck.

Remus barely stifled his low warning growl, almost a threat. He didn't want Dora to get caught like this. Or anyone else, let alone another man, to see her in this manner. How he saw her now...was meant for _him_ and him alone.

"Get _out_ of the water right _now_! It's—it's not _safe_ for you to be swimming in the Black Lake, Dora. What if—what if the Giant Squid comes? Or there are _mermaids_ and Merlin knows what _else_ is festering in these waters," he snarled, baring his teeth, and running his tongue along the wall of his teeth, and he winced at the sharpness of his incisors.

His eyes followed her backside as she turned away from him, silently watching Nymphadora as he witnessed the water sink her hips and she outstretched her arms and floated on the water's surface, and she looked halcyon, a goddess of the water. His own Lady of the Lake.

This woman…his girlfriend, his partner, his mate, was _his_. Just his.

Lupin felt himself shift slightly and perhaps for the first time, really regarded Dora in a new light and took in all of Tonks's appearance. Her pale skin, with scars of her own, flawless though in its own right, almost white against the pitch blackness of the water she had wholly submerged herself in. Her slender nose.

But in Tonks, Remus saw an unprecedented beauty, and there was that small part of his mind—the savage, wolfish part of him—that despised her for it.

He hated and reviled this creature's beauty, and he craved it like a drug as well, wanting to guard and keep Nymphadora Tonks for himself for the rest of their lives together. That there was even the slimmest chance

"It's all right, Rem. I've done this before, sweetheart. You can't tell me you _never_ took a midnight swim when you were at Hogwarts. Besides, even if we did get caught, what would they do to us? We're no longer students here, they can't _expel_ us, Remus."

She rolled her eyes in jest at Lupin's unnecessary fretting over what she had done.

"Besides…this thing has to be drowned, and this is the _only_ way. We both know it." Tonks turned to him, unsmiling but just as amused. She was calm and resolute, and her gray eyes glistening with something that Remus could only surmise as a challenge to him to get out of his comfort zone. "And…I want you…to have me. But…you have to come to find me first," she murmured lowly.

He saw her outstretched arms and the strands of her brown pixie clung wetly to her forehead water dripped from her prominent jawline.

She really was every bit a water nymph and was living up to her name in this regard. So much that he thought it was driving his mind insane and he ground his teeth in one last-ditch effort to restrain himself and resist the call of her aura. He was drunk as hell on her scent, and he wasn't even blaming his heightened senses for this one, though the first day of his cycle was but three days away now.

Remus was hardly aware his fingers had practically formed into claws and were raking down the side of his trousers in the sheer effort to restrain himself.

His body was wallowing in its own weakness, and the racing of his heart intensified. Lupin's blood was boiling it was almost igniting as rage in his veins.

She was playing on him, _teasing_ him, taunting him like the She-Wolf he knew her to be.

That such a delectable creature could one day be his wife, if she would have him, felt like a paradise, a beautiful dream that he did not want to wake from. Dora was perhaps the only one _good_ thing in his life, aside from his best friend's newfound innocence and freedom of his crimes all those years ago, and it was then that her words resonated in the confines of his agonized mind now. Tonks played on him, on the Mad Beast's lusts within himself, and he did not like it one bit.

_I want you to stay_. If he did not show her how much he appreciated her, in the way that he knew they had both wanted, but he had been too much a coward to initiate it, for fear of hurting her, harming her, if the Beast within took control, then what if she left him?! And that… he could not allow.

And in Dora, his love, Remus saw nothing else but her beauty.

Her head was now mostly submerged in the water, the only thing peeking out at him was those eyes of hers. Enticing him, calling to him like a siren of the sea. Her eyes, they were not merely gray, they were silver, he was sure. Brilliant and silver. Silver like the wolf that cried to the full moon, silver like the raging seas before the first ray of light touches its waves, silver like the shackles that bound his soul to hers, the ones that he would melt and tear away.

Tonks must have sensed what he was thinking.

"Come find me," she whispered, her voice carrying as a current as her sweet, succulent voice wafted to his ears. "And have me…keep me."

And with that, she left Remus standing on the edge of the Black Lake's bed, and completely submerged herself under the water, and then as fleeting as an apparition, his Dora was gone, and he was alone.

Her words resonated in his mind, and the Mad Beast within his chest growled and roared its displeasure at his lack of action in satiating these desires.

_Find me…have me…keep me…_

Lupin stifled a growl of frustration at the vicious way this vixen was playing on his desires like this, turning it into a _game_ , thinking this was against his better judgment, but he felt his hands move of their own accord and peeled off his sweater and collared shirt and kicked off his shoes as he walked to the edge of the Black Lake where the water kissed the mossy rocks. When his bare feet touched the almost icy water, the Beast within him let out a growl.

The iciness stung, but the Wolf within him was tougher, the desire to touch his mate stronger than this. The Wolf within gave a roar as he submerged in the water, and when the water reached his hips as well, the fabric of his trousers clinging to his frame, and it touched him there, he felt the familiar ache, almost like a twitch.

A strange, unfamiliar and foreign feeling and yet he welcomed it like an old friend as he immersed deeper, and holding his breath, he submerged completely and swam underneath the rippling surface of the Black Lake, submerging himself completely under the water to join the woman he knew he was deeply and hopelessly in love with. And when all of this was over, he decided, squinting to see in the darkness, though he couldn't see he, couldn't smell her, tomorrow he would visit his father and ask Lyall Lupin for his mother's old ring.

He tired of waiting and wanted nothing more than to do as Tonks asked of him. To find her. To keep her, and to have her. But it wasn't just enough to have her as his girlfriend anymore, no. He wanted… _more_. He wanted _her_. _Just her_.

But as his wife.


	39. To Be Mine

**CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE **

Tonks felt like the water of the Black Lake was exhilarating. Being engulfed completely made Nymphadora feel invincible of the nightmares that had been haunting her ever since she'd woken early this morning at midnight and pulled out the damned locket from underneath her pillow. The water moved around her limbs in swirls, creating buoyancy and a strange sense of freedom.

The freedom was as intoxicating as any Fire Whiskey. She could move in any direction or stop and float for a while. Yet it wasn't clear like liquor. Her air bubbles made their way to the surface with every exhale. They were the only thing down here in a hurry to leave. The water was uncommonly murky, so much so that it was impossible to gauge the depth of how far she'd have to dive.

The rocks below could be ten feet down or forty. One depth was manageable that she could swim to and the other was not.

Instead, Tonks tried to guess from her temperature, her logic being that deeper water would be colder, and she could swear she heard the locket whisper.

_"_ _Nymphadora…I see you…I feel your fears…I…see…you…evil…murderer…temptress…betrayer…_ _**DIE**_ _._

The young witch felt her eyes widen and she let out a muffled yelp through the Bubble Head-Charm she'd conjured the moment she'd submerged completely under, though somehow, and she wasn't sure if this was because her concentration lagged the second she felt a short, sharp tug as the chain of the locket in her hand began to violently pull her downward, towards the pitch-black depths of the Black Lake, the Charm ceased to cast its protective spell, and the bubble completely burst.

Her heart started pounding as she felt herself being dragged even deeper, every cell in her body screaming for oxygen. Tonks kept fight until she felt like her head was about to explode. She just had to take a breath.

So, she took one. For some reason, it did not hurt like she thought it would. She wasn't scared anymore. It was almost peacefully, actually. She felt herself begin to fall.

Tonks felt the water of the Black Lake swallow her whole, deeper into the plunging abyss of darkness. She fell further and further into the sweet oblivion until it threatened to swallow her whole. Tonks could not shake the sense that the vast space of nothingness that surrounded her as she felt her grip on the locket loosen as it cascaded down to the endless bottom of the Black Lake's bed that this would serve as her grave.

Tonks could remember holding her breath before, but this wasn't like that. This was like having a wand pressed to her head and being told not to let her heartbeat. Of course, it would beat. To ask it not to was _stupid_!

And just like the heart had to go on, her lungs would inhale the murky water whether it was air or briny water of the Black Lake.

At the moment, the coldness flooded into her lungs, Tonks knew she was already dead somehow. Knowing this, she allowed Sirius's brother's locket to release from her grip, and she could have _sworn_ she saw an enormous black tentacle slink its way up from the depths of the abyss below her thrashing legs as she needed air, and snake its tentacle around the golden locket's chain and it disappeared back into the dark.

In moments, she would float like seaweed, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the currents. She wanted to be saved, wanted a rescuing hand to tow her back to life, to the world above her that she knew and loved…

Back to _him_. Her body gave one final push for the light above the lake's murky surface. Darkness and a horrible icy coldness enveloped Tonks completely.

The water closed in front of her, filling the young witch with a sense of panic and dread. She held her breath as long as she could, too long, for that matter. Red and black splotches danced in front of her and she couldn't remember if her eyes were open or closed at all. The coldness she had felt upon the lake's water was now completely gone. A desperate hot wave had come over her, warming even her frosted toes. Tonks felt her heartbeat in a rapid panic.

The urgency for air was more apparent than ever, and there were no red blotches in her line of vision. It was all black, nothing but pitch-black darkness.

She opened her mouth, gasping for air and nothing. Tonks moved her arms like she was climbing rocks, but it was only frigid ice water all around—water that washed around her body, preventing access to sweet, precious oxygen.

After a few seconds of being completely submerged, her brain was in full panic mode, there were no coordinated movements anymore, just clawing through the thick liquid that threatened to invade her lungs and drown her here.

From her lips came an explosion of air bubbles, moving away from her at a peculiar angle. Tonks almost realized that she wasn't facing upwards, that she was struggling perpendicular to the surface, despite the locket now being lost.

That she could, if she strained to hear, heard someone swim up behind her, but it was too faint for her to be sure. Already, her thoughts were groggy.

Her limbs slowed, stopped, and she began floating in the icy lake water.

That was when she saw _him_. The very Devil incarnate himself.

Barty Crouch Jr., swimming upward from the icy depths of the lake's abyss, that endless pitch pool of darkness and murk, but she knew it was not to save her.

He would kill her, to drown her in this water, icy grave. But Tonks knew it was only a vision, one that her mind had created to ease the painful death of drowning so horribly and unexpected like this, but it seemed…so…so vivid.

Even if she were to die unceremoniously like this, she knew Crouch was no Angel of Death, no God was he, not a saint-like Merlin figure in his life.

Tonks briefly wondered if Crouch was tasked with lighting the way to the dimension the departing soul would be bound to in their next life, the afterlife. He swam towards her, his hand outstretched, but then Crouch paused.

He eyed Tonks completely submerged in the water, much like a curious dog would look at something, as if it was not sure whether it could trust her or not, and if it was deciding if she was safe to devour and feast on her pristine skin.

And then, his face met her own, that brilliant shade of light brown, though her vision was fading fast, and a wrist, was it Crouch's? Or was it Remus's? Well, whoever it belonged to clutched onto her forearm, and slowly, she felt herself being towed up towards the early morning life above the Black Lake's murkiness.

Towards her real life, to where Remus waited for her at the lake bed, no doubt to rip her to _shreds_ for what she had done, and her foolish, _stupid_ plan to think that drowning this damned locket would have worked, though if what she had seen with her own eyes was true—if the Giant Squid really did have a hold of it now, then…it was as good as dead, and she supposed that her plan worked.

Her body shook so violently the moment she was pulled out of the lake that she could not form a coherent thought due to the incessant chattering of her teeth and how soaked to the bone with frigid, murky, lake water Tonks was.

Her stomach contracted so violently, she didn't even care who it was that had just now saved her life and was watching her suffer as she coughed up copious amounts of water her lungs had stupidly inhaled and had threatened to drown her. Her lungs drank in the cold early morning air in noisy rasps and gasping, and again, the strong hands came, and she felt a sudden burst of warmth, a warm gust of air-drying her skin, and she realized her savior was none other than Remus, pointing his wand at her torso, heating her from the frigid water of the Black Lake, and his voice, muffled though it was, was telling her to stay awake, not to go to sleep, asking what had happened.

"S—Squid, the—the Giant Squid is down there, Rem," she gasped out, sounding horrified. "It—it ate it, I think, Holy love of Merlin Almighty, that...that was a close call," she whispered hoarsely, her eyes casting downwards as she spread out Lupin's cloak that he'd draped around her shoulders, collapsing against the soft fabric, and not even bothering to put on her clothes. "I think we…I think we did it, Rem. I think I drowned it. Sirius will be pleased, I hope," she whispered, her gray eyes sparkling.

Lupin held her stony gaze, and he refused to look away, though the burning animosity in his darkened light brown eyes confirmed that he was angry.

Tonks flinched and made to scoot towards her clothes, murmuring a half-hearted apology under her breath, but Remus did not give her a chance, his arms circled her waist and pressed against him, and he felt the gooseflesh prick her arms. Lupin felt like his body screamed against the wrathful silence that had been plaguing them both, but especially him, ever since they'd Apparated to the Forest.

" _Stop_. _Moving_. Now. You move one more _inch_ and I _swear_ , I'll _bite_ , and you're not going to like it." The command escaped him as a low warning growl, angered. He sensed her hesitation, and he felt something shift within him and soften. "Don't you _get_ it, Dora? I tried to tell you earlier..." he whispered, murmuring it into the shell of her ear. " _I want you_. Just you. Right now. Show me," he pleaded. "How you want it. What to do. _Show_ _me_. I want to _feel_ …I want to _feel_ … _everything_ ," he pleaded, moisture glistening in his orbs.

When he felt her fingers clenched on the back of his hair, he bit her neck, wanting to elicit a response, and when she didn't, the Wolf within him took over. Her eyes, that rich hue of glistening gray that stole his breath away while looking straight through to Lupin's soul, and he could swear she saw all of him. He let out a content sigh as he felt one of his hands as it drifted upward and grabbed a fistful of it, pulling her closer, ignoring Dora's quiet yelp of surprise as she practically fell on top of him, her hand accidentally brushing against his thigh, which reignited the growing flame of passion that whelmed in his chest.

Her hands, as they continued to fidget and shake, whether out of adrenaline at almost drowning, or exhilaration at what was about to happen, he didn't know, but they stilled their movements as she'd been fumbling with the waistband of his trousers as Lupin caught Tonks's right hand in his and brought her knuckles to his lips for a gentle kiss that sent a shudder of pleasure down her spine. It was enough for Remus to know that she wanted him, to feel him now.

And her mouth. Oh, her sweet luscious pink lips. To feel them move in sync with his. He hadn't kissed her since they'd left Headquarters, the thought had been on his mind ever since she'd attempted to sneak off without him. His grip on her wrist tightened as he leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching. Remus heard her audible gasp of surprise, and that only ravaged the whelming ache in his legs even more.

Seven hells, he couldn't fight the thoughts flooding through his mind right now. Dora's very smell brought his mind back to thoughts of autumn, pouring through his senses. His lips brushed against Tonks's unexpectedly, giving Dora no time to react or pull away, though he thought she would explain away their behavior as inappropriate, which was what he expected.

His kiss to Tonks sent a shiver down her back. Now she too had become seduced by the overwhelming senses, and Remus knew this by the look in her eyes. He shuddered as she reached up her finger and brought it to his lips, the pads of her fingertips tracing the outline of his lips in a way that Lupin could hardly stand it.

He loved the way her small body melted into his, the way she relented as he tugged a few strands of her hair, holding her tighter, closing off the gap of space between the two of them. Slowly, he pressed his lips to Dora's. It's soft and gentle and chaste and maybe there's no fireworks or sparks, but it's better than that – it's a wave of warmth that filled him up, spilling out from his heart and the warmth of Dora's lips on his and rushing to every corner of his body: the cracks in between his toes, the crooks of his elbows, the tips of his ears.

Every inch of him was saturated with love. His cold lips brushed against hers as he tugged Tonks closer, almost violently, his hands coming up to grip painfully tight on her waist. She pressed her head against his sculpted chest, relishing the firm, hard muscle.

Nestling closer, she listened for his heartbeat. It was there, that thunderous, rapid pounding. Her frozen breath mingled with his as they stared at each other, both of them a little unsteady. Desire and a wolfish hunger to satiate whatever was going through his mind glowed in his brown eyes.

Unable to resist any longer, he stooped, and their mouths pressed together in a long, passionate kiss. She drew her tongue over his teeth and swallowed his groan of pleasure as they slid closer to each other, no visible gap between them.

Remus stirred, shifting her so that she was practically straddling his lap, both of his hands coming up to grip almost painfully tight on his waist. Lupin could not help but feel drawn to it, to her smile as she met his gaze. He wanted it to stay.

As her soft lips stretched into the smile that did not quite meet Dora's eyes, they were lit with such a familiar sadness. One that Remus was all too used to seeing within his own reflection, though he vehemently attempted to deny feeling such an emotion, thinking it beneath him, though the forced expression of the contrary on Dora's mouth would have looked quite comical to Remus if it did not currently make his heart feel heavy as he laid there.

For a few moments, as he stared at Dora, he was almost quite certain that his love's expression mirrored his own. It broke his heart, what little heart he did possess to begin with.

Suddenly, he did not want her to leave. Remus did not want to turn into a random image that floated deep within the recesses of Dora's memory one day. He did not want to be the smile that squeezed her chest somewhere far away when he didn't make his true feelings known. He didn't want her to leave him.

He did not want her to go. He wanted Dora and her beautiful smile to stay. She noticed him looking, and smiled, biting her bottom lip, and sticking it out in a slight pout, quirking a delicately shaped brow Remus's way.

"Convince me to stay, Rem. Love me. Like you wish for me to stay," she said, her lips parted slightly as she whispered it into the shell of Remus's right ear. "Convince me to stay if that is what you wish. Plead for me to stay...Please."

It was the use of the world _please_ that did it and he felt a sudden shift within himself, and the low growl that escaped him this time was not one of anger and triteness, but of pleasure, and this time, he did not bother to restrain himself.

Her hand alights on Remus's face, moving down past his bare and prominent collarbone. He let out a growl as her gaze drifted downwards towards his chest, at the dozens of angry red scars, courtesy of the Mad Beast, that Wolf, that monster, that demon within him. Already, his brain felt like it was on fire.

Dora was his angel, his beautiful angel with the fingertips of flame that Lupin knew he did not deserve such a delectable creature in his life. The cold forest already felt warm as Remus heard Dora gasp as her fingertips traced down his hundreds of scars.

"You're staring, Dora," he commented, stifling a bemused smile as she blushed under the scrutiny of his gaze and made to turn away, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she squirmed on top of him, attempting to wrench herself off of him and move away, but his hand slid out and slid across Dora's hips, stalling her movements. "I never claimed that I did not like it, love," he murmured, burying his face in the crook of her neck. "I want you to look at me."

Remus let out a groan as he could hear the hoarseness and desire in his own voice for the angel that straddled his lap on top of his cloak that he'd laid out for him, as his free hand not gripping onto her waist slipped underneath her. She was warm already.

"Trust me when I tell you that I…I won't…hurt you…" he urged, repressing a groan, closing his eyes as Remus felt Dora jerk her hips away with a sound that might have been a muted noise of pleasure before her voice trailed off quickly and she fell silent. "Show me," he encouraged, his fingers tightening on her thighs, raking down alongside her legs. "How you want it," he urged, hearing the desperation in his voice, relishing in Dora's groan as Remus drew his hand away, just too soon, when she was trembling. "Together," he whispered, as her lips lowered and captured his, albeit not roughly like he was used to doing in times when she would resist him.

But…gently. Remus groaned again as she shifted on top of his weight and slowly showed him how she wanted it, her movements slow but…tender, and almost…loving. The cold forest already felt warm. It was hard for Remus to hold back, to make the special moment last.

Wasn't that the way, so caught between the intoxication of his climax and extending a moment with Dora that he never wanted to end.

The way that her mouth was soft as she panted for breath. Slowly, Remus ran his hands down her body. Her skin was so flawless, smooth and perfect, soft on her hips, and she cried out only once as Remus did not let her take the lead, continuing with his efforts to please her the way that she claimed to want, leaving a gentle trail of kisses down her neck and to her collarbones, hearing her whimpers and feeling her body shift beneath his own.

He set a growl with each push, hunger dawning on him like a wolf to a fox, but then he slowed midway through, wanting to make their moment last.

Dora's breathing became uneven, cracking, and she jerked forward as he finished, the stars becoming novae in her gray eyes. She twitched slightly as he drew away, rolling her head to one side, exposing the curve of her neck, the beautiful shell of her ear, shuddering as he gently nipped her earlobe, and whispered something to Dora. Something for her ears only, the promise of what was coming next.

When she kissed Remus, his brain lit on fire and the warmth spread throughout his entire body, the heat that she gave off scorching. After that, he was addicted, he couldn't bear to not be with her, and at the moment, Remus felt like he could barely breathe when she was around. Those kisses were his salvation and his torment, his purpose, and his anguish. Remus lived for them and he would die with the memory of them on his lips. He dedicated his life to being with Dora from the moment of that kiss, for he knew that if he lost her, he would lose himself.

She was the half that made him whole.

"This is what you've been missing," she whispered into the shell of his ear. " _Feel_ me. Have me. Every drop…every pulse…all of it. Love me, Rem…"

Lupin groaned and nestled in the crook of her neck, clenching his eyes, and allowing the Wolf within to take total and utter control, perhaps for the first time in his life, surrendering to the Mad Beast, the Wolf that he worked so hard to repress over his life. He heard the Beast roar as the Wolf never done in times past.

Pleasure waves surged through his scarred body, searing him, branding him hotter than any dragon fire could ever flame, breaking him and rocking him to his core.

His nostrils flared and the Wolf could smell the want emanating off of his partner in waves, and he knew that either way, be it the Wolf or him, she wanted this. Wanted _him_. Tonks hurled her head back with eyes closed, feeling his excitement seep and extend into her.

She was slowing down, and in that split second before her touch every nerve in Remus's body and brain became electrified.

It's the anticipation of being together in a way that's more than words, in a way that's so completely tangible. One-touch and it was over, it was always that way with Tonks. She felt electricity in her skin, hormones shutting down of her higher brain, and the rise of her animal self. From there on in it was all passion, intense, intoxicating. It was her release, her escape, her drug. He was her escape.

They became one, one mind with one goal and purpose, each utterly drunk with love for the other. And then, everything ceased, their heartbeats slowed, almost in tandem with one another, only their harsh breathing split the otherwise silent air.

Lupin blinked and his eyes fell heavy as he felt a blackness come over him. Like a blanket, one of warmth that still somehow made him shiver, though he knew she felt it too. He glanced down at Dora, at her gorgeously long neck that bared as her head still hung back. Her eyes remained closed as her hand reached down to cover his, and kissed the inside of his palm, sweet and gentle.

He didn't hesitate to pull her to lie on top of him, his lips pressed against hers with fervor. Remus felt Tonks wrapped her arms around him in a moment and he allowed her head to rest against his chest as they both felt sleep and exhaustion wash over them in waves. All his thoughts stopped as if his heart took over from his head when she was close. In a moment of doubt, wondering if what had happened was really real, he clenched onto her hand tightly, as if to check she was still really there beside him, her head nestled against his chest.

Really there and really real….and she was, body and soul. Lupin doubted anyone else felt this way about her, about being in this celestial creature's arms, though he pitied them if they did love this much, as much as he did, and lost.

Because that was a pain that killed soft and slow. How was he to put their love into mere words? An entire ocean of ink wouldn't be enough to describe them. They were a starburst of light amongst the darkening dusk. They were all the stars in the sky condensed into a single point. They were everything and nothing at the same time. Together, they were both a beautiful dream and a catastrophic nightmare.

They were in love.

* * *

Sirius furrowed his brows in a frown, following the pair of them with eyes inquisitive as his best friend and cousin strode up to the entrance of Hagrid's Hut. They tried to hide it, but Black was no _fool_. He could see the swaying, how Tonks sweater was disheveled and her black bra strap kept slipping, how the witch could barely _walk_ and would have stumbled over a damned tree branch more than once, three times now, he counted, in the span of two minutes, if it not for Remus shooting out an arm occasionally to catch her when she fell.

Lupin sensed the hidden spying, the stolen glance that Sirius shot him as the pair of them gathered around what was supposed to have been a small bonfire.

"Where's the wood?" Sirius shot out immediately, glaring at Remus with narrowed, inquisitive eyes. It must have been Moony's unruly clothes, mud splattered against his gray collared undershirt. One of his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the other left hanging on his wrist. Moss, dust, and cobwebs covered the front knees of his trousers, and his light brown hair currently resembled Harry's.

Sticking up in tufts every which way, and his cousin didn't look much better. Tonks wore both of their jackets, as Lupin had no doubt insisted on it.

Though, it did not escape Sirius's attention that the pair of them practically jumped out of their skins at Padfoot's question as they stumbled past.

"What wood?" murmured Remus, not at all grasping onto Sirius's query.

"For the _fire_?!" barked Sirius, rolling his eyes at his best friend's skittishness, carefully surveying the pair of them as they sat in chairs opposite him.

"Oh, couldn't—couldn't find any, Black, better—better luck next time, I guess," Tonks mumbled under her breath, having to practically pant to draw breath and all the while actively averting Sirius, and Remus's gaze as she dragged a spare chair over to the pit, and almost tripped over the legs of the damn chair.

Sirius blanched, feeling his face drain of color. "Couldn't find any wood. In a _forest_?!" He stifled a low growl of irritation, thinking he'd been meditating on waiting for the two of them for the better part of three hours.

Three bloody hours, for the love of Merlin! _Three_. _Hours_.

He did not know what to make of this. He'd seen that look, knowing Moony was all fueled up again, and he'd seen the way over the last few months how his own cousin had unhinged him, tore down the walls of denial that Lupin built up over his heart.

Tonks had tamed the Mad Beast within Remus Lupin, and for that, Sirius could not be happier for his best friend, though it did not stop him from asking a final question.

"Did you do it?" he asked slyly, setting his face to casual indifference, and folding one of his legs over the other and crossing his arms across his chest. The abject look of horror on both of their faces was well worth it. "The _locket_ ," he emphasized darkly through gritted teeth when both started to stammer excuses and become red in the face. "Is the bloody _locket_ gone, Tonks?"

"O—oh, um…yes…it's…it's done, we—we did it," Tonks murmured, a light pink blush speckling along her cheek as she reached up a hand to scratch at an itch behind her ear and swipe a lock of her now dark maroon pixie cut out of her way and back behind her ear where it rightfully belonged. "It was…nice."

Sirius snorted and rolled his eyes as he rested his head against the back headrest of the chair that Hagrid had found for him earlier and closed his eyes.

He'd always been of the firm belief that no witch or Muggle for that matter, would be good enough for his best friend…until one was, and Tonks, it seemed, had just proven it to him and she hadn't even had to say a word to him.

Sirius could see it in Remus's eyes how much he cared for his cousin.

And that, he supposed, was good enough for him.


	40. A Heated Argument

**CHAPTER FORTY**

Finally, the hour Tonks had been dreading was here, and she couldn't halt the dawn ebbing its gradual way into daylight as the hours passed into twilight. Everything hinges on getting through the dinner in one piece, with her parents, specifically more so her mother than her father, accepting Remus into their lives—her life—as her boyfriend, and once it was done, it couldn't be undone.

She hadn't been able to think straight this morning once the three of them Apparated from Hogwarts back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Tonks had put her wand in the wrong pocket of her coat and then panicked when she couldn't find it. Her hands spread like pale starfish around her mug of hot cocoa as she stood with Lupin on the front entryway of her parents' little cottage.

And even they were cold too, resisting the warmth that struggled to seep into them. Tonks flinched and bit the inside wall of her cheek, running her tongue along the wall of her teeth. She was certain she looked quite gaunt, though Remus had told her today on at least five separate occasions following their time spent at the edge of the Black Lake's bedside how beautiful she looked to him.

Regardless of that, she would not be looking in a mirror today if she could help it again. She'd looked only once prior to stepping out of headquarters with Lupin to ensure her makeup, a light natural foundation and powder, a light glaze of a lip gloss coating her lips, looked pristine enough and well put together.

Her pixie this evening was a rich chocolate brown with auburn and red highlights, and she had no doubt in her mind her parents would approve, given her mum always had something to say surrounding her love of purple and pink.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and glanced down at her outfit and shifted her black purse from one shoulder to another and gave a tug of her shirt. She'd opted to wear a white short-sleeved blouse and black flared trousers and black flats.

No doubt her mum would approve. Simplistic but stylish. Respectable.

Just stepping on the front step of her parents' house made her breath rapid and shallow, and it felt like she couldn't get enough air to come to her lungs. She could feel her pulse pounding against her temples and throbbing.

It felt like her brain took in more light than expected and she felt Remus give her right hand a gentle squeeze, though she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and immediately thought that one glance over at him was more than enough. He was seemingly just as nervous as she was to get through this damned dinner in one piece, and just as anxious, so that was, at least, a small comfort.

The terror on his face and his eyes were unmistakable, and his face clammy. He was much too pale for her liking, and a bead of sweat had formed on his brow.

"Hey," Tonks soothed in what she hoped was an encouraging tone, and she returned the light squeeze of his hand in the same manner he'd just done. "You have _nothing_ to worry about, Rem. They're sure to love you, once they see how well my 'partner' has been treating me," she offered, biting her lip hard.

He offered her a sad little half-smile, though it quickly faltered, and a dark look overcame his light brown eyes. "It's not _me_ I'm worried for, Dora," he grumbled darkly, and the shadow of the Wolf within him crossed his features.

Tonks let out a dark little chuckle and shook her head, reaching up her free hand to swoop her bangs out of her eyes. "You worry too much. I…can handle myself," she reassured Remus, though even she knew at this moment her voice lacked the conviction to sell the argument that she really wanted to make.

Remus responded in kind by tightening his grip on her hand.

"There's no telling how they will react to our…relationship, Dora. I don't want them hurting you," he growled, and if Tonks wasn't mistaken, she was sure that she saw the Wolf flash across his features as his canines bared, and she was beginning to wonder if this was a mistake, if there was still time to turn around and go back.

Tonks nodded mutely in understanding. For that, she could not say how her mother would react. Probably poorly, if she had to guess, though she hoped Dad would able to quell the worst of her mother's temper, and Remus had sworn to her that he wouldn't let any harm come to him, or to her tonight.

Her father, she had managed to tell ahead of time earlier this week when she'd popped over for a spell while Remus and Arthur were on guard duty, and he had been surprisingly understanding about it, and his words to her danced in her mind…

* * *

"If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, And let not women's…and let not women's…"

"Come, Daddy, no _peeking_ at the book, you _know_ this, we've been over this part," Tonks coaxed gently, to which Ted nodded, and he smiled at the light chittering of little Ptelea who was resting on Ted Tonks's burly right shoulder.

Ted Tonks emanated a tense exhale through his nose and tried again, clenching his eyes shut as he struggled to remember the Shakespearean quote.

"And let not… women's weapons, water drops, Stain my man's cheeks," he finished, and when the resounding sound of his only child clapping her hands in excitement and the chirping of Nymphadora's tiny pet Bowtruckle reached his ears, Ted Tonks responded in kind by giving a sweeping flourish and a deep bow.

"See? It's not so hard! Even you can do it, Daddy!" Tonks gushed, sweeping a lock of her bangs out of her eyes. "If _you_ can do this, then so can…"

But Tonks immediately caught herself, as she'd been about to say Remus's name. She visibly winced and bit down hard on her tongue hard enough to draw blood. For the last few days, she'd been pitifully begging Lupin to sit with her as she read.

Maybe even one day, attending a play at the Globe with her, and so far, he hadn't seemed to want to go for it, though she supposed that was because he wasn't quite back to himself yet following the full moon's cycle's end.

Luckily, Ted hadn't seemed to notice his daughter's reaction, for he'd turned away. Her father wiped his brow with a handkerchief and tossed the sodden rag aside and scrunched his nose and collapsed into the chair of the workbench of his shed out in the back yard.

Arthur Weasley would have been enthralled by the place, no doubt, and Tonks made a mental note to introduce the two men next time the Weasley's and the Tonks family were ever in the same room together, though she doubted that would ever happen, she liked to imagine that it would.

"New love always has a way of…worming its way into our hearts, doesn't it, Dora? Just like your Shakespeare plays that you love to read so much," he asked, quirking a thick brow his daughter's way, whose face had paled in shock as she sat perched on the tabletop surface of his wooden bench. "Don't you agree?" He fixed his daughter with a quizzical little half-smile and quirked a brow her way as he kept his arms folded across his chest, still continuing to smile at her.

"I—I don't…know what you mean, Dad," Tonks stammered, feeling her face pale in shock as she looked first at her father in confusion, and then down at the compendium of Shakespeare clutched. "New love? What…it's…no… _no_."

She shook her head vehemently, as if to protest, though her father was not at all fooled.

Ted Tonks shook his head and clucked his tongue in mock disappointment, as though he had expected better of his only child.

"Yes, you _do_ , Dora," Ted stated firmly, a muscle in his jaw twitching. His kind dark eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed at Tonks, and Tonks always hated it whenever her father did this. Though he was no Legilimens like Severus was, it never changed the fact that it felt like her father's eyes bored straight to her soul, saw right through the denial, the lies, attempting to keep Remus a secret.

Ted snorted in disbelief and again he shook his head, though his gaze never wavered from his daughter. "I know what you've been trying to _hide_ from us. From your mother more so than me, but it's obvious, dear. I've known for a while now, Dora. Did you _honestly_ think you could keep your relationship with Remus a secret? Did you honestly think that I would not know? That you could get away with this? I _see_ the way he looks at you, and you at him, darling. You both look at each other like nothing else exists half of the time. I'm right, aren't I? Tell me the truth, dear, and don't even think of lying to me. I detect when you _lie_."

Tonks stiffened in horror and almost slid off her perch of the table, and would have had her father not been steadily holding onto her shoulders, but she did succeed in dropping her huge compendium of Shakespeare's works, where the book clattered and fell to Ted's workshop's floor with a terribly loud thump.

He _knew_?! Daddy _knew_?! What in the hell could she say to that? She had thought that she and Remus had been careful thus far around her parents.

_Not careful enough_ , Ollie's voice inside her mind chastised her for her carelessness. _You can't lie to your father, T. Not like this. He already knows… though I can't believe you tried to keep this from your own partner. From me! Going to the Black Lake…making a fire?! I don't even have to be my sleuth par excellence to see the wolf has her paw in the jelly jar, and it's not the first* time either. How many times, T? One time? Two times? Three times? Stop me at any time, Tonks. Five times?! I must confess I'm a little jealous. Well played, T, well played. Well. I'm happy for you, but you really should have told your parents…_

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and brushed away Ollie's slightly teasing and jealous tone that had crept its way from the recesses of her mind into the forefront of her frazzled brain and bit the inside wall of her cheek in a panic.

At seeing his daughter's ashen face, wide, terrified eyes, and abject look of horror etched on her face, her lips parted open, Ted Tonks nodded in confirmation.

"So, it's _true_ then. I thought as much but had to hear it for myself and get the truth from you, rather than a garbled version from...others. Our daughter has fallen in love with a _werewolf_." Ted emanated a tense exhale through his nose and looked away from her for a moment before swiveling his head to the left and met Dora's humiliated and mortified gaze. "You _love_ this man. Don't you, Dora?" he asked, fixing her again with that piercing, hard stare.

Tonks froze and felt her blood render to ice in her veins and she gulped nervously and could not summon the inner strength within herself to look at him.

She couldn't lie to her father. Not like _this_! He was right in that regard, but…but…could she trust Daddy not to reject her for loving a man who suffered from lycanthropy? Could he find it within his heart to accept Remus as he was?

Tonks hesitated, biting the inside wall of her cheek, and nervously wringing her hands together, glancing down at her lap, struggling to form an apt response to this question her father had just posed, who was growing impatient.

"I…yes," she answered simply, and then followed up her answer with another question. "Do you find that wrong, Daddy?" She bit her bottom lip.

Ted seemed to take an eternity to find his voice and then spoke. "Does your mother know?" It was all he asked, and yet such a poignant question to her.

"No." Tonks was able to answer her father honestly in this regard. "She—she doesn't. she knows nothing of my…of Remus and I, of us, Daddy."

Ted nodded, silently communicating that he understood, though he heaved a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he pinched his temples.

"I will say nothing of this to your mother. I…know that I cannot stop either one of you, though I must admit, I'm…worried for you. I think he might be dangerous during his…cycles. And you are giving up any hopes for a family if you pursue a relationship with this man, Dora. You won't be able to have children with his…with _him_ ," he admitted begrudgingly. "I'm sure your mother won't be pleased to hear she won't be a grandmother one day. But…he _did_ save your life, and for that, I owe him a great debt, and it seems this is the price that I pay for allowing this to happen, it appears to be true," he scowled, furrowing his brows into a frown. "As long as you both are _safe_ , and he treats my daughter well, then that is, I suppose, all that I could ask for. And I'm certain that your mother will have something to say this week when you bring your boyfriend over for dinner, and I won't be _with_ her, but I won't be _against_ her. Do you understand?"

Tonks nodded mutely, not sure what else to say in this regard. It was the best she could hope for, surrounding her father, though it was her mother who worried her the most. What she would say to Remus when she learned the truth!

Tonks snuggled in as her father reached out an arm and pulled her close.

"You're the only person I know who gives indefinite hugs, Daddy," she murmured, closing her eyes, and resting her chin against Ted Tonks' burly chest.

Her father snickered. "Well, Dora, where else would I rather be, love?"

At that moment, his strong arms squeezed a fraction tighter and Tonks felt herself breathe more slowly, her body melting into her dad's as every muscle lost its tension to the cold October air.

This was life, real life, and she wouldn't trade it for a thing.

* * *

Tonks blinked, jolting out of the memory of her visit with her father as the door opened and they found themselves not face-to-face with either her mum or dad, but Mad-Eye Moody, whose magical eye was swiveling in all directions.

"Um…Moody, you…what are _you_ doing here?" Tonks demanded hotly, and she could see her parents poke their heads out from behind Alastor Moody's towering form as he clutched onto his silver flagon in hand and drank. Her frown deepened and she glanced over at Remus, who was looking equally as confused, and more than a little annoyed to see her mentor at her parents.

"Intervening," was all he answered, and Tonks felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach as Moody was surprisingly violently shoved out of the way by none other than her mother, and she flinched at the look of outrage in her eyes.

Andromeda Tonks's face was flushed an angry shade of blotchy, violent red, and her sharp eyes glinted dangerously in the fading light of the sunlight.

" _You_ ," she growled, glaring contemptuously at Remus as her gaze drifted down to their interlocked hands. "You wretched… _wolf_. Beast. _Animal_. How dare you put your hands on my daughter?" She turned to Tonks, who had set her face to passive neutral. "And _you_ ," she snarled through gritted teeth. "You thought you could keep this a secret from your own mother?! I had to go and learn the truth from your father of all people! How _dare_ you! How dare you go out and—and _rut_ with this dog like a—a _bitch_ in heat?" she shouted, face paling.

Tonks felt Remus stiffen and the shadow of the Wolf darted across his features. Tonks opened her mouth to speak and intervene on Remus's behalf, but a withering look from him immediately rendered her silent. "Mrs. Tonks, I don't think there's a need for your hostility," he started to say, with an air of politeness that Tonks felt that her mother did not deserve at all right now but Tonks immediately held up a hand and cut him off, preventing him from speaking. Lupin glanced over at Dora and almost immediately wished that he hadn't, for her gaze was listless and vacant, and already, she was somewhere else.

"Please don't do this, Mum," she begged hoarsely. "Just once, just _once_ , can't you be happy that I've found someone who makes me happier than I could ever make myself? Just once, can't you be happy for me and not make me feel even _worse_ about myself?" She was close to tears at this point, blinking back the salty liquid and swallowing down hard past the growing lump in her throat that cut off her air. "We aren't meant to be alone. If you've any love for me at all, don't do this. Can't we just…have a nice dinner together tonight? As a _family_?"

Though she wasn't crying necessarily, a pair of tears traced in translucent tracts down her pale cheeks. Seeing her already agitated and in such a state like this, Lupin felt the fiery boiling of his temper ignite in his bloodstream, and he felt his hand move of his own accord and drift up to her shoulder and pulled her in front of him, using Tonks as a sort of shield.

When he spoke, his voice was cold, hard. "Mrs. Tonks. We came here…to have a discussion with you, in a _calm_ collected manner like the adults that we are," Remus began hesitantly, thinking that this was how Professor Dumbledore would have wanted him to handle this. "If you are not able to kindly still your rage, and are going to continue to be unreasonable, then we have a _problem_ ," he growled and bared his sharp canines. "I would like...to _discuss_ this with you if you are amenable."

Tonks did not respond to his touch, and he felt terror prick at his heart, it was almost as if she could not sense that he was right behind her, one of his arms on her shoulder, the other wrapped protectively around her middle, and this worried Lupin nearly as much as her almost-drowning in the Black Lake had.

He did not know how long the two of them remained silent. Remus didn't know if he could say anything to Dora that would be of comfort to her.

Andromeda let out a hiss of her own that showed she was truly a member of Slytherin House and stepped forward a half step.

"Get. Out, both of you. _Leave_ , and don't even think about coming back here ever again," she growled angrily, actively averting Remus's piercing stare, and she was looking solely at Tonks. "Your father and I worked _hard_ to give you a good life, your _best_ life that we could. We supported you fully in your endeavors to become an Auror, though I've had my reservations about you putting yourself in harm's way every day of your life, but do not stand on my doorstep and ask me to approve _this_. Get out of my house and off of my doorstep and _never_ come back again! You're no daughter of mine if you would throw away your precious life for this _dog_!"

In a hollow voice, Tonks turned to Remus and he was loath to see such anguish in her eyes.

"Come on, Rem. We should…we should leave," she murmured, blinking back tears.

Watching Dora fight her way past a domineering authority that was none other than her own mother reminded him too much of his time during the early days of his transformations as a young adult, when people found out about his 'furry little problem,' as James had been fond of calling his condition.

He felt her body give a twitch and without even thinking, he pressed his lips to her temple. Anything to remind Dora that she was there with him and out of danger, for he would let no further harm come to her, ever again if he could help it.

"No," he answered firmly, raising his voice so that her parents could hear her. "I'm not leaving, and neither are you until we sort this out and get a few things straight. Your parents cannot tell you what to think and not think, or who to love. It's ridiculous that they would even try, and Mrs. Tonks, you and I _both_ know that I care for your daughter," he snapped, his own temper igniting and swelling to the surface. He felt Tonks shift slightly in his protective embrace and he lowered his voice. "She can't hurt you, Dora. You are mine, and I am yours, remember," he whispered into the shell of her ear, his voice low so that only he could hear her. "I will _not_ let you go, Dora. You're safe with me. I promise."

Lupin rested his cheek on top of her head, and this only fueled Andromeda Tonks's ire even further. "For now," Tonks whispered in response.

His grip on her waist tightened even further. "Don't say things like that." His command escaped his lips in a low growl, and he straightened his posture, light brown eyes flashing with anger, and he felt his grip on Tonks's waist tighten.

Her words were starting to frighten him because he knew she was right.

Men like Crouch never gave up until they got their way, and Andromeda Tonks, though she was a woman, she was just as fierce, if not more so than him.

She struck Remus as the type of witch who was ambitious and wasn't going to put this matter to rest until she would see the two of them driven apart.

And as for Crouch, the knowledge the Death Eater still remained at large and could come after Dora to finish what he started did not sit well with him at all. Men like him did not matter if they destroyed lives or left abject misery in their wake of destruction.

A muscle in his jaw twitched and ire poured through his veins hot as any dragon fire. "Whatever…whatever ' _crime'_ you think me guilty of, the only thing I'm guilty of is my lycanthropy, which was an accident, Mrs. Tonks. I see the way you look at me. You look at me as though this was my choice. That I'm proud of my condition. It could not be further from the truth, Mrs. Tonks. I must correct you in that regard if that's what you think," Remus growled, and the Mad Beast within his chest that would come out in another few days roared along with his words, agreeing with him. "I've been on trial for being a werewolf my _entire_ _life_ , Mrs. Tonks, and I am _not_ about to stand here and listen to this from you, Mrs. Tonks, so hear me because I really _hate_ saying things a second time and repeating myself," he growled, the edges of his lips curling up in a wolfish snarl. "I _wish_ …that I was the _monster_ that you think I am, it would make this easier for me to say what I'm about to say, but it's evident to me that it _needs_ saying. You would truly treat your daughter in this despicable way, Mrs. Tonks? She and I are grown adults, Mrs. Tonks. Fully capable of making our—"

" **GET OUT**!" Andromeda screeched, not giving Remus a chance to finish his statement. "Did you not hear me the first time, _wolf_? **LEAVE**!"

She turned to Tonks, who by this point, was practically trembling in Lupin's arms. "You are _no_ daughter of mine if _this_ is the choice you've made…"

And before either Remus or Tonks could react, Andromeda's hand cracked across Lupin's face, snapping it back with the force of her blow and causing his head to reel sickeningly, and when black dots quit covering his vision, he was still standing on the porch of Mr. and Mrs. Tonks's cottage in Bristol.

" _Mum_ , _don't_!" cried Tonks desperately, her voice shrill and loud. But Andromeda continued to stalk towards Remus and Tonks with a look of fury in her gaunt-like features, dark curly hair wild and disheveled, and for just a fraction of a second, she thought she was looking into the eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Yet underneath the smoldering fury and narrowed eyes, Tonks thought she caught a glimpse of something else. Something she'd never seen there before.

Vulnerability. Andromeda Tonks had never allowed herself to appear as anything but cold and collected, almost maintaining a detachment to people.

But now, she had lowered her walls to such a raw emotion at the news that Ted had obviously delivered to her this morning that their only daughter was dating a werewolf, seeing as how Nymphadora had confided in him, there was no need for it to remain a secret, as she was bound to discover the truth sooner rather than later. But now, her mum was gone, and in her place…

In her place was someone broken, someone Tonks did not recognize.

" **ENOUGH**!" bellowed a new voice, and Tonks jumped like a rabbit running for its skin, her heart thrumming against its chest as Mad-Eye Moody's powerful gruff baritone rent through the air. He emanated a shaking exhale and shoved his silver flagon back into the pocket of his trench coat. "That is _enough_."

There was a cold burning to Alastor Moody's rage, a piece of ice that permeated the front stoop of the Tonks' front cottage. Mad-Eye leaned over and rested a gnarled hand on Mrs. Tonks's shoulder and gave it a firm but reassuring squeeze. "Think about what you have just _done_ , Andromeda. That is your own _daughter_ Remus is holding," he snapped, his tone a harsh back as his one good eye flitted from Lupin and Tonks and back towards Andromeda and Ted. "You could have hurt her just now. And if you've _quite_ finished making the spectacle of yourself, perhaps the three of us could go inside and discuss this in private?"

Mad-Eye's good eye fixated on Remus's growing look of outrage, seeing the younger man open his mouth to protest and gave a curt shake of his head.

"Not _you_ , boy. Given the…circumstances, your presence would only make things worse at this time. I think it best if the two of you wait out here. Go take a walk and cool off, the both of you. I will handle this myself. Constant—"

"Vigilance," Tonks interjected before he could finish. Her gray eyes lifted to meet her mother's dark brown eyes and a cold shame wormed its way into the churning pit of her stomach, clawing icily at her intestines with its cold tendrils as she saw the worry, concern, and even fear buried deep within her mother's eyes at her only daughter's choice to enter into a relationship with a man who carried with him a great stigma, and not one that was for the better.

Tonks had worried her mother on an emotional level that was incomprehensible, well past what she should have done.

Whatever Moody had to say to them, she could tell by the wrath that pooled in her mother's darkened orbs, that it would not end well. She heard Remus's quiet murmurings in the shell of her ear to obey Moody's command, but she remained rooted to her spot.

Remus watched as she eyed both of her parents apathetically, or in this case, more specifically her mother. Her breathing was so calm, it made him sick.

She shifted slightly in his arms to allow him to catch a glimpse of her reflection, and Lupin froze. To look into Dora's eyes was like looking at a frozen lake. Her eyes red at the rims and screaming with exhaustion and utter heartbreak.

Tonks was looking at him with the same disappointed face she had given him a million times before in the early days of their partnership. Remus felt a stinging in his nose and his throat started to tighten as it hallowed and constricted.

"Come. Alastor is right, Dora. We don't need to be here for this. We need to leave now," he murmured, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice.

" _No_ ," she growled, and she turned away from Remus and next addressed her mother. She heaved a heavy sigh and exhaled a shaking breath, reaching up a trembling hand to caress Remus's cheek and turned back to talk to her mother.

Tonks exhaled shakily and felt a muscle in her jaw twitch. "It is no business of yours who I choose to date, Mum. Remus makes me happy." Heat scorched her cheeks and sent a fiery swell of anger through her system, but she swallowed it back down and clenched her eyes tightly shut, forcing herself to remain calm. "My boyfriend has a _name_. It's _Remus_. Not _wolf_ , not _dog_ , not animal or _beast_ , and as long as he is in my life, you _will_ start to call him by his _name_ and treat him with respect, Mum," she growled, taking a half-step forward, though, given the strong, ironclad grip that Lupin was maintaining around her waist, she didn't go anywhere, as he was preventing her from coming within a foot of her parents. "He is _mine_ now. And I am _his_ ," and she felt his grip slacken slightly at her words, and heard him sigh, though it was not necessarily a sigh of tiredness. "It is of no business of yours who I choose to be with, Mum. You need to understand."

Andromeda pursed her lips into a thin rigid line, and she too was prevented from taking a step towards her daughter, given Moody's tight grip on her shoulder.

"It most certainly _is_ my business when you _make_ it mine, young lady, now that everyone knows our daughter—the highest-ranking Auror at the Ministry—is cohabitating with a wolf," she growled. Andromeda Tonks shook her head and brushed a stray curl out of her eyes. "I've no clue where in Merlin's green earth you got your taste in men from, but they leave everything to be desired, little one. You spat in my face when you ran off with this—this _dog_!" she bellowed.

" _Little_?!" Tonks yelled, hardly daring to believe her mother's words. "You called me that when I was a child. _Five_ years old! I'm twenty-five now!"

Andromeda threw her hands up in the air, a look of exasperation on her lined but still quite pretty features. "You are still _young_ , Dora! Too young to know that love isn't a foundation to build a good solid life on. The both of you, you have your heads so far up in the clouds that I don't comprehend, Dora!"

"You're right. You're absolutely right, Mum. You are so smart, Mother," Tonks interrupted, her gray eyes flashing until they rivaled that of perfectly polished steel, just like the Hogwarts suits of armor that lined the walls. "You don't comprehend it. It's clear to me that you don't understand. My feelings and Remus's feelings on our relationship have no regard to you at all, do they? I don't expect you to understand. How could you? You don't understand, Mum!"

Andromeda snarled through gritted teeth. "You would throw away a prosperous career for a—a scoundrel," she growled, her gaze flitting to Remus, whose face remained perfectively impassive, though a muscle behind his eye twitched. "You live in sin with a creature who _barely_ qualifies as a _man_ , Dora! Explain to me what it is that I am supposed to understand about that, daughter!"

"Don't speak about Remus like that!" Tonks retorted fiercely, her face paling and her hands balling into fists at her sides. "He's right here behind me. And he's a brilliant man and wizard with a good, good heart. More noble and fierce than any other man, Muggle or Magical, that I could choose to date. You may not know this of Lupin, but I do, Mum. I've chosen him, and you will respect that choice. You would deny me of my right to be happy, Mum? Really?"

"You only have one choice, Dora!" Andromeda sneered, swatting away Ted's hand angrily when it came to rest tenderly on her slender, bony shoulder. "To marry someone _else_. To marry _well_. That is your lot in this life, my dear."

"Oh, for fu…this would not be happening to anyone else but me!" Tonks groaned in exasperation, stomping her foot, a release of frustration, as she put her hands on her hips and glowered at her mother. "What is 'well'?" she demanded hotly. "What is it that you think I want? That you think Remus cannot provide for me? To be married to a miserable old pureblood for the rest of the time?"

Tonks shook her head before her mother could provide a response, tears of frustration stinging in her eyes and blurring at the corners of her vision. "You married Dad because he made you happy! And Remus makes me happy. I don't care that he's a werewolf, or that he's older. He. Makes. Me. Happy. I _want_ him."

"How _much_ older?" This time it was Ted who spoke up, his brows furrowed into a frown.

Tonks winced and bit her bottom lip and stuck it out in a slight pout. "Older…" was all she said in an attempt to deflect the question. "By a... few years," she confessed lamely, gripping tightly onto Remus's hand, who'd said nothing during this whole exchange.

Neither Tonks nor her mother spoke for several long, agonizing minutes. Andromeda Tonks stared down at her daughter with bulging eyes that threatened to pop out of their lids and tightly pursed lips so thin that Tonks thought they disappeared.

Tonks swallowed hard and emanated another tense exhale and feeling the light but firm squeeze of Lupin's hand on her shoulder gave her the strength to continue. She bit her bottom lip, wishing that tonight had not come to this. She did not like that Remus was seeing her this way, in such a vulnerable state and on the brink of losing complete composure.

"I would not find happiness in any other life, Mum, with any other man but Lupin." Tonks raised a warning finger and added in a lowly and quite dangerous voice that sent even a tremor down Remus's spine, she felt it, "And if you _ever_ want to see me again…if you want to keep me in your life and repair my trust that you have just now _broken_ by the cruel way that you treated my partner, you will never say such cruel things against me or Remus ever again, and you will apologize to both of us, for we do not deserve what you say, but especially Remus."

Tonks let out a sigh and turned her back on her parents, completely missing the look of stunned shock on Andromeda Tonks's face. She grabbed onto Remus's hand and led him towards the backyard. "Come on. Let's…give them time."

_Way to go, T_. Ollie's voice chirped up in the back of her mind. _That went even worse than I expected, but I would say you handled that exceptionally well_.

She glanced back over her shoulder only once, and it was Moody's face that she chose to focus on as the grizzled old Auror quickly ushered her parents inside and closed the door behind him, though before Mad-Eye did, as their eyes met and locked in the briefest of stares as she pulled Lupin to the backyard before Moody could barricade himself behind the door of her parents' house.

And Tonks swore she saw Moody smile.


	41. Humiliation

**CHAPTER FORTY-ONE**

Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose, taking a deep to quell the last vestiges of her temper as her single thread of patience threatened to snap.

The moment Moody had shut the door in their faces, Tonks had looked up at Remus, teary-eyed and incredibly hurt. "So much for thinking they would be open-minded. That went _great_ , wouldn't you say?" the young witch snapped harshly, wiping away her last remaining tear with a harsh flick of her wrist. "I…"

Her voice trailed off as she allowed Lupin to take her by the hand and guide her towards a well-shaded willow tree, its tendrils swaying in the light breeze.

Tonks stumbled to where she guessed Remus was, her tears blurring her vision and making it that much more of a challenge for her to see clearly. Tonks raised her hand, ghostly in the darkened sky above their eyes which suggested rain, and wiped the tears pouring from her eyes away from her cheeks in gentle tracts.

She bit down on her tongue, trying to hold the tears that threatened to escape. The poor witch was practically hysterical at this point, seizing tufts of her pixie and tugging on them as the thundering of her heat in its cage numbed her chest.

Her lungs burned as the biting fall air around the two of them thrashed in and out of her passageways at a speed that she could not slow down for the life of her. She was sure that slick, wretched tears would slip from her eyes at any given moment, and if she strained her ears to listen, she heard Lupin talk to her.

"Sit down. Before you pass out. Deep breaths, nice and slow. You're looking pale, love. Are you sick? You're looking a little feverish. Are you sure you're all right, Dora?" The edges of Remus's voice were clipped and slightly hardened, and Tonks recognized the curtness and the clipped tones of his normally quiet and reserved voice, able to conclude that Remus was still furious.

Though not with her. She could tell by the way his eyes softened and something within sparkled.

He waited to speak until she situated herself next to him, not responding as he closed off the gap of space and pulled her close, draping his shoulder around hers. "I don't blame your parents _or_ you for reacting the way that everyone did. It is…always a shock when someone finds out about my…well, let's just say that I'm used to it by now. People like me, we… get used to it, I'm afraid," he began hesitantly, as though uncertain of how to phrase exactly what was on his mind.

Remus furrowed his brows in a frown and stifled the Mad Beast's roars of frustration as Tonks slapped his hand away when he cupped her chin in his hand, turning her head slowly and forcing the thief of his heart to look him in the eyes.

As soon as she had cleared her tears away, a fresh torrent burst forth. Her body wracked with raw sobs and she shook like a leaf, unable to repress the emotions that she had worked so hard over her career as an Auror to tamp them.

" _Talk_ to me," he encouraged, harshly but not unkindly as he rested his back against the bough of the tree and pulled Tonks close to his chest, where she stayed until the two of them sorted this out. "Scream. Yell. Let it all out," he murmured soothingly, rubbing small circles into the small of her back near her spine. "What you're feeling, it will pass, _all_ of it. Just talk to me, Dora. _Please_."

"I…" Tonks stammered, feeling a fresh wave of anger course through her veins and a fresh welling of stinging tears gathered at the corners of her vision. "It is…it's wrong, how my parents treated you just now. It's _wrong_!" she screamed, her face draining of color. " _I hate it_!" she yelled, and she looked quite livid as she tugged on a lock of her pixie in anguish and bit her lip. "It's wrong of our _society_ to treat you this way! You _saw_ the way my mother was looking at you just now like you were nothing but a _monster_. Y—you should not have to suffer this way. It isn't _fair_. To you or to me, but especially you, Remus. I tire of it! I—I never thought that I would have to defend my own life choices to my own _mother_! Can't she _see_ it? I—I thought if just one person could stand up to the way someone like you is treated then…" She huffed in frustration and felt her shoulders slump in defeat. "What does our world have against people like us who are different anyways? I don't _understand_!" she cried. But her voice cracked and lost its resolve and she couldn't finish her thought. Tonks bit down on her tongue, trying to hold back the tears that threatened escape from her lids. When the tears weren't even halfway done, Dora was empty. She couldn't have cried even if she wanted to.

She hadn't experienced this feeling before. The sadness was still there, but not raw anymore – now it was empty unhappiness - the kind she didn't think would easily lift. She felt like Lupin could surprise her with the cutest kitten on earth and she wouldn't feel a thing. She stared around her as if she were in a pit. Her surroundings were exactly the same, but they gave her no emotion.

How could that be? She needed emotion to feel alive, to feel love, but why was she empty? "I…don't understand," she said.

Remus's gaze was almost pitying, but sympathetic. "You can't right all of the wrongs of this world by yourself, Dora," he murmured quietly. "You _can't_."

"Well, my parents in there certainly aren't going to stick up for you, that's for sure! No one in there's going to help change our world on…people with your afflictions, so I guess it's up to me then. Maybe if Fudge doesn't get re-elected, Scrimgeour will listen to me for once. I could… I could _help_ you with my influence," she snarled, jerking her thumb over her shoulder towards her parents' cottage. When Dora finally looked at him, her beautiful gray eyes were swollen and sore, red-rimmed at the irises, the sclerae no longer white and pristinely pure. Strange. Strange and maybe even a little bit frightening, how much he loved her.

How this She-Stranger from his nightmares went from being someone that he greatly feared and reviled, hating and cherishing her beauty, hating the fact that the Wolf killed her in his dreams, and when he had discovered Tonks was real, that night he'd saved her life with Alastor from Crouch, he hadn't hesitated.

How during the course of their partnership, Nymphadora Tonks had become someone who he had at first feared, out of a misplaced sense that the Wolf within him would somehow burst forth from his chest and hurt her, to then becoming completely smitten and infatuated with her once his initial impression of the bright young witch had passed during the early days of their partnership, and now to wondering how it was even possible that he had ever been able to live without her. Because Lupin sure as hell couldn't imagine living without Tonks.

Just that thought alone, to live a life without this celestial creature by his side, was enough to send a wave of cold to wash over his body, chilling his insides.

This feeling to Remus was so strange. It stretched throughout his whole body. It was overwhelming to the forlorn, melancholic man, yet somehow, it made him feel complete and happy. Maybe even the happiest he'd ever been in his life.

Because of her. Lupin furrowed his brows in a slight frown as he thought of what lay ahead of them in a few days' time. His father had expressed a vehement desire in meeting this mysterious witch who it was rumored had captured his only son's heart, and he liked to hope that his dad would like Dora.

Rumors were already flying through the rest of the Order how Tonks had tamed the Mad Beast within Remus, and they both knew they weren't referring to how she faithfully brewed the Wolfsbane Potion for him every month. No, her effect on him was profound, and he doubted that Dora was even aware of it.

What Lupin felt for Tonks had no bound or depth, it was just absolute. It felt as though he were in a dangerous fire, yet he felt safe at the same time.

"She…do you think they're okay? I—I didn't mean to… _yell_ at her like that, b—but the way she was talking about you, Mum gave me no other choice, Rem."

Tonks held a pained expression in her eyes, her sincere question almost melting his heart. That was why he loved her so much, why she had an effect on him. He could hardly explain it, but even in the middle of feeling her own turmoil, she worried about what her mother thought. Dora was a beautiful young witch who wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around the soul of the world, of all who cared for her and who needed love in their lives the most, as he needed her.

It felt as though when Tonks had finally let him in all the way, that someone had given him (and to a lesser extent, her) peace. Remus sighed and pulled Tonks even closer, continuing his behavior of rubbing small circles in the small of her back.

"The only thing you're guilty of, Dora, is having a heart. Your parents cannot fault you for that. You are _not_ weak. You're…you're strong, love. Stronger than _I_ am," he commented, and he heard his voice break at his words. "You have a beauty unparalleled, like nothing I've ever seen in another human being before. A gift, the gift of being able to see the pure beauty in others, even and, especially perhaps, when…when that person could not see it in themselves."

Tonks heard the crack and wavering in Remus's voice, and she shifted slightly in his embrace to look at him. One glance up at him was more than enough. The dark bags underneath his eyes and how Lupin still appeared very pale was enough to confirm her suspicions, what she'd suspected of a while now.

Something was keeping him up at night. And she highly doubted it had to do with his 'furry little problem,' as Sirius was so affectionately fond of calling it.

Though what that 'something' or 'somethings' might be, only he knew, and Tonks thought it not her place to ask. If he was ready to tell her, he would.

Remus appeared to be having trouble finding his voice as he dared to meet her gaze, and then when Tonks turned away to look out at the river, he was more than tempted to cup her chin in his hand again and force her to look at him.

Tonks shifted slightly, turning in his embrace so she could better ascertain the emotions written on his face and in his eyes. She reached up a gentle finger and traced his lip lightly with the tip of her finger. It pouted slightly, and Tonks had such an urge to bite it, to kiss it, to wrap themselves up in the blanket Lupin had conjured out of nowhere with his wand so she wouldn't have to sit on the dirt and listen to their gentle breathing, watching the garment ripple-like skipping stones and sharing playful smiles in between tender and passionate kisses.

Remus's lip still felt slightly chapped underneath Tonks's feather-light touches, but she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. Tonks bit her bottom lip and gazed so intently at each divot of his lip as if it could map out ancient seas and hidden passageways of Hogwarts and tell Tonks everything else she didn't already know for herself. And Tonks knew at the moment she didn't want to look up. Because if she looked up, then she'd find herself at the mercy of Remus's questioning eyes.

Pleading with her, begging with his girlfriend to know what exactly it was that Tonks was doing, and she wasn't at liberty to say because she herself did not have an adequate answer enough that she knew would satisfy Lupin's curiosity.

"Do you love me, Dora?" Lupin's tone was solemn, his expression grim.

His question came out of nowhere after what felt like an eternity of silence of her just content to rest in his arms, and Tonks blinked owlishly at Remus.

Out of all the questions he could have asked of her, this was not exactly what she'd been expecting. _Do I love you?_ Tonks felt her lips part open in shock, unable to formulate a response with her lips because she was so focused on his.

What the two of them had done, there was no forgiveness. For she had dared to fall in love with a werewolf.

For Remus, she would take an Unforgiveable Curse straight to the heart if it meant keeping him safe from the receiving end of it. She thought it a true pity that the rest of the wizarding community, especially her parents, could judge so harshly what they could not seem to comprehend, how a bright young witch with a promising career as an Auror at the Ministry of Magic, could fall in love with a werewolf? Such a concept was beyond their simple minds.

Tonks wondered how long it took a person to fall in love. A second. A month. A year. A lifetime? It was like asking someone how long it took them to fall asleep. Some were asleep the minute their heads lay collapsed back against the pillows. Others lay in the wake for hours, as she had, and she was certain Remus had.

And it was only when her mind stopped churning for a while that sleep snuck in and dragged her under to REM sleep, just as her feelings for Remus had.

Tonks knew this as she felt Lupin's strong hand cup her chin and tilt it upwards, forcing her to meet his gaze and unable to tear her eyes away from him.

Remus Lupin had somehow spelled her. Tonks struggled to formulate an apt response that she knew Lupin would be satisfied with, for she was lost in his eyes, which radiated, permeated with nothing but an elegant, understated grace, and held her enthralled.

"Tell me. I want to hear you say it. I…have to know for sure." He was practically begging her to answer now. He had come to know, as well as Tonks did, that she couldn't resist when he begged, for he seldom asked her for so little. Lupin was mesmerizing in every which way.

The faint glimmer of the late evening sun daring to peek over a cloud ghosted over his pale skin and eyes as deep rich pools of umber brown flecked with tints of amber and gold at the edges.

"Yes." Tonks bit her bottom with slight hesitation. She had to know his answer, for he had asked it of her, and now, it seemed only fair he return it. "Do you?" She felt herself bite down even harder on her bottom lip, hard enough to bleed, as now it was her turn to wait for Remus to answer her question honestly.

Lupin's little strange-smile hesitated, and a glimmer of something mysterious and unidentifiable to the young witch darted through his brown eyes.

He did not immediately answer her, feeling a sudden urge to comfort Tonks, but also himself, for his nerves were still rattled from Andromeda's antics.

In a moment, he pressed his lips against hers, silently communicating his answer without having to speak those three precious words that his father and mother had always told him never to take for granted, to not say unless he meant it. And he did love Tonks, more than anything.

But he couldn't bring himself to say it. For that single moment, as he allowed himself to get lost in their kiss, it felt as though time stopped. Lupin didn't care about the people around them if her parents were watching from the window.

_Let them see_ , he thought angrily and deepened their kiss. _It's just me and her. There's no war, no death, no suffering, just us_. Dora made Remus feel like nothing else mattered but her.

Theirs was a small but warm kiss. He honestly never knew that a kiss so innocent as the one they shared together right now could be so incredibly intimate and such a bringer of warmth, sending an incredible heat surging through his body, changing his blood, igniting it as a heated wildfire in his veins.

Her lips moved in perfect sync with his, with his hands feeling her waist. Lupin felt Tonks's hands on the back of his neck play with the ends of his hair.

A smile grew on Lupin's face as it started to tickle. Finally, he pulled apart, and he reluctantly pulled back slightly to study her face, loosening his grip on her waist, and he was meant with a sight that immediately rendered his blood to ice.

_Something's wrong with her, Moony_ , James's voice piped up from the recesses of his mind. _She shouldn't be this pale, should she? She looks…ill! Sick!_

Dora's face was set in a grim expression, her lips a pursed straight line that was set in neither a smile nor a frown, her already pale skin turned a shade paler, making her hair and light smattering of freckles along her nose stand out violently.

An icy cold chill ran down her spine for reasons she could not explain as she felt her blood pressure positively spike, though whether it was from her near-death experience earlier this morning in the Black Lake incident or the violent reaction of her mother towards Remus and her relationship with him, she didn't know. She was breathing heavily, as though forcing gasps of air to return to her.

"Remus," Tonks breathed, still sounding very much out of breath. "I…" Realizing how awkward this all was and trying hard to ignore how it felt as though someone had just doused her in ice water as a cold chill traveled down her spine.

She felt dizzy. So very _dizzy_ … Tonks swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat and blinked owlishly as Lupin, who had given her a rough, but firm shake of her shoulders to attempt to bring her back to reality.

"Dora?" Remus was saying to her, his voice fraught with worry. His brows were knitted together in concern. No doubt he'd seen how pale she was looking.

"I—I'm sorry," she offered quietly, lowering her voice, and dipping her head, shooting out an arm and felt her fingers curl over Remus's bicep for support. "I—I did not mean to lose _control_ like that with my parents. I just…I didn't…I—I'm fine," she managed to gasp out, biting the inside wall of her cheek. But she _wasn't_.

To see such torment and anguish ridden on Lupin's face, over her well-being as he wondered why she couldn't breathe, the likes of which she'd thought and hoped she would never see, least of all not from a man like Remus, who was always so calm and composed. So dignified. It unnerved her. It _frightened_ her.

The ground beneath her feet as Lupin helped her to her feet felt unsteady, and she stumbled and would have fallen had Remus not been clutching her arm.

Tonks raised a shaking hand to her brow, feeling the sheen of sweat that had gathered as beads on her browbone, beginning their descent down her temple.

Something was definitely wrong with her. Why did she feel so _hot_?!

"Dora—" Tonks could see Remus's lips move but couldn't hear his voice. All she heard was a horrible, fatigued ringing on her ears, and black spots danced in the front of her vision. She furrowed her brows into a frown and clenched her eyes tightly shut, hating the wracking waves of nausea that surged into her system.

She let out a shuddering breath as she heard Lupin's voice, laced with concern, speaking her name. "Dora?" His voice was tight and taut with worry.

The young witch saw his lips move but could not hear his succulent voice. The spots dancing in front of her vision currently threatened to blind her, and her knees crumpled beneath her and gave out before Tonks could think of stopping her fall, and she would have fallen if Lupin didn't already have her arm draped over his shoulder and was helping support her weight by walking to the house.

Her breathing came in fast and hard. But Merlin! _God_! She couldn't get a good breath in. Why couldn't she breathe?! The last thing she focused on and her fading vision before the darkness consumed her sight completely was Remus's handsome face, snapping his fingers in front of her face, speaking in low tones. Though what he was saying to her remained a mystery. Then she fell into sleep.

"Dora? Tonks?" Remus watched in dawning horror as his love's gray eyes flickered and then close. Her breathing, which had been coming in such rapid gasps, slowed to an almost barely noticeable pace, and her ashen face paled even lighter, rendering her almost pallid, giving her the look of the walking dead, a corpse. "No, no, stay awake, love. I need you to…I need you to stay _awake_ , Dora."

His voice cracked as the words tumbled from his lips in a steady stream of rushed, panicked thoughts. Lupin wanted nothing more than to speak comforts to ease…whatever was happening to her. A blood sugar dip? Why did she pass out? Was she sick?

Yet nothing but panicked breaths were coming to him as he struggled to cover the distance between the Tonks' back yard and to the porch.

Remus was careful to be gentle as he supported most of her weight, though compared to times past in helping Sirius to his bedroom when he'd indulged in too much Fire Whiskey and had to sleep his hangovers off, Dora weighed practically next to nothing, but the last thing he wanted was to further exacerbate whatever was happening to the woman that he loved. More suffering.

And then, as though a light had ignited in his eyes, something dawned upon him. Something that he had nearly forgotten and damned himself for this.

Mustering every ounce of strength and breath that dwelled in his lungs, Remus lifted his head towards the open doorways as he saw Alastor and Ted poke their heads out the front door and shouted desperately at the top of his lungs.

" _Alastor_! _Ted_!" he bellowed as loud as he possibly could, ensuring that his voice carried and the men heard it, jerking his head towards Tonks's fading form. "Here! Quick! Into the house!" he shouted desperately. "Help me," he begged pleadingly, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice. "Alastor, help…"

Moody, of all people, shockingly enough, was the first to meet Remus halfway and draped Tonks's other arm over his shoulder, for the first time since knowing the man seemingly unencumbered by the staff that he used as a walking stick to aid him. "What happened to her? What the hell is this, boy? Is she sick? Talk to me, boy," barked Moody gruffly, though he did not sound angered, merely concerned for his young protégé. "Constant vigilance, Remus."

James's voice erupted into an explosion from the corner of his mind. _Oh, someone tell this old man to shove his constant vigilance up his a—_

_JAMES! Honey, don't say that! Be nice! Can't you see the girl is suffering? What happened, Rem? Why did she pass out like this? Did she tell you earlier she was feeling unwell? What are her symptoms? Does she have the flu? A cold? Maybe she's sick? Maybe she ate something that disagreed with her, but until we know for sure what caused this, there's no need to panic!_ Lily scolded her husband. James snorted as an apt response to his wife's questions, and if Remus thought hard enough, he could almost picture James Potter rolling his eyes.

_Oh, please! Over a few months of increasing closeness between these two, and if Miss Tonks doesn't get sick listening to Moony prattle on about the different types of creatures he taught defense against in Harry's classes, then I don't think anything will! Oh, she's going to be fine. Tonks can take care of herself_.

Remus became so absorbed in watching Tonks's rapidly declining health that had appeared out of nowhere and without any warning signs whatsoever, that he hadn't even noticed Andromeda Tonks come up behind him, on his left, having emerged from their living room, no doubt to investigate the disturbance.

Lupin felt himself stiffen automatically as Andromeda cut off the gap of space between herself and Remus, who reluctantly allowed himself to be led into the interior of the Tonks' cottage and down into a hallway and through a room, which he could only surmise to be Dora's bedroom when she had still lived here.

The room was sparse, small, cluttered, tucked away towards the back of the house. The walls painted a rich black, and this made him smile, albeit however briefly. Only a bed covered in a deep black and purple damask comforter, a wardrobe, a small trunk, and a night table occupied what used to be Dora's room.

Her bed was pushed against a bay window, dark curtains were drawn to prevent that outside from seeing into the room.

Andromeda Tonks, who had not been but a step or two behind Remus, rushed forward to fluff one of the pillows.

Lupin silently nodded his head at Tonks's mother in appreciation for her efforts, willing to forgo for now the harsh words she had spat as venom at him, and then with Alastor's help, gingerly laid Dora's form on top of the bed's mattress.

Once Remus had her gently settled, his emotions began to catch up to him as he sat perched firmly on the bed, and he barely was able to repress the wolfish growl that threatened to escape from the confines of his chest as her mother approached where he sat at the edge of her bed, her arm outstretched, as though she thought she could somehow pull him away from her daughter's side.

Lupin's head whiplashed so sharply upward to regard Andromeda Tonks as she dared to advance near the bed that she had to move her own head back to avoid connecting with his.

"What do you think you're _doing_ , Mrs. Tonks?" he demanded. "I'm _staying_ ," he snarled, baring his teeth, shirking away from her outstretched arm as she dared to lay a hand on his shoulder. "I _won't_ leave her."

He felt his heart skip several beats and his own fear manifested as the familiar spark of hot anger that the Wolf never failed to bring out during his time of the month. His own fear was threatening to overtake him. He inwardly shook himself and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of light brown hair. _Stay calm_.

Lily was speaking to him. _If you lose your temper, you will only succeed in worsening things for yourself, and the added stress isn't good for Dora, Rem_.

Lupin glanced sideways at Tonks, hoping that a softer surface would help her. His mind drew a huge blank, and all the knowledge of Healing he had learned over the years during his time as a student at Hogwarts under the guidance of Madam Pomfrey when it came to learning how to tend to his own self-inflicted injuries post-transformations completely fled the confines of his tormented mind.

Panic welled up within his throat, tightening and constricting it until he felt like he couldn't breathe, and he felt a low warning growl threaten to erupt from deep within his chest as he heard someone else speak up, though it quelled and he tamped down the urge to let the Beast offer a roar of frustration when he realized it was Alastor speaking. "You're going to have to stay calm, Lupin."

Alastor's voice sounded so… _distant_ , muffled like he was underwater, and yet there was the hint of familiar ice that met steel within Moody's sharp tone that told Remus he needed to listen to the veteran Auror. Yet, he could not seem to find it within himself to tear his gaze away from Dora's now-ashen colored face.

A haze of guilt and fear engulfed him as he looked at the illustrious sleeping beauty on top of her bed. Tonks looked so vulnerable, so small. Helpless.

As if she were made of silk over a glass, as if just touching her would cause her to shatter into a million pieces.

What had caused this? And why couldn't he help her?! Moody moved to the other side of Dora's bed, a gnarled and slightly clawed hand resting on Dora's forehead, and then it moved down to her arms, no doubt checking for any symptoms that she might be developing a fever or injury.

When the grizzled old Auror had finished his initial examination and once-over of his young protégé, the aging man gave a sigh of relief and raised his head to meet Remus's panic-stricken face. Moody exhaled a shaking breath through his scarred nose (what was left of it, that is!) and quirked a scarred brow.

" _Listen_ to me, Lupin," Moody growled, his tone curt and harsh, trying to get Lupin's attention. It was better said than done because as of yet, Remus had yet to react within Alastor's very presence within Tonks's old bedroom at all. "She's going to be fine, and the last thing she needs is you exacerbating her stress."

He watched in silence, biting the wall of his cheek as Remus closed his eyes and clutched onto Tonks's hand in his own, bringing her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. Moody let out a growl as he could feel Andromeda stiffen behind him.

It gave a jolt of wonder for Mad-Eye to see Lupin this way. His silence meant more, and he had hardly ever witnessed Lupin lose control in such a way.

"What happened?" Moody asked, his question solely directed to Remus, though he might as well have been talking to the wall for all good his query did.

With such a painstaking slowness, he had seen _snails_ move slower, the younger wizard raised his head and dared to meet the older Auror's gaze, his brows furrowed in a frown as Moody could see just for the first time how much color Lupin in his face had lost, more so than usual.

This little 'incident' had clearly shaken the poor man to his core and was affecting him in a grievous way.

"H—how is this _fine_ , Alastor?! She—she's _not_ fine, Mad-Eye! Far from it!" Remus barked sharply, and for a fraction of a second, Moody could see the shadow of the Wolf, that Mad Beast, dart across the man's scarred and handsome features, and judging by the audible gasps of Ted and Andromeda Tonks, they had seen it too, though with one curt wave of his hand and a heavy banging of his walking stick that sent a wave of thunder rolling across the floorboards of the room quelled whatever Tonks's parents had been about to hotly protest towards him.

Lupin's voice came out sharper than Remus had meant it to, and Moody felt himself flinch away, and even Andromeda shirked away in surprising hurt.

" _Enough_!" Moody snarled, his voice hoarser and rougher than before. Mad-Eye Moody hardened his already slightly grotesque expression in response to Remus's wolfish aggression, unfazed by the man's growling and beastly snarling, and replied in a clipped tone, careful to ensure his voice remained stoic and calm.

Though the Auror would be lying to himself he did not internally confess that it bothered him immensely whenever Remus got like this. For when he did, during those times of the month, his personality almost rivaled that of Greyback.

Moody heaved a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his scarred nose (what was left of it, that is) with his gnarled thumb and forefinger, leaning heavily on his walking stick for support. "Merlin help me," he growled under his breath, lowering his voice so that Lupin could not hear him. He sighed again and raised his voice, ensuring that all parties involved in the room, all except for Tonks, and that was only because she was still passed out from whatever it was that ailed her. "Because my ward's health is not in any _danger_ , Lupin. Tonks merely collapsed because her body became too taxed from stress. Stress, I might add," Moody growled, his magical swiveling to the right to regard Andromeda Tonks, who flinched, visibly uncomfortable by Mad-Eye's magical eye and averted his gaze. "That _you_ played every hand in causing, Mrs. Tonks. So, _this_ ," he snarled, jerking his head towards her daughter's unconscious form on top of the bed, "is on _you_." There was no warmth in his voice, all traces of kindness had evaporated.

"But—" Remus started to say but fell silent upon being on the receiving end of a particularly withering look from the grizzled old veteran Order member.

" _Trust_. _Me_." Moody snarled the command, hating that he had to be gruff with Lupin, for he thought him one of the calmest and level-headed members of the Order of the Phoenix, though, in his current agitated state of worry over his girl, the worrying would help no one, especially not his protégé to recover from it.

"Nymphadora will wake up in an hour or so and perfectly fine again. I know a little about these matters, boy, believe it or not," Moody barked gruffly.

Remus blinked and felt himself frown. _Stress_?! Stress had caused _this_?! Lupin's frown deepened and returned his attention back to the young witch lying on top of her comforter, and at least it gave him some small comfort when he rested his hand on top of hers, he could swear he felt her fingers give a twitch.

Already, it seemed as though some of her normal color had returned.

Her pale skin had a slightly healthier sheen about it. Even her breathing had regulated back to its normal rhythm, and the slow rising and falling of her chest was the sweetest sight Lupin could ask for in this tense moment of wrought concern and his spiked anxiety levels and blood pressure levels over all of this.

He was truly in awe of how small her hand was compared next to his, as the pads of his fingertips ghosted along her knuckles. Her hand, fully splayed, was still no bigger than Lupin's palm. "Thank you, Alastor," Remus whispered hoarsely, blearily lifting his head to study Mad-Eye's impassively neutral expression. "I—I did not mean to…overreact. But…I'd still like to stay. Please…"

Moody gave a gruff nod, his magical eye swiveling for a moment and then remained fixated on the closed window, the pane of glass concealed from outside view by the drawn curtain. He furrowed what was left of his scarred brows in a frown and stifled a low warning growl deep from within his burly chest, frowning.

" _What_?" Remus barked sharply, lifting his head to follow where Mad-Eye was looking at. He was not in a patient mood right now, wanting to know what was happening to his girlfriend, why she had passed out like this. Stress did not seem a satisfactory enough answer, and Moody had better speak quickly, or else the Wolf within him would emerge, and he did not want Tonks's parents present for that should it happen, given how his presence in their household was already unwanted as it was. Knowing full well Alastor's magical eye could see through walls, he frowned. "What _is_ it, Mad-Eye? What do you see?" he demanded, feeling another surge of panic well within his chest, and his gaze flitted back to Tonks. "Did…?"

_Did someone do this to her? Seven hells. If they did, I'll kill them. Kill them all. Rip them apart. Tear them. Cut off the offending arm that did this to her and feed it to the Giant Squid or Fluffy. Rip. Kill…_

The Beast was roaring its displeasure at the thought of someone harming Dora, and he ground his teeth in anger. _Who did this to her? Tell me what you see_. Was what he wanted to ask but couldn't bring himself to form the words.

He was torn between his desire to get up and stride to the window, draw back the curtain and see for himself with his own wretched, wolfish sight, but the other side of him, the Wolf within, felt justified in remaining in his current spot, right next to Dora's side, so his face would be the first thing that she saw when she woke up.

Moody's face relaxed, though his frown remained. "I thought I saw…" His voice trailed off and he shook his head to clear it. "Never mind. Whatever it was is gone now." He emanated a tense exhale through his nose and rested both of his hands on his walking stick, cocking his head to the side and regarding Tonks. "She is…truly something, Mr. and Mrs. Tonks. Lupin."

Moody allowed a dark little chuckle that was more of a snort to escape his scarred lips as he hobbled towards the door, and Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and felt a horrible surge of satisfaction at watching Alastor practically having to prod Andromeda Tonks towards the door by poking her in the back with his stick.

"Not one more _word_ out of you, Mrs. Tonks," Moody growled threatening. "You and I still need to have us a little…sit-down, regarding your behavior towards my protégé and her partner."

"We can't leave this—this _beast_ alone with my daughter, Alastor!" Andromeda Tonks's head came up sharply at his statement. "What if she—"

"Andromeda Tonks, if you do not stop making such a fuss, then I shall have you forcefully removed from your own home!" barked Moody, having lost the last vestiges of his patience with his protégé's mother and her outdated views.

Alastor, in a rare fit of anger, seized a fistful of Andromeda's dress and shook it slightly, though not enough to hurt her. "Lupin will be staying with Tonks." He glowered at Tonks's mother with such a stern expression that Andromeda immediately shrank away from him, though, in his ironclad grip, she wasn't going anywhere. "The man saved your own daughter's _life_. More than once now, if the stories are true," he added, his magical eye swiveling to Remus for confirmation, who offered a curt nod, trying to ignore the light pink blush speckling along his cheeks. No doubt Sirius had told Moody of the Black Lake incident, and hopefully left out the more 'descriptive details' of their time together. "And from what I have been able to see with my own eyes, Remus loves Tonks, more than I think he is even aware of himself."

Moody felt a sudden shift within himself give way, and his anger with Mrs. Tonks dissipated and a fatigued expression took its place as he heaved a heavy sigh.

"You will _not_ touch either one of them or remove Remus from your home, woman. If you separate the two of them now, the man will lose whatever sanity that remains intact, and when _that_ happens, the Wolf within will come out, and given your immense dislike for all things pertaining to his condition, as you have shown all of us with your despicable behavior a while ago, then it will not be a pleasant experience for you, and you won't look to _me_ to save you from him…If Nymphadora did not care for Remus, Mrs. Tonks, even in the slightest inkling, she would have stopped seeing him a long time ago. You're going to have to accept the fact these two harbor intense feelings for one another, Andromeda, and Ted."

Ted gave a curt nod of resigned acceptance, though his wife it would seem, needed more convincing. "As hard as it is, dear, I think Alastor is right. Dora knows her stuff, and if this is what she wants, then who are we to deny her? The two of them seem to share a bond that at the moment, we can't understand."

"Come." Moody's voice was gruff and coarser than usual. " _Leave_ them."

He paused a moment, ushering the pair of concerned parents out of Tonks's room, though not before lingering in the doorway and casting a cautious glance back over his shoulder.

"My ward is truly remarkable, Lupin. I have never known a brighter and young witch like Tonks to stand up for someone like you before. No doubt the entire neighborhood heard her words that she screamed to Meda earlier. You were lucky she didn't start swearing. She knows some good ones."

A sardonic snort escaped his lips and he shook his head in admiration. "You are…special to Nymphadora. I hope that you can see that, Lupin," he barked. "Don't mess this up, because, in my own way, I _do_ care for Tonks. You break her heart, I break your face," he snarled, giving a curt nod before hobbling out the doorway of Tonks's room and slamming the door behind him, not giving the stunned younger man any time to formulate an apt response to Moody's 'confession.'

Remus supposed that was the closest the veteran Auror would ever get to admitting a fondness for another human being. He blinked in surprise.

As his brain struggled to process Moody's words, his head came sharply as he stared after the now-closed bedroom door, thoroughly astonished by his words.

Of course, he already knew Dora was remarkable. Anyone with a pair of _eyes_ could see that.

He knew it the first moment he laid eyes on her in the forest behind Crouch's hideout. For what 'normal' witch could scale an entire ravine floor to safety with a Splinched arm, broken ankle, and numerous other physical and emotional injuries brought on by trauma? Tonks, like him, was a survivor.

Though what shocked Remus, though they had been together now for a few months now, was the simple yet astonishing thought that _he_ could ever be special to the young Auror. Remus thought it remarkable, how, even after all these months, how he, a lowly werewolf with no real significance, with nothing to give, could mean anything of importance to Dora. Was he really worth the amount of risk Tonks had taken to defend Lupin and his honor towards her parents' insults?

Was he worth her life? The entire wizarding neighborhood had no doubt heard of their fight. They might as well have been using Howlers for as much as Dora's voice had carried. What if she could no longer show her face in polite society because of the choice that she had made her today, and because of _him_.

What life had he condemned Dora to by daring to fall in love with her? How could he possibly be worth that to her? He couldn't begin to understand it.

"Ngh…Remus…" Lupin watched, eyes widening in surprise as Tonks stirred in her sleep, the strange ghost of a smile flitting across her face in sleep, yet she did not wake. Even more shocked that she'd spoken his name in her sleep.

And with such a profound tenderness and care. Lupin felt his heart swell and flutter at hearing her succulent voice speak his name. The feeble damned corded muscle within his chest still always tended to react so strangely whenever his love spoke his name. His own Lady of the Lake after what had happened.

It was a secret joy of his. One that he kept to himself, for if Sirius or anyone else were to learn of it how it affected him, he would be mercilessly teased.

Remus reached over and gave Dora's hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze as if to convey to her that she was safe, as long as he did not leave her alone again.

"Don't…leave…s—stay…"

Lupin felt his heart nearly skip and stop right there on the spot at the unbridled amount of fear in Dora's sleep-filled voice. Tonks was…she was terrified that he would leave her? That he would just cruelly abandon her to whatever fears lay just beneath the realm of whatever sleep she currently was experiencing now.

Now, Dora was asking of him for Remus not to leave her side while she slept off whatever mysterious ailment had come over. Which, now that he thought about it, he'd never actually watched her sleep before, but by Merlin, by God, she looked…beautiful. Angelic, almost. Now that a little more color had returned to her complexion and she was no longer under the taxing events of stress and her breathing had regulated to a slower rhythm, something that resembled normalcy.

Dora looked calm. At peace, and he would not leave her side until she woke up, and even then, was loath to leave her alone, for look what happened the last few times he had! First, there had been the incident with Sirius in the library, then she had almost drowned in the Black Lake, and what would come next?!

He did not like to think it, and it was for that reason that he would never leave her side. Remus would be here for her.

"Don't worry," he whispered, carefully propping himself on the edge of her bed and leaned over to whisper his words of affirmation and reassurance into the shell of Dora's ear. "I'm not going anywhere, Dora. I'm right here where I'm sitting, love. I'm not anywhere else. I'll be here by your side. I promise. Always."

He leaned down and pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to her forehead, though as he drew away, he frowned, and found his gaze drawn towards the curtained window. Lupin felt the dread creep down his spine like a spider leaving a trail of silk, and he could not quite shake the feeling that the two of them were somehow being watched.

Though he made absolutely no move to get up from his spot next to Dora on her bed, if he would have strode to the window and drawn back the curtain, he would have seen Barty Crouch Jr. standing outside the window, listening to every word he had just uttered to Nymphadora Tonks in confidence.

* * *

Barty Crouch Jr. felt his calloused fingers wind into a tight fist around his wand as his teeth clenched, grinding in anger as he Disapparated from the residence, knowing full well that old Alastor Moody was inside didn't sit well with him, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught before his plan could set into motion. He needed more time, but Crouch had needed to see it for himself with his own eyes, and he had spied on them like death from behind an old willow tree.

He hadn't intended to pass his anger and feelings of betrayal towards the young witch, nor had he anticipated the reaction the young woman's body would have. It could not be helped, and his anger surged like wildfire in his veins.

Meditating on this betrayal like Death. He did not know exactly what to make of it. That his Alice would harbor romantic feelings for a disgusting _wolf_.

He should have known that the dog would be all riled up, given that Fenrir Greyback had been exhibiting his trademark signs of possessiveness and typical violence towards the females in his clan during what Crouch called his 'time of the month.' And then he had come to the Tonks' residence and had seen them.

The way the bastard half-breed werewolf whispered sweet nothings into the young woman's ear, his lips pressed against hers in a fervor whispered a threat to Crouch's ambitions, towards his delectable plans for _his_ lovely little Alice. _His_.

Not the wolf. _His_. He had never thought Fenrir's species capable of being tamed, especially in the arms of a woman. A wolf and a dove. Oil and water.

Fenrir had insisted the man be captured and attempted to join his ranks as one final insult to Lyall Lupin for daring to speak out against his kin, though for the Lupin man to completely lose the sharpness of his fangs was not pleasing to see, nor to hear.

This woman, his Alice, had tamed the Beast within him somehow, and Crouch did not at all approve of the kindness. Kindness was what had killed Alice.

And Frank Longbottom, his conscience meanly reminded him. Love led the man to his gruesome demise, and it was a fate that was even worse than death.

Love is the death of Man's duty. And then, before Crouch could see even more of his Alice's defeat in the arms of a wretched half-breed with blood on his ledger, he fled off towards his own sanctuary, his safe house to meet with Fenrir.

His mind was racing fast with so many possibilities of how to solve this latest problem, and Fenrir was going to listen to him, damn it, or there would be blood. _Seven hells. I'll kill her. Kill him. Kill them all if I cannot have my Alice_.

This last thought ran as a drop of fever in his blood.

_Kill them all…_


	42. Towards Tomorrow

**CHAPTER FORTY-TWO**

Moody stifled his growl of frustration and bit the inside wall of his cheek as he leaned against his walking stick for support as he noticed Andromeda and Ted Tonks glancing down the corridor, having to crane their necks back enough that he wondered if they would get whiplash from the effort, though he doubted, given Nymphadora's bedroom door was closed, that they could see or hear anything.

The grizzled old Auror doubted the two of them could see anything. _Good_ , he thought and stifled another roar of agitation. _Those two deserve their privacy and some small semblance of peace, as much as I can give_.

Alastor groaned and rubbed at his temples, feeling every throb and pound of his splitting headache that would develop as a migraine soon if he didn't find some way to commune to Tonks's parents that neither of them was going anywhere, and the sooner they accepted her partner into their family as one of their own, the smoother this would be for all parties involved.

Especially _him_. Moody let out another sigh and cast his eyes around the small room before hobbling over as best he could and taking a seat in the armchair opposite Ted and Andromeda, his magical eye fixed on the closed bedroom door just down the hall to ensure his protégé and her partner didn't Disapparate, and his one remaining good eye firmly fixed on Andromeda Tonks, who he would have missed if he had not actively been looking, for she was situated in the far right corner of their living room, sitting perched on a small stool, one leg crossed over the other and her arms folded tightly across her chest, sulking.

"I think it is time that the two of you, especially _you_ , Andromeda, get it through your heads this very moment that Remus _is_ your daughter's partner."

"Do not speak of that—that _creature_ while you're in _my_ house, Alastor." Andromeda slowly swiveled her head to regard Mad-Eye, and the old Auror's gaze remained neutral and impassive, though the way the woman's dark eyes were narrowed until they resembled that of a pit viper's slit-like pupils, with such bitterness and hatred he'd not thought possible of the witch, he was reminded of Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Frank and Alice Longbottom's torturers, and Moody had to clench his jaw in anger and force himself to stay calm and seated within his chair. "The fact that you side with my daughter in this regard is abhorrent!"

This time, Alastor did not bother to quell the second growl of anger that erupted from the confines of his chest, though he gave a curt jerk of his head towards Andromeda Tonks in a vain attempt to use proper edict and decorum to attempt to break the invisible barrier that had been put up between the two of them, it did not seem to have much of an impact in this regard. He sighed as he collapsed into a chair and dragged it forward to sit opposite of Andromeda.

"I recognize, Mr. and Mrs. Tonks that this must be an inherently difficult time for the pair of you, as parents, to process the news that your daughter is in love with a werewolf, but I must ask you to maintain _constant_ _vigilance_. Lest you want to stress Nymphadora's condition even further by waking her with this…screeching. Calm down." His command escaped him as more of a low growl. Moody's one good eye instantly hardened as Andromeda began yelling.

"Don't you _dare_ talk to me as if you claim to understand, Alastor!" Andromeda screeched, bolting to her feet, and beginning to wildly pace about the room. Back and forth she went.

Back and forth in a repetitive motion, tugging on locks of her dark hair in anguish and occasionally shooting a venomous glower Moody's way.

"You _have_ no family! No children of your own, Auror, you cannot even begin to understand this—this monstrous betrayal! Do not berate me! That _beast_ , that monster is the very _reason_ our daughter is _ill_ , sir! He did this to Dora, I just know it, and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow this to continue. He should—that creature should be locked away in a cage-like the dog I know that he is so that he can't harm someone else's daughter! You're her _mentor_ , Alastor, why aren't you defending Nymphadora? Defend her honor, protect her from that _creature_!"

Moody gave another rap of his stick in frustration, and Andromeda's rant immediately ceased. He did, as a matter of fact, understand. More than she knew.

Alastor originated from a cruel place. Was raised among barbaric conditions and faced brutality on a constant basis. And finally, the old grizzled Auror throughout his life had learned callousness. He became quite stone-hearted. But when the bright young witch came into his life as his second protégé during his career at the Ministry, his first being that of Ollie Brennan, he knew that Nymphadora Tonks was not able to see the wizarding world through his eyes.

And mostly, he believed it a good thing that she could not. Tonks saw excitement and possibilities. He saw danger around every corner and a world of uncertainty. She wanted to walk on her own after dark, and why shouldn't she?

Why should that darkness hold more peril for her than it did for him? She was of an adult height and weight, but fast and strong, and yet, so, so fragile.

Ever since Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s attempted assault of young Nymphadora, Moody had not, in good conscience, been able to give the young female Auror the same freedoms that the other male Aurors in their department took for granted. Moody wished he could treat Tonks the same way as he did them. But if Alastor wanted Nymphadora Tonks to become a healthy and well-adjusted young woman following her attack, to learn from her egregious mistake, how she had erred, and how she must never do something so foolish again, then he knew that he could not take the risk of Tonks being attacked…or even worse.

It was an invisible cage her male counterparts would never know, these confines of being a female. Tonks had balked at it at first upon her return to the Ministry, railing against her confines, and she'd not spoken to him for two days.

And it was during those two days, and during moments like right now, where Alastor was cruelly reminded of the world's unfairness, not just to her, but to her parents, to Remus, but it was a reality that Mad-Eye Moody unquestionably accepted. A reality that he would impose on Nymphadora Tonks until his dying breath, lest he wanted the risk of burying her lifeless body one of these days. And he did not. Merlin, he did not. It was this fact and this alone that fueled the worst of Moody's wrath, and he was well past the point of tolerance for shrill voices being raised against him in anger.

"You are mistaken in thinking that I do not care for your daughter, Mrs. Tonks," Moody barked, well aware his voice sounded coarse and rough as he shifted in his seat. "I _do_ care about her well-being. But what you fail to realize is that I, like or not, am not her father! By rights, I am _not_ the one whom you should be having this conversation with. I have no control over whom your daughter loves. That _beast_ ," Here, Alastor spat the word as if it were a bitter poison or disgusting flavor of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans that had settled and lingered upon his tongue, "loves your daughter! Remus John Lupin has done nothing but _protect_ Tonks and care for her throughout their entire partnership! Lupin has done nothing more to harm than I would have, Andromeda. If I were to walk back into your daughter's bedroom, I wouldn't be surprised if I found the man in a state of near hysterics over Nymphadora's condition."

"That _dog_ has no idea of the concept of love!" snarled Andromeda in an effort to counteract Alastor's words. Her tone was bitter, laced to the brim with scorn and severe hatred for his protégé's partner, which Alastor thought unfounded.

And then, as if witch's spell, Andromeda's face rapidly paled as she fully took in the meaning of Alastor's words and her entire body started to shake.

" _No_ ," she whispered hoarsely, and she looked towards her husband for confirmation. Her voice was barely audible, and her eyes panicked, darting to the left, and right, as though looking for a viable means of escape from this unpleasant conversation. "No. Alastor, no. that's _not_ possible. How could that thing… _How_?"

Alastor bit the inside wall of his cheek and ran his tongue along the wall of his teeth as his grip on his walking stick tightened. Anger still surged through his veins, though moment by moment, it ceased, though the adrenaline still remained. His heart thrummed erratically against his chest and his breaths came in short spurts, and if he did not already live most of his life in a constant fit of paranoia, he thought for certain this one little incident would give him a heart attack.

There was no sound for the moment in the little house, yet Ted and Andromeda were the only ones who moved. Moving, pacing, not at all talking.

The air in the simple living room was so brittle, it could snap, and if didn't, then Mad-Eye Moody thought that he just might. No one spoke at first, for what was there to say? Alastor let out a slow, controlled breath and attempted to loosen his stiff and rigid body movements. He gave his shoulders a jerk and rolled his neck to crack it. It was a decent effort, enough to fool the casual observer, but for the onlooker with a keen eye, he was a walking advert for tension and paranoia.

His eyes moved with the alertness that came from heavy stress and his hands remained clenched onto his walking stick by a thick, subconscious demand.

Ted Tonks of all people was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence. "Perhaps, Alastor," began Ted cautiously, carefully eyeing his wife out of the corner of his eyes with no small measure of apprehension held within as he grabbed Andromeda by the hand and forced her to resume her seat next to him. "It is time that you told us what it is that you do know of our daughter and this man. We might not…approve of this match initially, but…all we've wanted for our daughter is to have the best possible life for herself that she could." Ted turned towards Andromeda with an unusually solemn expression etched on his weather-beaten face. "Darling, I think Alastor is right in this regard, much as you might not want to hear it. I think our daughter is in love with that man," he sighed wearily, pinching the bridge of his temples. "And nothing we say or do is going to change her mind once she's reached a decision, I think we know this better than anyone else about our daughter's personality, so the less we say to her, the better if we fancy keeping Dora in our lives. They share a bond like you, and I have, my dear."

"I just…" Andromeda furrowed her dark brows into a frown and allowed her voice to trail off as it cracked and wavered, as did her resolve, glancing down at the wooden floorboards that lay beneath her feet. "She's our _daughter_ , Ted. Our only child. I love her. We love her. All I've ever wanted was her happiness."

Moody bit the inside wall of his cheek, unable to remain silent a moment longer.

"Has it not ever occurred to you, Mrs. Tonks," Alastor cut in, glancing towards Andromeda with a much softer expression than he had only moments ago, which was admittedly a rare sight for the grizzled old Auror, "that your daughter loves him. And I can assure you, having seen the bond the two of them share with my own eyes, that I don't think Nymphadora would be happy with anyone else, nor Remus with another woman. They _are_ each other's happiness."

"I—I just…" Andromeda bit down hard on her bottom lip and collapsed back against her chair and buried her head in her hands. "It's too much to take in all at once. I—I'm so _confused_!" she wailed unhappily, suppressing a half-choked sob that escaped her lips in the end anyway, and she reached up a finger and angrily flicked away the one wretched tear that rolled down her pale cheek. "This—this happened so suddenly! I—I don't know what to do for Dora. Or—or for _him_."

"Let them be together and do not attempt to intervene," Moody answered gruffly, wincing as he rose to his feet and prepared to make his farewells. "If you separate the two of them, cutting Remus off from Nymphadora will only make matters worse if you wish to repair your relationship with your daughter. Wait. Only time will tell, though if I am right, and on such matters, I'm never wrong, I think I find myself confidently able to tell you that your daughter's in good hands."

Andromeda Tonks blearily lifted her head, clutching onto her husband's hand as though her very life depended on it, brooding surprise at Alastor's words.

The grizzled old Auror had shown his cracks again, clear as sunlight. The amount of care that he had displayed for Nymphadora, whether he was aware of it or not, oozed a horrible bitterness in his throat that no amount of his precious Fire Whiskey in that damned silver flagon of his would ever be able to wash down.

Mrs. Tonks could only watch as Moody hobbled towards the door, and neither Ted nor she made any effort to get up from their chairs to show the man the way out, for they did not need to. He knew the way, was always welcome here.

Ted Tonks's ears perked up as he heard the sound of footfalls coming down the corridors that were much too light to belong to Alastor, and soon the distraught parents found themselves face-to-face with none other than Remus.

The younger man stiffened, his posture tensing the moment his apprehensive gaze lingered on Ted as he rose from his chair and strode towards the man, effectively cutting off the gap of space between them in two swift strides.

"How is our daughter? How is Nymphadora?" It was all he asked.

Lupin blinked, seemingly not having anticipated the calm demeanor from him, which Ted found he could sympathize with, really, given the circumstances.

"She—she's going to be okay, sir. No fever or any other sign of ailments that I've been able to detect, at least. She's sleeping soundly. For now," the man answered in a clipped and curt tone, still casting an apprehensive glance towards Ted's wife, one hand buried in the interior of his brown jacket, no doubt his fingers hovering near his wand in case he felt the need to draw his wand in case Andromeda should try to attack him. "I think it best to let her rest for now, sir."

Ted nodded curtly in understanding, his mind still struggling to put together what had happened. When he had heard the man's hollers of anguish wafting in through the open window from outside, he'd not anticipated witnessing that when he'd come to investigate what was going on. Ted did not think he would soon forget the look of abject horror on the younger man's face, how every muscle in his body had seized and tensed the moment it became apparent Dora was sick.

"I was hoping perhaps," he began hesitantly casting a nervous glance towards Andromeda, who had made it a point of refusing to meet Remus's gaze and instead murmured a half-hearted apology and promptly quit the scene before Ted could so much as demand that she stay put, "that we could talk in private?"

Lupin nodded, his gaze following that of Ted's as Andromeda disappeared up the stairwell, to do what, only Merlin knew for sure, though neither man made no move to follow Nymphadora's mother, recognizing the witch needed time of her own to process her feelings regarding her daughter's choice.

There was a small part of Ted that he knew he could not deny that he wanted to see what kind of effect this 'talk' of theirs would have on Remus Lupin.

This new little 'incident' be it however unorthodox that his daughter's situation might be, was the most excitement Ted Tonks had seen in mere weeks.

Ted gave a curt nod of his head towards the empty chair which his wife had just vacated and silently gestured with a wave of his hand for the younger man to sit, noticing that Remus Lupin was actively avoiding his gaze, out of respect.

 _Good_ , Ted thought, noticing the sudden shift in the wolf's behavior. _Let him stew in it for a moment. I cannot believe this. Our daughter…and him_ , he thought as he breathed in and out slowly through his nose, willing his temper to calm down as Ted rolled his eyes to himself. He emanated a tense exhale through his nose and cocked his head to the left and silently regarded the young werewolf.

There was a small part of him that supposed he ought to be impressed. Nymphadora, in times past, had attempted to date men of action, and this man, if what Alastor had said was true, was certainly a man of action, albeit quieter, more reserved, and certainly more modest and not at all what Ted had been expecting.

"I want to know," Ted began, feeling somewhat awkward as he glanced down at his hands and weaved his fingers in between his knuckles, as Ted forced himself to remain still for a moment, fixing this younger man with a hardened stare and trying to actively avoid the trap of staring directly into Remus Lupin's hardened darkened brown eyes and making the young wolf even more at unease, though initially, at least, that was Ted's intended goal for the time being, until he learned the truth.

His daughter had tried to bring home some unusual types in the past but never had Ted thought it possible that she would want to date a _werewolf_.

Just the thought that their daughter was forsaking her ability to have children and make him, and Meda grandparents one day was more than enough to make the blood that ran through his veins ignite as wildfire, and Ted bristled.

"What are your intentions towards Nymphadora, Mr. Lupin? Or if they are as dishonorable as Meda and I are inclined to believe. We have…never heard of a werewolf choosing to cohabitate with a human, witch, wizard, or Muggle, so…Are you planning on making an honest woman out of our Dora or not, sir?"

Nymphadora's father swiveled his head slowly, almost methodically, to regard Remus and snorted, finding it difficult not to roll his eyes at the look of surprise on the younger man's scarred and slightly lined face.

Now that this was his first good up-close look at the man who held his precious baby girl's heart, he could see that he was perhaps in his early to mid-thirties. Not a huge age gap as he had previously been led to believe when Dora refused to answer Ted's question in regard to Lupin's age.

"Where are your family from, Mr. Lupin?" Ted asked, fixing Remus with a pointed look as he folded his arms across his chest. "My family's from Ireland."

"Wales, sir," Remus answered immediately, returning Ted's stare with one of his own. "And…in truth, I hope so, though I've not broached the subject with your daughter, sir. She and I have…never really discussed it, I'm afraid."

Ted furrowed his dark brows into a frown and heavily sighed, lifting his thumb and forefinger to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

This conversation he had been hoping to have, was going nowhere fast.

Her daughter's boyfriend was apprehensive, and quite possibly even afraid of him. It was as plain as the nose on his face, though in retrospect, given how Andromeda had treated him upon his and Nymphadora's arrival, that he could not fault Lupin for his current behavior.

There was a part of Ted's mind that firmly believed this man did not deserve his daughter for a wife, and whenever he looked at Nymphadora, sweet, innocent pure, he could imagine the joy of this werewolf, insane to taste her blood on their wedding night, if he were to allow this union to take place if he agreed.

Ted let out a growl that rivaled that of the werewolf's from earlier when Andromeda had attempted to have the man forcefully removed from his daughter's bedside. "Do I frighten you, Mr. Lupin? Be honest with me. I _hate_ it when I am lied to," he snapped, a low warning growl of his own escaping from the confines of his chest before the man could even think about stopping himself.

Clearly, Remus had not anticipated being asked such a question, for the young man bit down on his bottom lip and bit the inside of his cheek, and for a split second, Ted was sure, yes, he was _sure_ , he caught the briefest glimpses of the man's sharpened canines. No doubt a feature brought on by the full moon.

"I… Yes. You do, Mr. Tonks, if you want the complete and honest truth from me, sir. I would consider myself a fool not to be, sir. You have the power to ruin my life with just a single word and you would dare to try to keep Dora from me. _Sir_ ," he added, lifting his chin defiantly and sticking it out to meet his gaze.

Ted thought he might have missed it had the man not already been hanging onto Lupin's every word, intent on hearing the wolf's intentions towards his only child. He did not want to see Nymphadora get hurt again as she had when Ollie Brennan had been her partner during her days as an Auror trainee at the Ministry. Ollie's death, though Nymphadora was at fault, it was an accident, and Ted knew his daughter still to this day, blamed herself for her partner's demise.

At the thought of Ollie, he frowned. " _Good_." He snapped it, and the one-word response came out as more of a harsh bark than a calm retort to the man.

There was no warmth in his normally kind and insightful tone.

This sort of voice he typically reserved for Nymphadora whenever his daughter was putting herself into precarious positions during her job, and though he would never in his life attempt to talk her out of quitting her career as a high-ranking Auror at the Ministry unless it was proven that her life would be in grave danger, there was another part of him that feared that one day, he and Meda would get an owl or Patronus message saying that their daughter didn't make it. That she'd been killed.

Ted heard himself sigh in frustration and moved to pinch at his temples. But Merlin, he was getting a splitting headache.

"I will not have my daughter not living her best life, Mr. Lupin. An honest life. I want to know and ensure that you haven't been…using her this whole time during your 'partnership' for your advantage. How do I know you won't just use her like all the other wolves in your kin do? How can I know for certain that you aren't just as bad as Fenrir Greyback?" he growled, and he turned back around to face Remus Lupin, glaring.

The younger man was looking as though Ted had slapped him, for his already pale face had drained of color upon hearing Ted's words, and he swayed from his spot, though Ted supposed it was a good thing that the man was seated, or else Ted was sure that he would have quite possibly fainted, and where would that get the two of them? Lupin was looking absolutely repulsed by the mere suggestion from Ted that the man would even consider using such words against him.

Though Ted supposed he had to give Remus Lupin merit.

The man had bravery, as suddenly the werewolf had bolted so fast from the chair he'd been occupying that he almost overturned it, and had closed off the gap of space, the tip of his nose practically touching his, his light brown eyes darkened, with just a fleck of gold at the irises, courtesy of the Wolf within him that Ted knew him to be.

When Remus found his voice, his voice had lowered, soft, and was dangerously quiet. Ted would have almost preferred if the Wolf would shout, howl, bark, whatever it was that werewolves did to express the human side of their emotions.

"With all due respect, Mr. Tonks, how can you stand here and say to my face, that you _dare_ to claim that I have nothing _but_ honest intentions towards your daughter, Mr. Tonks? Has no one here thought to ask Dora what it is that _she_ wants, sir?" Lupin growled, taking a faltering step back away from Ted.

Ted felt his own face grow paler by the second, beads of sweat forming on his browbone as his skin pulled taut with rage as he listened to this man.

But Lupin continued and pretended not to notice Ted Tonks's growing anger. "Not what _you_ or her mother wants for her. Not what _I_ want. _What_. _She_. _Wants_." Remus stepped even further away from Ted and shook his head as though immensely disappointed by Nymphadora's father's lack of a response.

Which, in Ted's mind, only confirmed his suspicions.

"I would have thought that would have been obvious, Mr. Tonks. _Sir_ ," Remus quickly added icily, never one to forget proper edict, no matter the company or mood of the conversation, and no doubt having sensed how rapidly Ted Tonks' face was reddening in anger the longer the two men dwelled on such an unpleasant topic. "Dora is a legal adult, sir. Fully capable of making her own decisions in this life. Should this not be Dora's decision? Haven't you or her mother ever asked of Dora what it is that _she_ wants?" Remus silently seethed.

"What are you talking about?" Ted snapped, feeling a sudden shift within himself give way as the worst of his anger directed towards this werewolf currently standing in his home dissipated, immediately replaced with a sense of confusion and frustration at the man's question. Remus was staring at Ted with such an incredulous look in his light brown eyes, glistening with unshed moisture that was not that of tears, per se, but rather a quiet, brooding, and silent fury. Deadly. _Silent_.

This argument between the two was growing stale fast. Every word spat more than spoken, over-pronounced, slicing rather than tumbling through the Tonks' living room. The respect between the two men, what little of it there was for the wolf on Ted's part, had not necessarily gone, but it had merely been distorted into a close mimic of disrespect and tension for the young werewolf.

And just as friendship and love endured, Ted Tonks and Remus Lupin were not stupid, and both men knew that so would this eerie wall of bitterness that separated the werewolf and wizard from truly coming to understanding with one another, growing thorns as the minutes passed if they could not reach a truce.

Remus practically bristled in anger, standing up a little taller and curled his hand into a fist, which was trembling almost uncontrollably at his side, looking as though he were restraining himself from lashing out at Ted in pure anger.

"I am _not_ like most men in this world, Mr. Tonks, and I am _nothing_ like Greyback. I recognize and can accept that fact. I'm offended that you would even consider making that comparison," he whisper hissed through gritted teeth in rage, and Ted could have sworn the man let out a wolfish growl at just the utter mention of Greyback's name. "And Dora has her own life, sir, makes her own choices. I can't stop her, and I would be a fool if I were to try, but I will _not_ let her former partner's fate become mine. Or hers. I—I don't know how, but I give you my _word_ , Mr. Tonks, that I would _never_ hurt Dora. And it's not my place to speak on these things," Remus answered stiffly, his facial muscles tense and rigid as his jaw locked, tighter than rigor mortis and he ground his teeth in anger, allowing the Wolf within to seize control for the moment. "The answer to your questions is in _there_ ," he snapped.

He pointed a shaking finger back towards the corridor that he had just come from. "Dora is really the one you need to be discussing this with, sir. Not me. I—I am sorry that you…that we…that you had to find out about us in this way, but you cannot blame me for the way that I reacted towards your wife's insults. I see it in your eyes, you are just like the rest of our society. You think me a monster. A _beast_. Fine. If that is what you think of me then so be it, but do not blame Dora for her choices. Do not cast aside and shut your only daughter out of your lives. It would destroy her," he growled, baring his teeth, the edges of his lips curling upward. Ted flinched and shirked away. For a moment, Remus Lupin looked truly savage. Wolfish. "I _love_ your daughter, Mr. Tonks. What do I have to do to prove it?"

Ted felt his lips part open slightly to speak, but the werewolf cut him off and did not give him a chance to respond to his own question he had just posed.

"No." The word escaped Remus's lips as almost a breathless whisper. Just one word but carried enough impact to leave a profound and lasting effect on Ted Tonks. "I shouldn't _have_ to prove myself to you. Or to your wife. To _anyone_ that would dare question, my love, for her and claim it not genuine. And I don't plan on it," Remus snapped indignantly, folding his arms across his chest and glowering. "It should be evident to you and your wife how much I love and cherish Dora. It's up to you to believe my words or not, but I think all you have to do if you want to see the evidence for yourself is take a look at Dora to see it, Mr. Tonks…I…"

Lupin's voice broke and cracked as it trailed off, and he turned away for a moment to compose himself. He glanced down at the watch he wore on his right wrist and heaved a heavy sigh. "My father gave me this when I turned eighteen. When he gave me it, I didn't fully understand what it meant. But…I figured out what it meant about six months later. That time is…fleeting. Short. And it's our responsibility to make the most of our time that we're given on this earth. I know what it takes. I want to marry Dora, Mr. Tonks. And we don't have to have a wedding. I don't even know if we'll last a week, considering we're at war."

His voice cracked again, and he fought it back. "But I want her to know. Before it's too late to let her know…" His voice trailed off and he looked away. "There's one way not to lose your family, what little family I have left, sir, and that's to let it _grow_. I'd like to grow my family with your daughter, sir. There was a question that I was hoping to ask you, if you would…if you would grant me your blessing to allow me to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage, Mr. Tonks. Before I ask her, that is. I've never…done this before," he admitted, looking away for a moment to compose himself. "But I want to do it right. I want to do right by your daughter, sir."

Ted opened his mouth and had been about to comment on the strange and in his mind, misplaced undertones of bitterness and self-loathing laced through the younger man's soft and reserved tones, but it was not given a chance as he heard rustling coming from down the corridor and they heard Tonks calling Remus's name. Nymphadora's father watched as Remus struggled to stay rooted in his place until he heard a definitive yes or no from him, and Ted found himself drawn to the look in the werewolf's eyes, for laced within them, was a look of hope.

That the two of them might one day come to the beginnings of a tentative understanding, if not reconciliation for this outburst. Though there was no mistaking the look of slight distrust and suspicion, as though Lupin thought that, in some way, given the nature of their conversation up to this point and how her parents were seemingly struggling to accept Remus into their only child's life, that either he or Andromeda would try to sabotage his relationship with Dora.

"Mr. Lupin," he began hesitantly, reaching up a hand to scratch at an itch behind his ear. "If I can give you a piece of advice for a moment. In life, but especially in times of war, as our world is in now, it's easy to take the simplicity of our time on this earth for granted, but _don't_. It's the simple things in life, like…taking a walk, or dancing with your wife, or tucking in your kids at night, that make this life on this earth worth living. You have to find something worth holding onto, and if you find someone, never, ever let them go. The advice my father gave me, and I followed it and met Meda, and now I guess…I'm giving it to you," he sighed exasperatedly. "I think my daughter is…in good hands with you. I see the way she looks at you. I almost lost her tonight had Alastor not intervened, but by the grace of Merlin, I have to admit I kind of like the thought of Dora having her own personal guard," he chuckled. "Not all wizards in this life have your code of honor. I saw how you stood up for yourself tonight against Andromeda. The other poor bastards came onto our doorstep, I put them through hell. Dora never said a word," he answered curtly and fixed Remus with a pointed stare. "That's how I knew she didn't love them. But with you…she came straight to your defense, the first time in her life. She's like her mother in that regard. Strong. Independent. Has a good, _good_ heart, and an even kinder soul. My Meda's a good woman, Mr. Lupin. Nymphadora's a lot like her. When I saw you escort Dora inside earlier, I thought about a lot of things and if…you were ever to…become a father one day, then maybe you'll understand, that no man is good enough for your little girl. Until…until one is," he admitted gruffly.

Ted held out his hand and drew in a sharp breath as he realized his last words had become a sponge that had all but drained color in the werewolf's face.

Mr. Tonks could see the glittering on the edge of his light brown eyes flecked with gold at the edges, courtesy of the Wolf within him. He had hurt him, somehow, with his words just now, though he could not quell the flicker of annoyance as the man blinked and stared at his outstretched hand in a stunned stupor. "Take it," he barked, unable to quell the annoyance in his voice. "Go on, now. Before I change my mind about you. Don't worry about her mother. Let _me_ deal with Meda. In time…she'll come round."

Ted bit the inside wall of his cheek and fell silent as he waited. He hates me, I think. Yes…he does. Lupin, after much trepidation as the shadow of the Mad Beast within continued to flicker across his handsome but still lined and scarred face that put Ted Tonks greatly at unease, reached out his hand and shook it.

"Thank you." It was all he could say and only silence persisted between the two men since Ted's somewhat reluctant blessing of their future union. Lupin turned his heels slowly to leave, upon hearing Dora quietly call his name from down the hall.

A muffled noise from upstairs on the second floor of their cottage told Ted that Meda was crying. At this Ted groaned quietly and shut his eyes tiredly.

He dug in anything that he could say to lighten tensions between them.

"Perhaps," Ted heard himself say, his voice gnawed with remorse.

He wanted to apologize on behalf of Andromeda, to say how sorry he was, but it wasn't necessarily a word that registered within him, for he himself could not say with certainty that he wholly approved of his daughter's choice for a husband, given what the man was, but Lupin did genuinely seem to care for Dora, and that was all he could ask for, in the end, and Dora was going to make her own choices one way or another without him, and Remus paused to acknowledge the sudden halt.

Though the man did not allow himself to look back. "Perhaps you ought to take Dora back home now," Ted finally said, sounding resigned. "She has…been under enough stress for today, I think, Remus. You both should leave."

Lupin gave a curt nod before continuing on down the hallway, and Ted emanated a tense exhale as he heard Dora's bedroom door gingerly shut behind him, remembering full well the rage that pained on the werewolf's face when he had started sullenly at Andromeda the minute Dora's mother started laying into him. Ted remained rooted to his spot in their living room, giving his head a short shake of disbelief and letting out a tired sigh before striding over to the stairwell.

As unpleasant of a conversation as that had been between the two men, it had certainly made clear to Ted a few things that had been troubling him ever since his daughter had paid him a visit and confessed she'd grown to love a wolf.

He had always been of the firm belief that no man was good enough for his little girl…until one was. And Remus Lupin had just proved it. No one had dared to stand him or to Andromeda in this regard, had the gall to talk back.

Ted could admire that in the man. Ted let out another exasperated sigh as he ascended the stairwell, forcing his lips to mold reluctantly into a soft smile as he met Andromeda at the top of the stairs, who faced away from him and looking out their loft's window, out at the rain that fell in gentle drops to the ground.

"Meda," he began hesitantly, unsure of how to phrase exactly what was on his mind. "You and I need to have a discussion, sweetheart. There's…news," he said softly. Oh, this was a conversation that was not going to go well, Ted could already tell it by his wife's eyes, but his resolve was strong. He had to do this.

For her. He could see it in his eyes just how much Dora cared for this man, for Remus. And that, he supposed, was good enough for him.

Ted emanated a tense exhale and sighed, but not before reaching out to clutch Andromeda's hand in his own.

"Our daughter is getting married."


	43. Just Her

**CHAPTER FORTY-THREE**

She had seen this door more than once in her dreams, though it was not one she recognized in real life. And, though she wanted to fight it, to turn on her heel and walk away, it seemed as though she was about to see it again for the tenth time.

Everything about this place was disgusting. Nasty. The door itself was rotting at the edges, termite-stricken, sprawled with rust and decay, and it _smelled_. The lights flickered up ahead. In the distance off to her left, the faint sound of water dripping from an old dingy drainpipe splashed into a puddle on the floor.

In the gloom ahead of her, all she could make out was this damned insufferable door. It felt as though the walls screamed out pain, the lifeless shadowed figures curled up in the corners of their cells, whispering demented secrets. The air inside this wretched place was different, and for a moment, she was unable to put her finger on why. Then it occurred to her. The smell of sweat was gone. There was no sound of people, nothing but the eerie sound of silence.

But that wasn't the worst of it. This place was just walls, walls, and giant empty rooms. Here, she could feel the icy grip of Death, its cold tendrils wrapping around her neck and very nearly choking the life force from her, killing her. This time, however, it was different for her. She no longer saw herself standing in front of it, but rather, she was in it, in this room that smelled dank, of mold, dust, and the thick coppery scent of blood that lingered on her tongue.

The young witch stood, mere inches apart from this door that plagued her mind, and even when she made no move to get at all closer, it seemed that this door was floating towards her. And is if, by rote memory, she felt herself lean up on tiptoes to peer through the barred window at the top of the door, a hand outstretched for the knob. At first, the woman could see nothing, only a dim light, perhaps from a lighted candle, for she knew they were not allowed wands in here.

She could not explain it, but she just _knew_. That something or _someone_ was in there, trapped, and it was anything but good. A shadow drew nearer.

" _Dora_ … _I see you…_ " It whispered her name, its deep voice hoarse, rough, and coarse. In her head, she knew something was in there, though what or who escaped her mind and sight. But she could not allow herself to think it, could not name this phantasm that haunted her mind, living in the pits of her worst nightmare.

The woman could practically feel her gray eyes widen, pupils dilating to adjust to the darkness, anticipating trying, for what felt like the millionth time, to take sight of what lay within this cell. She was nearer to it still, and nearer still.

Until an eye met hers from the other side of the barred window, eliciting a gasp of surprise and a silent scream for her.

It was sad and angry at the same time, red-rimmed at the edges, the white of this strange eyeball belonging to a person that she could not make out, wrestled with hair-thin veins, shady, the skin around the eye was cracked and breaking, and it spoke to her. _"There you are."_

And it was then that Tonks awoke. Eyes half-opened, mouth agape in shock, a sheen of sweat gathered on her brow.

Though her eyes were open, Tonks could not think of why. Her heart pounded against her chest; her mind empty. She strained into the utter darkness, breathing rate beginning to steady, and as her lungs heaved to cough, she pried open her eyes and struggled to see.

The dream had left Tonks feeling severely uneasy, almost feverish in a way. She shuddered, unwilling to revisit the Stranger's eye in her mind anymore.

And yet, there was a familiarity about it that she could not for the life of her place, nor did she want to.

It was an unfathomable thought. Tonks let out a muffled squeak and buried her face in her hands, a half-choked sob rising within her throat. Her breast rose and fell heavily in rapid succession, her breaths hitching and catching her throat, her tongue refusing her cries of agony.

Who…who _was_ this prisoner in her dream and how did she know them?

There was constricting on her throat, like the weight itself sucking her last breath from her. Tonks let out a sigh, her tranquil face welcoming a struggle.

She struggled to sit up, her eyes straining to see in this darkness, their bedroom back at Headquarters swathed in shadow, but Lupin's eyes burned like midnight torches, glistening, darker than usual, the flecks of gold at the edges prominent, like yellow pinpricks in the night, courtesy of the Wolf within.

Tonks could clearly draw the agitation in his eyes, no doubt from the stress her parents had undoubtedly put them through, but there was something else: something that she began to shiver for, having recognized this look from him more than once. Something that resembled a frustrated desire, almost.

Lupin's hand was resting on her shoulder, the pad of his thumb grazing her collarbones. Tonks recognized she must look a hell of a sight, hair askew, the bedsheets a massive twist amid the sea of rumpled cotton sheets and the comforter, and a prisoner of her own mind. She turned her head to cough.

Even under a light cotton sheet, she could feel her body radiating heat like a brick right out of the oven. Her breaths, when they did come for her, quivered in short, quick gasps every time she inhaled to draw breath, her lungs having no choice but to take in the chilled night air around painfully and rigidly them both.

Tonks couldn't seem to stop shaking either. Sometimes it was rough, other times she could manage, but every time she would get close to a moment of lucidity, a new spell of violent shaking would force her wide awake back. "I…"

"You were dreaming, Dora," Remus offered quietly, forcing his eyes away from her figure, a light heated blush speckling along his cheeks as Tonks clutched the blanket to her form and she glanced down and felt her own face flush in embarrassment as her lips parted open in shock.

"You…where…where are my clothes?" she whispered hoarsely. "Did I…?"

"You've had a fever for the last two days, love," Remus explained quietly, stepping from the shadows, and perching on the edge of their bed. "You spent an hour last night getting changed all by yourself. In the bedroom for at least an hour. Your clothes are there," he said pointedly, motioning towards what looked like a silken white bathrobe draped over the headrest of a wooden chair near the desk.

"Oh." She flushed and bit the inside wall of her cheek. What else could she say to that? The trepidation returned full force and she was reminded of how horribly awkward this all was. Silence filled the air around them, hanging in the air like a weighted curtain that felt heavy and suffocating, with neither sure what to say.

Tonks blinked, once, twice, three times, but made no move to take Remus's hand, staring owlishly at his figure which sat perched at the edge of their bedside. Tonks swallowed hard past the growing lump in her throat.

"I…I was dreaming…." Her last two words seemed to deflate some of the agitations that were courtesy of the Wolf within Remus, though Remus kept staring at Tonks as she shivered, clutching the blanket around her nude form. In all honesty, she couldn't tell what a dream was anymore, on which part she would wake up from staring at the 'Eye' behind the door, or which part she fantasized.

What was real. What wasn't. Just attempting to decipher the marriage between her reality and the phantasms of her nightmares was truly a dizzying intellect, one she did not want. A hallowing bridge of her nose started to itch and tingle and added to that was a horrible stinging on her feet and her toes began to feel moist and drenched.

Lupin didn't know what to say or do in order to help her, but after several moments of this heavy silence that indicated Dora wanted him on this night, he turned and stood, rising to leave. "I'm sorry that I woke you, love. I should not have woken you up, Dora, I—I'm sorry. I'll leave you to rest. Get some sleep, sweetheart. I'll come and get you later," he murmured, his back turned away and his hand on the doorknob when there was the fluttering of what sounded like their quilt cascading to the ground and a muffled grunt of surprise.

Tonks felt her blush deepen as she quickly pulled the white robe which lay scattered across the back of the chair over herself and cinched it shut tightly.

Lupin furrowed his brows in a frown as his scowl deepened and he glanced sideways at the bright young witch who held his heart. It had been two days since he'd brought her home from her parents' home, and her fever still persisted.

She was not sleeping well at night, and what little sleep she did succumb to, much like him, appeared to be plagued by nightmares, though she refused to discuss the subject matter with him. Of memories of days long past that Dora would rather soon forget.

Remus himself was all too familiar with this and sympathized. "You have nightmares, Dora. Let me…let me _help_ you," he pleaded, biting the inside wall of his cheek.

It was not a question, and Remus was unable to pull away from his gaze from the hallowed look in Dora's gray eyes.

"How?" It was all she asked, and the desperation and listlessness in her gray eyes were almost too much to bear. "How do you think you can help me?"

"I…I don't know, but I have to _try_. Let me help you, Dora, _please_ ," he begged, and instinctively felt his hand reach for hers and gave it a tight squeeze.

The darkened circles underneath her cheek, how this wretched feverish state caused her bangs to stick to her forehead, slick with perspiration.

"I lie awake all night staring at the ceiling, thinking about how Ollie died. Do you know what I _did_ to him? How I ripped him to shreds, limb from limb, like the beast I am? I. Am. A. Murderer," she whisper-hissed through gritted teeth. "That's what I am. I know what I am, and there is no changing this about me, Remus."

To that, he had no words, for what could he possibly say to this? "I…" His voice trailed off as it cracked. He swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat. "I did not know your…former partner in life, but Ollie seemed like a strong man. I think that your…friend would have wanted you to carry on, Dora. You know it's true, love. Let me _help_ you, but I can't help unless you talk to me. I could…get you the essence of Sleeping Draught. Professor Snape can give you some."

He watched, heartbroken, as Dora continuously refused to look at him, though he could have sworn he caught the briefest of nods from her as a muscle in her jaw twitched. Remus knew he had no right to see Dora in such a state like this.

He shouldn't have woken her up. He should be downstairs with Molly and Arthur, letting her sleep, but instead, he felt justified in remaining right where he stood. Lupin emanated a tense exhale and turned to leave, though her hand on his shoulder rendered him frozen to his spot and unable to move. He sighed, turning around slowly and regarded the young witch. The red rims of her eyes told him again that she had not been sleeping and probably had cried in sleep.

With this, he felt friction. She was looking down shyly at her toes but disoriented, probably still wondering if she were dreaming or awake, he guessed.

"Remus," she called out to him softly, and Lupin felt himself stiffen. He turned, and this time her back was turned to him, his gaze lingered on the lavish silk white robe, arms wrapped around her middle, though not from the cold.

Tonks did not look back at him, her gaze fixated at the window of their bedroom that looked out into the streets of London. Lupin summoned every last shred of the man he knew himself to be, the Wolf that he knew he was, and everything else in between.

Though his vision wavered in the darkness, there was one thing Remus knew he could be certain of. Dora was there, in front of him, and though she was looking out the window and not directly at him, he could feel Dora's piercing stare burning a hole at the back of his wretched skull.

He felt the heat return to his cheeks as she strode away from the window and Tonks wrapped her arms around his middle. "You should be resting, Rem."

Remus could not answer, knowing she was right. It was the day after the full moon's cycle's end, and his senses were still coming off their heightened high. His only words to his love were, "You're right. I should be, Nymphadora."

"Then you should sleep. _Rest_. You'll do the Order no favors if you're suffering from your own fatigue, and Mrs. Weasley won't forgive you if you're not able to help her at the Burrow to prepare for Bill's wedding, Remus…"

It did not escape Lupin's attention to how clipped and hard the edges of her sweet voice were, and she was annoyed with him for using her name in full.

He could almost see her smile out of pity, and try as he might, Lupin could not get the ghastly images of her face as the Stranger from his nightmares.

Her face. Of how she had looked in terror and revulsion at the Mad Beast. And now he was here in front of her, and he could think of nothing to say. It was Dora who broke the silence first, saving him from saying something.

"Don't leave me alone," Dora whispered, murmuring it desperately against the column of his throat as she rested her head against his chest. Tonks burrowed further into Remus as another cold chill traveled down her spine, eliciting a shudder. "If I am still dreaming, then…don't leave me, Remus."

Stunned at the raw emotional desperation of her request, his grip around her waist tightened, his fingers almost raking into claws down the thin, delicate material of her silk robe. Dora's cheek nestled against the hollow of his throat, stray wisps, and strands of her hair tickling the skin around his jawline.

Her fingers tightened into fists around his shirt, as if afraid he would Disapparate and vanish right before her eyes without any kind of warning at all.

Lupin heard Tonks sigh against, a strange muffled contented noise, and his grip on her waist tightened in response, pulling her even closer until the gap of space between them was cut off. Remus felt her words more than listened.

It did not refrain him from answering with a response of his own.

"Then…it's a good dream, yes?" Lupin lifted his left hand from her waist and allowed the pads of his fingertips to stroke comfortingly along her spine.

That familiar wanton ache of fire began to spread through his chest, though it was welcomed, similar to how he had felt the morning at the Black Lake.

At this moment, he found the young witch in his ironclad embrace to be the most beautiful, delectable creature he'd ever had the wonder to behold with his wolfish, wretched sight. The smooth skin of her prominent collarbones was truly delish against his scarred and slightly calloused palms, but he craved it. Lupin swallowed thickly with a sudden craving for this She-Wolf in front of him.

"Beautiful," Remus heard himself whisper against her hair, his chin resting on top of her head, yearning to speak the words that lingered in his heart.

"Mmm?" Dora intoned, still nestled comfortably in the comfort of his embrace.

"You."

"Really?" Her voice sounded muffled, far away, and slightly startled at the honesty of his one-worded response. Tonks shifted slightly in his arms, pulling back slightly to study his face, and Remus was relieved to see a little color had returned to her face.

Remus nodded mutely, not needing to say a word, smiling gently, and reaching out a careful hand to caress her cheek and tuck a stray strand of her hair back where it belonged. "Yes."

The thought and mere sight of her this beautifully confused at his confession, needing validation from him surged a power that began to fill in the confines of his wretched chest and between his legs, one the Wolf could not ignore, and he heard himself give a low, guttural growl of wanton restraint and desire.

"I…want you, Dora." And, not giving Dora a chance to respond, he silently moved towards the woman who held his heart and gently pulled her shoulder forward so that Tonks was now facing him.

His hands landed on the cloth draped above her shoulder, feeling the smooth silkiness of her white robe. She looked almost ethereal, pale skin cut from pearls, the white robe glowing in the dark, white against a pitch-black as the only source of light came from a beam of moonlight that streamed in through the window from behind a cloud. Lupin frowned, biting down on his tongue hard enough to bleed, doing his best to resist the Wolf's growling and straining against its iron-wrought restraints, and he clenched his eyes tightly shut in ire.

"Why…why do you love me, Remus?" Tonks whispered desperately, her hands reaching up for his and tracing over the self-inflicted bites and scratches, connecting them all with invisible lines like scattered points on an old map.

She gazed up at Lupin with those hauntingly eerie gray eyes, her serene expression forever drenching his memory, and he felt himself drowning then.

"How could I not?" Remus heard himself reply quietly, cutting her cheek in his hand and forcing her head upwards, forcing Tonks to meet his hard gaze.

He took the opportunity to study his future wife's eyes. The first couple of days into their new partnership, he'd labeled them as merely 'silver.' If he were feeling particularly poetic, he called them 'stony,' but neither word did them justice. Her eyes were so solid, rich, full of emotion. They were not 'stony' or 'silver.' Her eyes, well for a lack of a better word, were grey; you could use that one-word description, but you wouldn't do her justice.

Remus was struck by their coldness, like a stab of ice. Every detail in her iris so clear, so concise.

For his lack of words, Dora was like a piece of art that nobody could understand, leaving everyone who stared confused, uncomprehending. It was the grey that flash of metal hitting the bright rays of the sun. It was like a hatch had opened in her eyes and the color had fallen out, leaving her eyes to look like the dazzling and breath-taking snow, or the sparkling diamond.

It was the type of gray that women wished would grow out of their heads. And how could Merlin do justice to a masterpiece like Dora Tonks that was already, in his eyes, perfect? How?!

Tonks frowned at the answer he gave and looked away. Lupin dropped his hand from her cheek, not sure what to do with his hands, though the inner Mad Beast within him was growling his displeasure, and he thought for a moment he would hear himself roar in frustration at the lack of skin-to-skin contact, his fingers gave a twitch, his hands urging him to explore every inch.

There were many things he loved about the witch in front of him. He loved the fading sunset behind those gray orbs. The light that danced through her hair, the sadness from a hard life nestled in the creases of her milky white palms. Remus loved all of Nymphadora.

Not just the parts that made sense, not just the parts she'd shown him during the months of their partnership and then their relationship. Lupin loved all parts of his future wife that he did not yet understand, the parts that weighed on her shoulders, the parts that only Remus noticed when he stole glances at Dora during the silences that befell them both when he thought she didn't see.

"How could I not like you, Dora?" Remus inhaled a sharp breath of air and wrapped his arms around her waist, and the softness and gentle touch of his arm against her neck made her back tingle through the silk material of her robe.

They did not speak, because, in their own way, they were already communicating. There was so much in Lupin's silence, so much that Remus just would not say to Tonks. Tonks could see by his expression there was a lot ruminating through his mind, but if she were to ask him, he would most likely just tell her how her beauty had bewitched him, ensnared him somehow.

But somehow, Tonks knew that she would always be safe with Remus, even if he did keep his secrets.

Loving him did not give Tonks the right to know every single one of his pains and doubts, to rummage through the wreckage of the man's mind. Some scars were invisible. She knew he carried his share, as did she. Tonks said nothing at first, opting instead to slip her hand into his and stood in silence, just the two of them, connected. Tonks moved her head closer to Lupin. He stood frozen, both from intense fear and exhilaration.

She leaned in, so her forehead rested against his. She closed her eyes and he followed suit, content to just bask in the newfound moment.

"Thank you," she breathed, her voice barely more than a whisper. "For everything you've done for me, Remus."

"For what?" he asked, his voice low and husky, and heavy with desire for his future bride, she who had stolen his heart before he'd even known that it was gone, and it made them about even. "I've done nothing. I haven't."

Tonks scoffed and smiled at him, her soft smile sending his heart reeling against the confines of his chest. "For being _you_ , Rem." Her voice wavered, exhilarated from the almost unbearable tension between them.

She reached up and intertwined their fingers together. He startled a little at the sudden jolt of warmth that seemed to pass through his body, but he liked the heat she gave off.

"You have done what no one else in this world seemed capable of doing around me, Rem. You have accepted me for who I am, Remus," Tonks explained. "Not for who you or anybody else wanted me to be. You don't see…all this and think it's too much for you to handle," she grumbled, gesturing to herself as she tugged on a lock of her hair and pulled a face. "You let me be myself, something not many people allow. So many times, throughout my life so far, I could…never truly be myself around anyone else. Not once have you told me that I was not good enough for you or pretty enough for you. You've never asked me to change how I look."

At her last comment, her voice cracked and broke, and she swallowed hard past the lump forming in her throat, looking away.

It broke Remus's heart, to see Dora this way. He shook his head in disbelief gently and caressed her cheek with the pads of his thumb. Lupin hesitated and bit his bottom lip in a fit of angst. "Of course, I care for you, just as you are, and nothing more. I...do...I... I just…I just want you to be happy, and why…why could you want me? You could have anyone you wanted, and you're here right now with me. A _werewolf_. A curse on society. _Why_?" he whispered into the shell of her ear and was given virtually no time to react as Tonks had practically to reach up on her tiptoes in order to gently lean in and kiss his warm lips, surprising Remus.

She pulled apart first, taking shallow, shaky breaths. She bit her bottom lip in that way she always did whenever she was nervous, but if only Dora knew just how much it drove his mind insane with lust. He drew in a breath and traced the outline of her lips with a single finger that was shaking slightly.

"How could I not?" Tonks echoed, a wry little smile on her lips as she stepped back.

He gazed at the woman he was to marry one day, his glistening brown eyes fierce yet not with anger or rage, but with something else Tonks could not identify, though it was familiar. Remus's hands moved from her shoulder blades to the top of her shoulders, holding her firmly in place.

"I…I care about you, Dora. With everything that I am, though I may not be much for you at all."

Tonks stood there, her gray eyes widening with shock and surprise, but upon hearing Remus's words, she instantly rose to Lupin's defense, angry that he viewed himself so very little. "You truly hold such a low opinion of yourself, Remus? We've been over this. Do not speak of such things, Rem! You are far _more_ than most men I know, Sirius and even Professor Dumbledore included. I love you for who you are, Remus. You're much more than enough for me, Remus. I love you for who you are. Not because you are a werewolf. I know what our society thinks of your kind, and they are _wrong_. I aim to change their views on your kind one day, I hope, if I can, for it's not right, how you're treated," she whispered softly, "but that does not mean that I care for you any less. If anything," Here, she raised a small, pale hand and carefully ran it through his hair, eliciting a tremor of pleasure from Lupin, caressing his light brown hair. "If anything, Rem," she continued, exhaling a slightly shaking breath, "it makes you that much more special to me," she whispered and bit down on her lip. She stopped moving and twisted her neck to look him square in the eyes.

His parents' words resonated within his mind as a young child as his mother and father had asked him what he wanted, and all he would have said at the time was acceptance. Of the rest of the wizarding world. Of his friends. His professors at Hogwarts.

But all of those vanished and melted away like snow dying under the first warmth of the sun. In the bedroom that was nothing but a shadow, Lupin stood close enough for Tonks to breathe in his scent of pine.

His arms wrapped around her back and in one gentle pull, she felt her right shoulder become exposed as their skin touched. Tonks felt Remus's hand in the back of her hair, how he lofted the softness as his fingers raked through it.

Then his hand moved down her cheekbones to her lips and he kissed her. Tonks hesitantly looked up as he pulled back, and the swirls of mixed emotions she saw within the man's darkening brown eyes made her frown. Lust and desire.

But before she could pull away and head back to bed, and insist he does the same and rest, before she could ponder it further, Lupin yanked Tonks to him and covered her mouth with his in a hungry, possessive kiss before she could so much as protest or ask him what he was doing to her.

He broke it off first and pulled back to study her reaction, shooting her a soft smile at how flushed her face was, reaching up a hand to brush her bangs out of her eyes tenderly, his eyes sparkling with a new intensity she'd not seen.

"I…have a private errand to run later this afternoon, I'm afraid," he confessed sounding almost apologetic with Tonks, though she knew he had no reason to be. "You cannot come," he added, noticing Tonks open her mouth to ask where he was going. "Were that I could bring you with, I could but I…"

 _Need to speak to my father alone_ , is what he wanted to say, but could not bring himself to say the words. Instead, his heart answered for him in this matter.

"I believe I overheard Mrs. Weasley last night asking you for your help today in going to Diagon Alley with Fleur and Ginny to pick out dresses."

He did not bother to repress his grin as he heard Tonks's agonized groan as she nestled her face in the crook of his neck.

"I don't _want_ to go. Mrs. Weasley and Fleur can't _stand_ each other, they'll be fighting the whole time, I just _know_ it. This is _cruel_. Cruel and unfair punishment that I don't deserve," she moaned. "Why can't I come with you?"

"Because there's something I have to—" Lupin started to say until James cut him off. _Don't tell her your intentions, Moony, you moron! Are you daft?!_

Remus frowned slightly as he looked at Dora, who shot him a quizzical look and quirked a delicate brow in his direction, confused but waiting patiently.

James continued. _DO NOT tell her that you want to marry her, Moony, for Merlin's beard! Not yet. Keep it a surprise, Moony. Women love men with a little mystery, a dash of intrigue. Besides, you want the moment to be perfect, don't you? Wait for the right moment_. _When the time is right, you'll know._

Lupin heard the Beast give off a threatening growl that caused Tonks to shirk away, and for a moment, he didn't understand why, until he came to the realization that he'd accidentally let it escape from his own lips. "Go. Away. If I wanted your opinion, Prongs, I would have _asked_ for it! This is...this is _private_! **LEAVE**!" he bellowed.

The command left him as a vicious, animalistic, wolfish snarl.

Tonks, thank Merlin, did not seem fazed or had taken offense to his outburst. She huffed in frustration and folded her arms across her chest and wiggled her brows suspiciously at his somewhat violent outburst.

"Who the hell are you _talking_ to, Rem? There's no one here but y—"

But her sentence was cut off as Lupin did not give her a chance to finish her thought, as she heard him growl in frustration as his eye twitched in ire. Lust had clouded his mind and Remus cursed himself when he got like this, she knew it. He caught her head in his hands and kissed her, startling Tonks, and nearly knocking all the wind from her lungs. Her hands worked their way around his body, feeling each crevasse of his perfect physique.

At first, their kiss was delicate and gentle.

To her, it felt like she was walking on air. It was magic, the way his lips connected with hers. Her heart was pounding. One hand was buried in her hair, pressing in softly, his other hand briefly skimmed her cheeks and down to her collarbones, leaving a trail of hot sparks in their wake. She shivered. Tonks gripped his shoulders as she accidentally bowled him over, laughing as she kissed him again as they fell, fighting her urge to break out into delighted laughter.

To his surprise, he reached out for a chair to steady himself but wound up overturning it, the chair falling to the floor with a loud crash.

As they fell, his thigh brushed against her leg through the skirt of her robe, sending a jolt of ecstasy down her spine. She began to understand. It was turning into something she recognized.

 _I…really do love him_ , Tonks thought wildly. Lupin let out a groan as she shifted in his lap and her leg brushed against his thigh. His body was hot and burned against hers as his hands wandered, feeling every crevice. His hands came up, gripping almost painfully tight on her waist.

He kissed her hungrily, in that place of desire to move his hands underneath her skirts of the silk robe Mrs. Weasley had given her, to feel her smooth skin and its perfect softness.

Drunk on her kiss, his only desire in the movement was to feel her, to love her. Gingerly, she shoved him back, her face flushed. When they broke apart, he pulled back to study her face. Her face was pink, her cheeks high with color, her hair disheveled, and her gray eyes were on fire, burning hotter than a thousand suns.

She could hear Lupin's deep loathing sighs as he allowed the Wolf within to take control, knowing by this point, it was futile to resist and try to fight.

His mind drifted to thoughts of what his parents had asked him when he was younger, what he wanted. His first answer would have been to be accepted.

But that thought seemed insignificant and it melted like snow under the first light of the sun, as he knew now that the answer was underneath him.

Lupin heard the Wolf growl in agitation as Dora opened her mouth to say something when he broke apart. "Shh." He hushed her, before moving his finger away from her lips and leaned down and captured her mouth hungrily.

His lips were firm against hers, but their kiss remained soft, gentle, slow. They held it for a few seconds before their lips began to move in perfect sync.

Lupin exhaled through his nose, not wanting to break it off, wanting nothing to bask in the heat that her body gave off, to envelope himself in her heat. His entire body felt as though it had been consumed by the overwhelming feeling of relief, combined with eccentric panic, and lust.

He moved his hand to the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her short hair, lightly lifting her up off of the bed so he could pull her into him, wanting to feel every drop of warmth, adding more pressure to their lips, deepening the kiss.

_What do you want?_

His parents' question rang in his eardrums, deafening, and the only sound that followed their words was the sound of ripping cloth rent the air and he watched the blindingly white silken robe gash in the Wolf's hands, as his fingers curled around the piece of clothing, the only barrier between himself and his love, like claws.

 _Her_. Shreds of white silk flew in parting directions and he felt the Wolf within start to growl in satisfaction. _I want her_.

 _Just her_.


	44. Favored Odds

**A/N: Once again, a huge thank to my lovely readers and those of you who leave reviews, I love reading your thoughts on the story so far, and it's far from over. Some might call this 'Crumbridge' as I've taken to calling my Crouch/Umbridge partnership, dark for reasons that I shall not spoil because you'll see, but that's why I gave it the T rating, I guess.**

**Anyways, on with the show! Hope you enjoy it! :)**

**It's my own design, it's my own remorse**   
**Help me to decide, help me make the most**   
**Of freedom and of pleasure**   
**Nothing ever lasts forever**

**-Everybody wants to rule the world**

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR **

As Dolores Jane Umbridge climbed the stairwell of the Crouch family's estate, the witch let out a sigh of discontent. She considered herself an opportunist, for it was how she had risen in rank and power at the Ministry in unparalleled time and speed and no one questioned her methods, lest they valued keeping their positions at the Ministry.

Though, the aging Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic had to admit that there was something about Bartemius's only son that was unnerving her, though what that thing was, she could not, for the life of her, identify it.

While she had initially managed to convince herself at their last appointment at the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade that she could handle this little matter regarding the Lupin werewolf's insults towards her and deal with that piece of _vermin_ herself, she was now finding herself at a loss as to how she was successfully going to accomplish this with this gruff Death Eater constantly breathing down her neck regarding updates on that Auror, the girl, Miss Nymphadora Tonks, who continued to remain like a fly at her side that Umbridge could not swat and the girl's presence in the Ministry and in Umbridge's life was constantly a thorn in Umbridge's side, and Dolores hated it. So. Very. Much.

The rumors of her growing activism regarding wolves and doing anything in her power to get the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act repealed was…most disturbing, a new development that she could _not_ let happen.

It was why she had initially sought out Crouch's son in the first place, and had presented the man with a very simple but all-together enticing deal for the escaped convict accused of murder, assault, rape, and dozens of other heinous charges: help her, or it was back to Azkaban Prison in chains, wherein he would await the Dementor's Kiss.

Throughout their acquaintance thus far, Umbridge had seen so much untapped potential in Bartemius Crouch's only son and heir. He was viewed by most in the wizarding world as the dark horse of society, given his status as a Death Eater, but in her mind, a sense of foreboding and danger was always attractive and the inspired Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic used this to her advantage to rise within the ranks of the Ministry and serve her people.

Bartemius Crouch Jr. had so much promise, so much potential to be fulfilled…

The door creaked open and there he sat, silent as the shadow Dolores Umbridge knew him to be. The man was silent. Silent. For a moment, she had sensed no other presence in the room until she saw his thick tuft of dark hair peek up over the top of the backside of the chair's armrest in which the man himself was seated precariously, lost in thought.

The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic crinkled her nose as she inhaled the scent of old brick, wood, and spiced wine, and dipped into the pocket of her pink cardigan for her handkerchief and pressed it to her nose to quell the stench of dried blood, its only evidence the stains on the wall.

Crouch was seated in a black leather armchair, his back facing her, his façade towards the window. The man himself was lax and grim, his right cheek resting in his hand as his right elbow was propped against the side of the chair. To Umbridge, Bartemius Crouch's son looked as though he himself were carved on that position, like a statue, inanimate and sullen for Merlin only knew how long.

So long, in fact, that the numerous piles of parchment that she knew was the only remaining evidence of their correspondence, the final shred that tied their dealings back to her were blown in all directions by the wind breathing in through the same window, and the candle that rested on the coffee table just in front of his chair had long since been extinguished by the breeze, cold and lifeless.

"My sources at the Ministry tell me that you will have an opportunity upcoming to do your little…what did you call it, dear? A 'snatch and grab?'" Umbridge began, in an attempt to placate Crouch's son, just to see if the man talked. "My contact tells me that a close friend of the girl's is to be getting married in two weeks from…" Umbridge sighed and pinched at her nose as she fought the beginning onset of a truly vicious headache. "From this Saturday, I believe. I do believe that, if you should take a few of your…associates with you," Umbridge began cautiously, "then pursuing the girl and that vicious hell hound of hers won't be too much of an issue for you, now, will it, dearie?"

A pause to her question was not the response that Dolores could have hoped for, and she felt the familiar tingle of ire spread as a single drop of fever into her boiling bloodstream. Umbridge pursed her lips into a thin, rigid line and picked up a parchment off the dust-ridden floor, its wax seal already broken as she scanned the contents.

"He has agreed, then?" Dolores heard herself ask as she slowly walked towards the coffee table to set the parchment on, ensuring her footfalls were audible, though given the clacking noise her pink wedged heels made, she deemed it impossible that Crouch didn't hear her. When Crouch's son did not respond to her query, she hemmed a falsely sweet and sugary girlish little cough. "I take it then by your silence that indicates he has _indeed_ agreed to join our worthy cause, or else you'd have told me otherwise if this were _not_ the case. My, my. Congratulations to your success. I not thought you capable of converting the creature, Mr. Crouch, but you have surprised me before, and you continue to do so. Here we are, then. I must offer you a sincere apology, for I did not think you would make it this far, Mr. Crouch. I doubted your abilities at first. When you first told me of your plan to capture the dog and the _bitch_ , I thought you positively _insane_ , but now…I am able to see past the unorthodox methods that you operate by, I must admit that it's genius. Truly quite remarkable, if I may do say so myself, Mr. Crouch. I do believe that your plan has merit. That it could work without fail. I confess myself surprised that your… _contact_ has agreed to send the _wolf_ a message," Umbridge said in a voice adopted by confidence, courtesy of her entire career in the Ministry of the Magic.

The Senior Undersecretary was acknowledged as she witnessed Barty Crouch Jr.'s head turn slowly to the side, and he parted his head from his knuckles. Umbridge clucked her tongue in mock disapproval as the stout, older witch saw the handsome, younger man stretch his legs, opting to rest both of his arms on the sides of his black leather armchair, emanating a tense exhale with an exhale that rivaled that of a sloth, and she recognized he was releasing tension.

But still, not once did Crouch Jr. lift his head to meet Umbridge's gaze, and her interest piqued, and had she been a cat, her ears would have perked up, and her tail twitched at the sudden shift in the young Death Eater's new attitude.

"He has. He was…quite _persuasive_ after he and I…had ourselves a little _chat_ , man-to-man. I am…very glad that our…distinguished _guest_ has come to see things my way, for he knows all too well the punishment if he does not do this for me," Crouch answered, still not meeting her gaze, instead toying with his wand and twirling it slowly, methodically in hand, much like he would a dagger. The man's first words to the Senior Undersecretary upon entering Crouch's study. "You speak to me as though you doubt our distinguished guest of honor's loyalties, Madame. I confess myself…surprised. Why do you doubt him, my dear woman? You were not so quick to doubt my abilities in the Hog's Head, yes?"

 _Because you cannot trust anyone who dares to play the game as we do!_ She was tempted to scream this at him until she was blue in the face, though she swallowed her retort as she licked her lips to moisten them and did not answer.

Umbridge basked in the man's confusion, relishing the befuddled look in Crouch's darkened brown eyes as he quirked a brow at Dolores in minor suspicion. She deflected answering the question by asking a follow up query.

"Have you had a chance to talk with the girl yet? To…convince her to come with you, without the means of…shedding unnecessary blood or causing a theatrical scene? It would mean less work on the Ministry's end if the child were to ah…shall we say, 'simply disappear.' You need not resort to causing a scene, dear, though I must confess, if you're going to proceed about this your own way, then you have picked a fine time to intervene and escort your prize and crowning jewel here."

When the man did not respond yet again, Umbridge heaved a tense sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "I suppose not, for if that had been so, then I would take it that the child would already be here, and the wolf…well…down _there_ ," she giggled in a high-pitched squeak, that, if Umbridge would have turned her head slightly to the left, the Senior Undersecretary would have seen him shoot her a venomous glower at the sound.

As if to emphasize her point, Dolores Jane Umbridge pointed a short, stout, and chubby finger at the wooden floorboards at her feet, where almost on cue, a horrible scream rent the air and wafted its way up through the air vents.

It was the kind of scream that would have rendered a normal person's blood to ice in their veins, but for Dolores Jane Umbridge and Barty Crouch Jr.'s souls, it twisted their insides and heat clamored underneath their skin, as Umbridge's mind snapped with a fevered, mad excitement at the thought of sweet, blissful revenge, sweeter than sugar, being enacted upon the vicious _wolf_.

The noise coming from down below, the screams intermingled with what Umbridge could only assume was some kind of explosion somehow, hearing wood shatter against stone, completely engulfed her, capturing her brain, rendering any logical thought or conclusion at this time impossible, and Dolores felt her stubby pink-manicured fingers curl over her wand almost instinctively.

She watched in silence as Crouch's eyes widened, and his face paled.

" **WORMTAIL**!" The man's outburst as he hollered for his servant was unexpected, eliciting an unexpected reaction from the Madame Undersecretary as Umbridge jumped out shock and surprise as Dolores saw the tepid look in Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s darkened eyes as he hollered for his latest servant, the rat.

Crouch's son's temper was on a hair-trigger this evening, Umbridge quickly deduced, though, in all honesty, when was it ever not, she thought. And yet, even now, Umbridge swore she sensed a shift in Barty Crouch Jr.'s behavior.

The smallest thing would have him flying into a rage, yelling, saliva spitting out with each jagged word. His holler, though not directed at her, reverberated in Dolores Jane Umbridge's eardrums like a clap of booming thunder, such was his rage. His was a roar of pure unbridled anger at the interruption. The man himself that flung open the door to Crouch's study on the second level of the Crouch family's estate wasn't much taller than Umbridge.

The Rat, as Crouch had 'affectionately' taken to calling Peter Pettigrew, his life, and the man, seemed to have departed on separate tracks some time ago.

But it was hard for Umbridge to tell who gave up on who first. The servant walked like his bones were only loosely connected as he hastened to appear at his Master's side, his head bowed in submission and making odd little chittering sounds at the back of his throat, much like an actual rat would tend to do.

 _Clearly, spending over twelve years as a common garden rat affected him_. _Addled his mind. He should be in a ward in St. Mungo's if he behaves like this..._

His shoulders moved like potatoes in a sack with every heavy footfall. His clothes were not badly fitting necessarily, Umbridge thought, upon her second impression of the strange fellow that resembled more rodent than man, but the dirt and dust was apparent to the Senior Undersecretary even from a distance.

Pettigrew's eyes never left the floorboards and as he passed Dolores, there was a mumbling of bitter words spat more than spoken, and the smell of Fire Whiskey intermingled with that of spiced wine. Umbridge tried to imagine Peter Pettigrew as a baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager, and then an adult, and failed.

This life was just a day at a time, but somehow, all of this man's days lead to him being nothing more than human surplus: unregarded, unrequired, hated.

"Y—yes, Master?" The man plagued with the unfortunate nickname of Wormtail murmured, actively averting his gaze, not wanting to meet Crouch's square in the eye.

Barty Crouch Jr. let out a low warning growl and bared his teeth. "What was that noise? Haven't I spoken to you about keeping our… _guest_ … _quiet_ , rat? Are you going to confess yourself incapable of that even now?" he barked, eyes narrowing as he had, just as Umbridge had, and had stepped forward to rest her hands on the back of Crouch's armchair for a better look at Peter Pettigrew's face, how the look of dread passionate was on his face.

It was even more astonishing when the servant practically fell to his knees and a violent tremor wracked his entire stout body. "M—Milord, our guest is…w—well, it's…they—they've…gone. F—forgive me, milord, b—but they've…escaped. It wasn't my fault! I—I don't know what happened, sir!"

Wormtail flinched and squeezed his eyes tightly shut as his Master's holler reverberated in his ears like a vicious clap of thunder, such was the man's rage.

Every word that the Madame Undersecretary tried to offer to calm the man down as Dolores laid a hand on Crouch's shoulder only stung, fueling the fire that burned within his chest.

Every breath felt like his last, every breath made him ache for it to be his last. His cries of rage went unregarded, contained by the walls of his body. His screamed echoed off the walls, burning flames of loathing.

Umbridge inhaled a sharp breath that pained her lungs as she steeled herself for a classic Crouch outburst. _Like father, like son_ , she thought meanly.

" **WHAT**?" Crouch's deep voice was calloused by ire, absolutely fuming and livid. The Senior Undersecretary ensured that her face remained a mask of neutrality in this instance, though she too, felt the familiar drop of anger as her brows creased together as the intense perfume of hot outrage filled all her pores.

Dolores wet her lips with an almost drying tongue as Barty Crouch Jr. bolted from his chair and seized Wormtail by the scruff of his collar and shook it.

" **I GAVE YOU THIS ONE CHANCE, RAT**! And _this_ , now you've made a laughingstock of me. " **HOW? HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN**?"

Wormtail immediately spluttered, trying, and failing to think of an apt response. "I—I went to the—to the kitchens, milord, to—to fetch our prisoner provisions, and by the time I got back, the cell was empty. It—it's been _destroyed_ , sir. I don't know how I will, milord, b—but I will take care of it, milord, swear!"

" **HOW THE HELL DID IT GET A WAND, WORMTAIL? OH, YOU BLIND, BLOODY FOOL**!" By now, Barty Crouch Jr.'s face had paled in anger, and the tip of his slender nose was practically touching Peter Pettigrew's. " **TELL ME**! **YOU IDIOT!** **IT WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING I'VE WORKED FOR, YOU BASTARD! I SHOULD CUT OFF YOUR HANDS AND FLAY YOU ALIVE FOR THIS, RAT**!"

Peter Pettigrew let out a horrible yell of anguish as Crouch lunged at the shorter, stouter man and threw his body weight behind the fist that edged closer to Wormtail's face, ignoring the man's raised hands out of a show of cowardice, a pitiful attempt, truly, to protect himself from the Death Eater's wrath, it hit Pettigrew's jaw with such force that blood immediately pooled into his mouth.

With his own two hands, Crouch grasped Wormtail's head in his hands and brough his kneecap up to the man's bulbous nose. There was a blunt sickening crack as the man's nose broke, and Barty let out a vicious snarl as he released Pettigrew's head. Crimson leaked from both of the man's nostrils, and his nose was twisted right. Peter Pettigrew made no effort whatsoever in an attempt to fight back.

"I…" Wormtail sniffled, cowering in fear, stooped, and hunched over like a withered old man out of sheer cowardice for Master, his fingers jumping rhythmically, as if in horrible spasms, his face as white as chalk. The man's eyes and mouth were frozen open in an expression of awful surprise, and though his gaze reluctantly lifted to meet Crouch's, Peter appeared not to notice him at all.

Dolores felt herself give a start as Crouch's servant fell with a pained scream and a horrible, sickening thud, as the heel of Crouch's leather boot smashed into Wormtail's face and remained there. Umbridge felt herself tense.

She had always thought Bartemius Crouch's son's violence to be in his words, every perceived flaw, every vulnerability of his chosen victims to torment.

Like twisting a finger in a wound. He'd beat anyone smaller and weaker than himself to a pulp for saying boo to him, but he'd use his silver tongue to get out of trouble with anyone bigger or stronger than him. He was a ticking time bomb. Always.

Any provocation, no matter how small or insignificant and his temper would blow. His signature move was a solid upper cut to the jaw.

Dolores once saw one of his unsuspecting victims almost get their tongue cleaved in half by their own teeth, and this moment was no different. Crouch growled and ground his teeth in anger and with his dark eyes blazing angrily, he raised his black leather boot and crushed in on Peter Pettigrew's face, again and again, over, and over and over, until the man's left eye practically popped out of its socket.

Dolores Umbridge could not even begin to count the number of stomps Crouch's boot flogged on the screaming man's face because she looked away.

It was not enough to kill the rat, though she supposed, in this case, death would have been a mercy, and what she knew of Bartemius Crouch's son, the man was far from a merciful man. He enjoyed causing pain, torturing his victims, flaying them alive until there was no skin left on their bones.

The moment Pettigrew's brains threatened to spill on the hardwood floor beneath Crouch's boot and soiled the black leather, Barty Crouch Jr. ceased his temper tantrum with ragged, short, heavy breaths. Dolores Umbridge felt the piercing stab of the handsome man's glower and she did not respond as Crouch swiftly passed her and his hands latched onto a five-pronged candle holder and grabbed at it with an angry fist, letting out a guttural roar that sounded more beastly than any noise a human man could make, and threw it into the fireplace.

Madame Undersecretary Umbridge found herself rather aghast at the waste. Such a piece was an exquisite, and hard to come by. She watched with pursed lips and narrowed eyes as the candelabra caught the flames and started to twist and melt, completely ignoring Pettigrew's antagonized screams as he clutched as the now empty socket where his eye used to be with his silver hand. Umbridge clucked her tongue.

"Mr. Crouch…" she tried to soothe the man and rested a short, stout hand on the man's shoulder. "I do not know what has happened here to your...guest, but you will find it, of that I am sure. I have the utmost confidence in your abilities."

But when Barty Crouch Jr. was in the middle of a temper tantrum, a paroxysm, there was absolutely no calming him, as evident by what she'd just witnessed.

Dolores Jane Umbridge shook her head in disbelief. "Was that little display _really_ necessary? Is one escaped prisoner really worth all of this?" she added, scrunching her nose in disgust, and let out a squeak and sidestepped to avoid her pink heel stepping in a puddle of blood near the poor rat's gouged eye.

"Of course, it was necessary! It's too soon! If that _thing_ reaches my sweet prize before _I_ do, it _ruins_ everything you and I have worked towards these long agonizing weeks, Madame Undersecretary! It has to be captured and brought back to me immediately!" Crouch bellowed angrily, the last vestiges of his patience tested as he paced the length of his study, back and forth.

Umbridge noticed the man kicked aside Wormtail's dislodged eye like it were a ball, before growling in anger and irritation and lifting his boot a twelfth time and squashed it. Dolores flinched as the squelching sound caused by the Death Eater's boot heel reached her eardrums in a truly sickening sound.

"Oh, this—this blind, bloody _fool_!" he shouted, turning towards Peter Pettigrew, whose face was contorted in a horrible grimace as the man had curled in on himself, his body wracked in pain. Crouch let out a growl of frustration and tucked on a lock of his dark hair. By Merlin's grace, what in the seven halls had Pettigrew done? He knew he should have killed this wretched miserable little _rat_ when he'd had the chance.

Barty Crouch Jr. spat near Pettigrew's face and seemed to relish and bask in the man's agonized tortured screams, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

"She will be mine, Madame Undersecretary. Make no mistake about that. Her…and the _dog_ , I'll deal with both of them myself. I'm sure Fenrir will be…just delighted to see that boy again, he's been taunting sir Lyall Lupin for well over a decade now for the man's insults against his _kind_ ," Crouch growled in an animalistic snarl as he bared his teeth, the edges of his lip curling upwards.

Crouch rolled up the sleeve of his black collared shirt, pressing the tip of his wand to the Dark Mark branded on the interior of his left forearm and winced.

Barty Crouch Jr. moved past Umbridge towards the door as a black figure materialized almost the moment the tip of the Death Eater's wand made contact with the Dark Mark, standing in the doorway, and blocking Crouch's only exit.

"Sir." The man's voice was gruff and baritone, not a voice that Dolores recognized, and given the thick black hood drawn over the man's face in the effort to conceal his features, it was almost impossible to make out any details of the Death Eater's features, thereby, she could not tell who this new arrival was.

The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister could have sworn as the man stepped forward into the dimly lit study that a muscle in his jaw twitched as he regarded the writhing figure of Peter Pettigrew, his screams weaker now, face still contorted into a pained grimace, his palms stained crimson with his own blood.

The blood from the socket where his eye used to be made a dark pool mixed with pieces from Pettigrew's shredded face, though the man would live.

Panting heavily, Crouch withdrew the silver dagger that Bellatrix Lestrange had given him one year for his twenty-seventh birthday, twisting it in the dim light of his personal study as if it could slice up the rays of the sun itself.

His seething expression was exaggerated by the darkening shadows around his eyes. Though rust had set in on the handle and blade, it was still strong.

His sweet, succulent Alice had evaded his grasp for the last time. Crouch could see the girl in a pool of blood if she did not obey his every command and his face split into a grin that arced in a sickly way, never making it to his almost sunken in and haunted dark brown eyes that glistened with unshed moisture.

"Milord." The new unidentified Death Eater spoke, pointing towards Wormtail's position on the floor, the man who narrowly escaped having his head quashed and his brains bashed in by Crouch's boot for delivering the unfortunate news of a prisoner escaping. "You summoned me, sir. What is it that you want?"

Crouch offered the new arrival a half-grin as he reached out with his boot and kicked Wormtail's still crouched and writhing figure square in the gut.

"Feed this wretched little worm to Greyback and the other _dogs_ , for the wolves, those hounds that they are, will have a tedious search tonight, Rodolphus. Our…guest has escaped. The _dogs_ would need a _snack_. Mustn't waste the good meat, what's left of it," he snarled, striding towards the door. "Make no mistake, Lestrange, I want our…prisoner…brought back _alive_. No matter the cost. _Now_."

" **NO**!" Wormtail begged, biting down on his bottom lip feebly as Rodolphus Lestrange strode towards Peter Pettigrew and knelt and gripped onto the man's forearm and began to drag the bleeding, helpless servant away. "Mercy, milord! Please…. Have mercy!" he begged, tears gathering in his one eye that remained. Crouch snorted and wondered if he should find for Wormtail a magical eye like old Broody Moody's and see if that would help the poor bastard out.

The battered broken man now missing an eyeball began to wail helplessly as Lestrange dragged him off and to Merlin only knew where, Umbridge knew, but Crouch had turned a deaf ear to the man's protests and ignored the screams.

Barty Crouch Jr. turned towards Dolores Umbridge, whose face remained impassive and clasped his hands smartly behind his back, coughing once to clear his throat, reaching up a hand to smooth back his dark tresses, though it was vain, for his dark brown hair tended to stick up in wild tufts in all directions.

Crouch said nothing as he strode behind his mahogany desk and poured two goblets of wine, holding the wine glass in his over-moisturized pale fingers, his nails forming wall without mortar. Dolores watched Crouch's face as he raised the goblet to his lips and drank, his face contorted as if the expectation he might gain enjoyment from the simple act of enjoying a glass of wine was an imposition.

"A toast then, to our future success, Madame Secretary," he called out, his voice much calmer and more resolute than it had been but only moments ago.

Umbridge could drink to that, and she offered the man a white smile full of malice and she let the high-pitched girlish giggle as she lifted the rim to her lips. "I would drink to that, but need I remind you, Crouch," she added, and it was here that her eyes narrowed as she clutched onto the goblet in her hand, "that the last thing our partnership wants right now is exposure, my dear man. It would backfire everything that you and I have set into motion. As much as I admire your brashness and brazenness in dealing with matters like… _that_ ," she sighed, gesturing with her hand towards the blood stain seeped into the wooden floor, "one that I must admit, is not unlike that of my own ambition, it will not help. I want that wolf _dead_ , Mr. Crouch. By any means necessary. He is a threat to the wizarding world and if their wretched union should be allowed to continue, then I need not remind you of the disastrous consequences that will befall not only you if you should fail in your task that you've set out for yourself, but also the rest of the wizarding world will face dire changes in regime and regulations because of your inability to—" she started to say, but Crouch immediately cut her off by a curt wave of his hand and a tsk-ing noise.

Crouch furrowed his brows into a frown, looking offended at the very thought that he might fail and pulled a face of disgust and quirked a brow Umbridge's way, practically slamming his wine glass down on his desk. "It _won't_ happen. My men and I have established the perfect time and place to strike. Our forces will move in, the girl and her pet _dog_ will be back here before either one of them realizes what's happened and have time to blink, Madame Undersecretary."

"And what of the filthy half-breed?" Umbridge asked, her curiosity piquing and getting the better of her. "What will you do with the _werewolf_?" The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister spat the last word as though it were a bitter poison that had settled and lingered upon her tongue. "What of Remus Lupin?"

Barty Crouch Jr. rewarded Umbridge's last posed question with a thoroughly disgusted look and scrunched his nose in revulsion at the mention of the man's name who held, in his mind, his precious 'Alice Prewitt.' A delusional fantasy, one of which Umbridge thought for certain she would speak to the man about one of these days, but if it would help him aid her in the troublesome task of dealing with these wolves, the plagues on society that they were, then for now, she would entertain the man's delusions of grandeur.

"The _dog_ is Fenrir's to do with as he pleases, though if you want my opinion, the wolf is as good as a _snack_ for the others, but my main priority is getting our…guest of honor back alive and unharmed. It is…essential to making sweet Alice seeing things my way, my dear Madame. Without it...our plans, _months_ of correspondence, are as good as useless and if that is true, then were I had any head of sense on my shoulders, I would turn myself into the Dementors immediately, Madame, and I refuse to go back to Azkaban Prison, my good woman. I will _not_ go back," he growled. "If I am to hold even a prayer's chance to Merlin in succeeding, I need that _back_ ," he growled, pointing and gesturing with a slightly shaking hand towards the window, where no doubt the rest of Crouch's reinforcements were now searching. "That's all this is, Umbridge."

"And if the girl succeeds in finding out the truth? Need I remind you, that you're in a race against Time itself, Bartemius," Umbridge huffed in frustration.

"She won't," Barty Crouch Jr. insisted through clenched teeth and rooted jaw, his facial muscles locked tighter than set-in rigor mortis. "Not until I want her to. It's all...part of my plan, Madame Undersecretary."

Umbridge nodded, satisfied with Crouch's answer and raised her glass, throwing her head back and draining her goblet in one swift swig. "Then may the odds be in your favor, Mr. Crouch. I have every confidence in your ability to succeed. I pray that the next time you and I meet, it shall be under different circumstances and you should have good news for me regarding the status of your dealings with these filthy half-breeds. And the girl. I must confess, I am...quite curious to see how you intend to make the young woman see things from your point of view. You will have to convince her to stay. It will not be an easy task, my dear, she is quite stubborn and strong-willed. It's why she makes such a wonderful Auror. Still." Umbridge paused and sighed. "It will be a true shame to lose her talents, but if you will kindly excuse me, my dear. I've another appointment to keep and cannot stay, Mr. Crouch, though were I able, I should be delighted to see what becomes of Mr. Pettigrew," she chortled, a dark chuckle escaping her pink painted lips. "But as such, duty calls, I am afraid," she chuckled and escorted herself out, though not before dipping her head in acknowledgment as a sign of respect towards Bartemius Crouch's only son.

As she descended the stairwell of the Crouch estate, Umbridge mulled over what their next steps would be, now that their plan had been set into motion, and there was no stopping.

She decided that she no longer gave a damn, as long as the deed was done, and she was left alone in peace.

Dolores believed that Fudge should have killed all werewolves years ago when he'd had the chance and saved himself this unnecessary strife and embarrassment of dealing with them now.

And now, this girl, this witch was interfering, implanting in normal wizard and witch's minds thoughts of lust and distraction, and dare, she even _think_ this next part, the possibility for the wolf to sire a bastard child with a human woman. Such a thought was inconceivable, incomprehensible, and an abomination.

Dolores shuddered in revolt as a tremor traveled down her spine as she made her way back outside, away from the estate.

No. She absolutely could not allow that to happen. The girl's career and her unfortunate death be damned. If she perished at the hands of Crouch, then so be it.

Umbridge could not...would not...allow the witch and this dog to continue to serve as a potential example to the rest of the magical community that anything positive would yield out of a union such theirs.

One _dog_ in this wretched world was more than enough. They did not need two. It was not in the plan of Merlin for the girl, nor for Dolores to allow this to happen. She, or should she say, Crouch, would put an end to things before they escalated even further. And as for Miss Nymphadora Tonks, that precious little thing, that bright light… Well. If Crouch had his way with her, then Umbridge took that to assume that her precious days within this world were numbered. She could not quell the feeling that Crouch would somehow find a way to escort the child back to here, where, within these stone walls, it mattered not to Dolores what became of the bitch.

As long as Miss Tonks was hundreds of miles away from the Ministry and unable to spread vicious _lies_ regarding the cohabitation of humans and wolves.

Dolores Jane Umbridge felt her lip curl upwards into a twisted sneer. Her days in the Ministry were as good as numbered, and her time almost up.

Umbridge swallowed past the burning lump forming in her throat. Hatred was all that she had left in regards to her feelings for creatures like him.

She wanted the wolf Remus John Lupin _dead_ , every last inch of him for daring to speak out against her, but first, even more than that, she wanted the accursed abomination to suffer, and what better way to do that than by taking away the one thing that he claimed to want and cherish?

 _Her_. Dolores smirked, her lips tugging upwards as visions of the Auror's death flitted in the forefront of her mind.

She wished she could be there to watch his face when the dog's mind would put all of the pieces together as Lyall Lupin's only son, the wretched beast he was, realized his entire world would crumble before his very eyes.

Dolores wanted the Wolf to know that his _mate_ was broken, battered, beaten, and dead before Crouch would slit his throat.

What then when both of them were dead? Dolores did not care what happened next. That was where she finished, for her body had lost its strength long ago when it came to matters of dealing with _wolves_. Her mind shattered and the rest of her followed suit when Mother died. _At the teeth of a wolf, no less, she thought and ground her teeth in anger. Fangs buried deep in her neck._

Without the hatred boiling in her veins, she thought she would die, and there wasn't any part of her that felt anything else but a fierce devotion to the Ministry, and the desire to protect the wizarding world from harm. Harm like Miss Nymphadora Tonks. Revenge on her was coming. It was coming very soon.

It was as they said. Only death may pay for life, and it was the girl who would pay for the wolf's insults against her, and when _that_ happened…Dolores's smile widened as she reached the final step of the stairwell, still hearing the man's screams coming from a floor below her.

When _that_ happened, when the vicious bastard werewolf lost everything, starting with _her_ , oh, it was sure to be blissful, a triumph, sweet, sweet bliss…

Dolores's only wish was that she could be there to watch.


	45. Prelude

**A/N: Thank you all to my lovely readers and those of you who leave reviews for your continuous support! Welcome to Part 2 of this longfic, where we delve a little bit further into the main villain of the tale's twisted psyche, and learning more about what lays in wait for our lovely Remadora Ship.**

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**PART II**

The morning was cruel and cold. The young blonde woman's feet, bare, bloodied, splashed noisily through the wet cobblestoned streets of Wales, and she very nearly slipped and fell on a stone. What she wouldn't give for her boots, though her brown boots lay in shreds back when she'd kicked them off a mile ago.

Her simple green dress was tattered and torn and needed to be mended, though the young woman who was not older than thirty-one or thirty-two at best, made up for this fact with a powerful motivation as her breaths expelled from her lungs in gasping, short spurts, fueled by the determination to reach her sanctuary.

To reach home. Safety. Lyall Lupin's house, given that man was practically her and Rob's next-door neighbor and visited the two of them whenever he was able.

Or Headquarters, whichever was closest, though she lacked the strength to Apparate after running for over an hour. Her heart, that damned stubborn corded muscle within the confines of her chest, felt like it was thudding, like a rock rattling in a box, as she gasped and coughed for air, struggling to keep up her pacing, for she knew if she fell, then Greyback and the rest of his wretched, miserable kin would catch up to her.

How could her life have come to this, to be on the run for her own life, and she was more worried about a man's safety than that of hers?

The young blonde glanced down at the simple yellow gold band she wore on her left finger.

A promise he had made to her of his unending love for her, and how she had said the only thing she could at the time when he had asked her four years ago, and how last night, she remembered that she had fallen asleep last night in his arms, she was sure, yes, she was sure that was what had happened, and then how something hard and sharp had come down upon the back of her skull practically the instant she had stepped foot outside to Disapparate as it had been her turn on guard duty tonight.

And then the world had gone black.

The young woman had woken up this morning in a dimly lit prison cell, not knowing how she'd gotten here, in a hollow slab of stone and concrete that was little more than a cage, intended to trap her within its confines.

She could remember that much. Blearily opening her eyes, struggling to get a good look at her surroundings, and how it had taken the young blonde woman more than a few moments to understand her predicament, and through the hazy fog that was her mind as her thoughts struggled to catch up and process what had happened, therein came the booming barks of two heavily muscled purebred hunting dogs.

Hestia had blinked up then, to see one of Greyback's men grinning at her, wickedly, the ring of keys clutched in his gloved hand, a length of rope in the other.

The rest of her surroundings had then come into such a sharp, pristine focus with the sound, and the dog that glowered back at her with narrowed, yellowed eyes, was straining at the edges of his chains, barking and snarling maddeningly, practically foaming at the mouth, eager to clamp its jaws onto her pristine, supple, unblemished flesh, wherein it would feast on her bones for a snack.

_Why would he want dogs if his entire clan are a bunch of werewolves?_ Hestia couldn't help but wonder. Unless this was all Fenrir's idea of a sick, monstrous joke.

The wizard wrenched open the door of her cage deep within the dungeons of wherever 'here' was, for Hestia Jones, as the creature's foaming jaws snapped towards the young blonde, and the young thirty-one-year-old felt a hot prickling sensation run down the front of her face, starting at her left browbone.

Shaking, tentatively, she reached up a hand to swipe at the cut, the pads of her fingers coming away bloody. The guard assigned to her bound her hands with a pair of manacles and led her roughly out of the dungeon's passageway, up the stairs and out onto the front entrance, where Fenrir Greyback lay in wait.

The man awaited her with bated breath, flashing gray eyes, steely, and full of malevolence, his listless gaze fixated solely upon the young blonde. The young blonde swallowed nervously past the swelling lump in her throat as the Alpha of the werewolves of these parts reached up a hairy hand to rest his fist in his cheek and he smiled at the younger girl.

"Good morning, my dear," the man greeted her jovially, a wolfish grin splitting apart his face, gray eyes glinting in the blood-soaked red dawn of the sun. Soon, the dawn was truly going to be blood-red if she could not find a way to escape this hellish nightmare and make it back towards her home, to him.

Short thick dark locks framed a lined but still handsome face or would have been were it not covered in thick, coarse black hair, a man in his fiftieth year, but the smile that was pasted onto his features did not reach his listless eyes, and it was this alone that made her afraid.

"It is quite rude, girl, not to return a greeting to your superiors, Jones. But for now, given what you have done, how you attempted to have one of my own kin apprehended last week, I will allow your rudeness a pass, if we play a little game of chase, you and I," the werewolf grinned, leaning forward conspiratorially, a look on his face like he had a dirty secret he wanted to share with the young Order of the Phoenix member. "Oh, it's going to be so much _fun_!"

The young woman glowered at him. She would not give him the satisfaction, which only goaded this man, her master, even further to taunt her.

"Oh, my dear. How you truly are a pretty little thing. Like a golden ray of sunshine or a sunflower. I almost hate to ruin your face, but considering what you have done, it seems only appropriate, but I consider myself a _merciful_ wolf, so…I'm going to give you a head start. It's only fair."

Greyback's face was pleasant and reasonable, but the glistening moisture in his cobalt eyes was just predatory. The young blonde swallowed, biting the wall of her cheek, and then her tongue, tasting the coppery tang of blood and metallic as it welled on her tongue.

When she made no move to bolt off of the steps and make for the woods that lined the prison, a shortcut that would lead her towards her and her husband's own home, a short distance away from Lyall Lupin's residence, Fenrir furrowed his dark brows into a frown. "Are you stupid? Don't just stand there. Time's wasting. Go." He urged the girl, his smile widening. " **GO**!" The werewolf bellowed, throwing back his head and eliciting a wild laugh with no remorse, chilling the young blonde's insides, her veins to ice.

Hestia did not need to be told a third time. Letting out a muffled squeak of terror, she was broken out of her stupor as she bolted into a run, making for the forest. She was the quarry for Fenrir Greyback's sick hunt, and she, his prey. A stab of fear pricked the young blonde woman's heart as she could hear the shouts of the wolf barking commands to his hounds, their baying howls in the not-so-distant feet behind her.

She had the disadvantage here. Fenrir Greyback had his vicious hell hounds, those beasts, advanced speed, heightened senses, and all she had was a ruined green dress and overtop that a robe to keep her warm in the cold bitter night air, and a pair of manacles binding her wrists together that were of no use to her unless she could find a way to strangle him with them.

Gasping heavily, clutching at her bruised ribcage, the young woman weakly surveyed the area, starting to recognize things as she reacquainted herself with the rising sun. The girl had come this far, and it was then that an idea began to take root in her mind.

Spurred to propel her body even further and faster by the sound of that wretched hell hound getting closer, the blonde stumbled forward and knelt by the babbling brook as it widened deeper into the woods, still shallow enough that she could easily walk across it.

Even the soft susurration of the branches felt heavy in her ears. Her sense of smell was sensitized, the loam in the earth and the decomposing of the fall leaves that fell from their branches to join their fallen brethren on the ground made the atmosphere in the woods close and thick.

The blackness nurtured within the young woman a horrible sense of claustrophobia inside her, though the woodland seemed to stretch on for miles with seemingly no end in sight for the poor lost young witch.

The narrow path that the young woman had chosen to follow, which was made uneven by the knotted roots that crossed it, branched at intervals. There was no map for the young woman to follow, but even if she had been in possession of one, the perpetual dark would have prevented the blonde from using it to guide her way out of this forsaken place.

The barren branches of the trees spiked into the sky—no sign of life other than the young woman to be found anywhere, a fact which greatly unnerved her. It was so dark, as she reached out a hand in front of her, blindly groping in the hopes she would find something— _anything_ — to rest her hand upon and guide her way, she could barely see where she was going. There was only the sound of the rustling branches and the eerie howl of the wind at her back.

The young woman did not know what lay ahead of her in this dark forest, or what new life awaited her once she reached home and her husband.

And maybe even Lyall could help her if the man was at home, that is.

To make it back to him was to reach her safety, that place of Eden that she could call home if only she could escape her master and his hounds. But what she did know was that it wasn't going to be a pleasant journey. The young woman stifled a groan as she forced herself to take one step forward, and then another.

Her feet hurt, screaming and bleeding, the forming blisters on the backs of her heels begging her to stop and rest, and she felt tired, so incredibly exhausted, stressed, and quite frankly, overwhelmed.

But Hestia felt a surge of determination course through her veins and she clenched her jaw shut. She narrowed her eyes as she looked ahead, straining to see any signs of life ahead that she could spot, and…wait.

Wait a second. "Is that a light?" she breathed. It was quite dim, but it did seem to be there, perhaps a traveler camping.

For a moment, she felt exhilarated. Merlin was kind to her, for He had provided for the young woman a way out of these cursed woods and away from her old master. It was a light.

A real, honest-to-goodness light. That was her way out, it just had to be.

There could be no other explanation. The young woman was not entirely sure if she had spoken out loud to herself just now or if she'd had another inner musing again, but it mattered not. She decided to follow the light and make her way towards it and see where it led.

She clung to that flicker of hope that burned bright within her chest as she inched her way towards the light carefully, trying to be mindful to not let her small satchel or her dress snag on any outstretched, groping tree limbs. The young woman furrowed her brows into a frown as she continued staring at that strange light.

But from which direction was it coming from?

Was the thing she was so enamored with even a light guiding the way at all? It was difficult for her to tell, but it was still there. If these woods were somehow magic and cursed, then the forest was doing an excellent job of playing tricks upon the young woman's somewhat susceptible and imaginative mind. She had to know.

The light grew blindingly brighter as the young woman advanced upon the light, coming to a clearing of sorts. But what in God's name was it? Moonlight?

A campfire from Muggles camping, maybe? Fireflies? The young woman sighed, letting out a cry of frustration as she hoped it was not just her mind playing tricks on her in its emotionally compromised state. She had already given up so much this morning. Her freedom, her love, and soon, it would be her very life.

The young woman felt the wind tousle the skirts of her dress and tousle her short shaggy blonde hair.

"H—hello?" she called out timidly, cupping her hands around her face. She still could not see the source of this mysterious light that had led her into the clearing and was seemingly getting further away from her, no matter how many steps forward she could feel her footfalls taking her, apparently no longer taking directions from her mind and walking towards the light of their own accord. "Hello?" she shouted.

There was no answer. The young woman frowned, feeling her shoulders slump in defeat.

"Perhaps it was the sunlight, then." The young woman's eyes caught the soft tumble of movement as her gaze followed a single red and brown leaf as it tumbled to the ground, drifting almost impossibly slowly from the branches just above her head that she had to duck to avoid getting hit by. The young woman tiredly shook her head and blinked her eyes, trying to clear the swirling haze of black mists from her vision.

"Hello?" She tried again. "Is someone out there?" The young woman called out in an uncertain voice, careful to keep her voice low in case her Master and his wretched dog was nearby. "Please! I—I'm lost a—and being chased! Please help me!" Silence.

Silence gnawed at her insides. Silence hung in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground. The silence was like a gaping void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything. The silence was poisonous in its nothingness. Silence clung to the young woman like a poisonous cloud that at any moment could choke the life from the young woman. Silence seeped into her every pore, like a poison slowly paralyzing the young woman from either speech or movement.

All she could hear in response to her pleading calls were the sound of her own breaths, that sounded much too slow for her own comfort. Was she really breathing that slowly?

She was going to most assuredly die if she kept on like this. She inhaled a sharp breath of cold fall air, attempting to force air to return to her lungs to ensure her breathing rate (and her heart rate) returned to something that resembled normalcy. She felt like she was hyperventilating right now. The thoughts began accelerating inside the young woman's head. The girl wanted them to slow so she could breathe but they won't.

Her breaths come in gasps and the young woman suddenly felt like she was on the verge of passing out from sheer exertion and stress. She could swear she could feel her heart hammering inside her chest as it belonged to a rabbit running for its skin.

An invisible hand clamped over the young woman's mouth, just as an equally ghostly surge of adrenaline pierced her heart, unloading in an instant. The young woman could feel her ribs heaving as if bound by ropes, straining to inflate her lungs. God, why couldn't she breathe?

Was she even still alive?

There was a distance in the young woman's eyes as they glossed over, straining for any further signs of that mysterious light that had led her into the forest clearing, but none came to her.

Her head felt like a myriad of fears rapidly spiraling out of her control, each one pushing her mind into a horrible blackness.

She wanted to run. She needed to freeze. Sounds that were nearby suddenly sounded far off in the distance. As if she were no longer in the body that currently rested against the bark of an old oak tree as she slumped to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest and trying to curl into herself for warmth as much as she possibly could. Her voice came out thin and distant as she let out a low whimper.

"What…no…lost…that's…not…right." Hestia knew she was breathing all wrong, beginning to gasp like there was not enough air in these woods for her. Adrenaline flooded the young woman's system. It pumped and beat within her veins like it was trying to escape. She thought her heart would explode; her dark eyes wide with fear at the current state of her predicament.

She was lost, and with the werewolf and his clan after her, she was sure to die. Her body either wanted to run deeper into the heart of the woods, to try to seek shelter for the night, or back towards the way she had come and hope that she could find her way back to the pathway from there, but there was only one thing she could do. Pray that nothing found her and killed her. Especially not the wolves. She swallowed hard.

The young woman could feel the adrenaline surging so fast that she almost vomited, able to taste the saliva thickening in the back of her throat and coating her tongue, beads of sweat trickling down her delicate brow. The young woman could feel the sweat drench her skin and she let out another whimper of fear, wishing with all her might that she would have stayed.

"At least I'd still be with you, Rob," she whispered, hating hearing the crack in her voice as she let herself cry.

Her fingers curled into a fist, her nails digging into the skin of her palms. She could not hear her rapid breathing, but she could feel the air flooding in and out of her lungs, though it felt like she was not breathing at all to her. Fear churned her stomach into intense cramps, engulfing her conscience and knocking all other thoughts aside. It overwhelmed her body, making it feel drastically exhausted, even more so than she already knew her body to be.

She was lost in the woods, with no one coming to her aid to help guide her and light the path forward.

All she was left with was this insurmountable fear, which created an uncomfortable pit deep within her stomach. However, most of all, her fear was making her calm, and that was what scared the young blonde woman the most. The young blonde exhaled a shaking breath through her nose as the cottages that lined their village came into view, and if she squinted as she bolted out of the edge of the woods, she swore she saw him.

Her sweet Rob, her husband. And he was talking to Lyall, Remus's father.

Blinking back salty liquid that threatened to escape her eyes, the young blonde swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat as it hollowed and constricted, having eyes only for him, ignoring the howling of the vicious hell hounds of Greyback and his people's as the creature approached, snarling, foaming, and snapping at her bleeding heels. The only thing she had eyes on was him, and her husband's face flitted through her mind as a hallucination.

Her love, her knight in the dark. His face.

Beautiful to her, and she wished that one day, he would be able to see it for himself. How handsome she thought him. He was handsome from the depth of his eyes to the gentle expressions of his voice. He was handsome from his generous opinions to the touch of his hand upon her own. The young woman loved the way his voice quickened when he sparkled with a new idea or was so enjoying one of hers that he lost himself for a moment and quite forgot the mask he wore for others.

So, she gave him her heart and kept his safe, that's the way it was. The young blonde breathed a sigh of relief as her lover's gaze met hers. She outreached a hand to go to him, her fingers stretching as far as they could.

_Almost there…_

A snarling low threatening growl reached her eardrums. Her husband and Lyall were both screaming for Hestia to run for the front steps of the cottage, but her legs felt like they could go no further.

A string of curses unraveled from her tongue, like string unfurling, as the hell hound advanced. Its fur matted and tangled with congealed blood from its other unfortunate victims, and she was about to be next. The young woman watched, eyes round and wide with shock and horror as her love made a move to bolt for the steps, and froze, mouth agape, as she violently waved her arm back, signaling Lupin's father and Rob to stay where they were.

All of this was her fault. If she was to die here, right now, then she could live with such a death, she thought. If it meant that her husband would be safe, that nobody else would get hurt, then she would.

Every step the creature took as it moved to stand in front of her rattled her bones and struck the young woman's heart. She tried to dodge a swing from its massive claws, but it struck her side and she tumbled onto the cobblestone street. The young woman could hear nothing. All was silenced.

The anguished cries and yells of her screams, the snarls, and baying howls of the other wolves. Greyback as the wolf himself practically nipped at her bare heels in an effort to bring her down.

All Hestia could do was feel. Feel the cold ground pressed against her form, the heat from the pain, and the rhythm of the beating of her heart that would signal her end. She looked upward and into her love's eyes. If she were to die here, then she wanted his face to be the last thing she saw. She had fought valiantly for their right to be together, and she prayed that her family would accept her and her choices and take her home.

The woman closed her eyes as she felt a searing pain, her last.

The young blonde witch could hardly stand from blood loss, dizzy, as a creeping black mist swam into the forefront of her vision. She let out a pained wince and a gasp of surprise as the werewolf moved in front of her, surveying the mess before him with hardened, listless cold eyes, fuming in rage.

She could only watch as the wolf's hairy hand twitched and clenched into a tight fist, and the young blonde could tell he was tempted to end this here and now. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, dully, as he scowled down at her. The world around her went dim, distant, and her husband's face, waiting for her back home, and his tenor-like voice, so sweet, so gentle, faded from her memory. That awful black mist dove for what little remained of her consciousness, and she heard his words to the other wolf that had accompanied Greyback, muffled, distant, as if underwater, and from a great distance.

" _Rip her_."

Hestia drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as she inhaled a breath of cold air and exhaled, her breath making a visible puff in front of her, as she ran. She knew if the two of them, she and her husband, were to run, Greyback's men would catch her and her husband and kill them both.

But if they stayed, they were as good as dead, so Hestia knew she only had two options. Run. Or Die.

The young witch had seen darkness before, where everything was an eerie shade of gray almost, but tonight wasn't quite like that at all. No. This was the darkness that robbed one of their best sense and replaces it with a paralyzing fear. In this darkness, in the woods at the edge of the forest behind the Jones' and Lyall Lupin's cottages, respectively, muscles cramped, not moving. Moving made noise, and it was bad enough she still had to breathe.

Every part of her brain, the bits that could still think rationally, were screaming at the young witch to turn on the heel of her foot right now and go back, getaway. The dark voice in her conscience was in full force, and Hestia felt the hot stinging of fresh tears prick and gather at the corner of her eyes.

Hestia only knew her eyes were still there because she could feel herself blink, still instinctively moisturizing her eyes she had no use for.

But…not making it meant not being there for her husband, and that was something Hestia would never willingly do.

Abandoning him was not in her personality. No. She had to do this. Glancing quietly around out of the peripherals of her vision, Hestia drew in a sharp breath, ensuring no one was watching her, and took one step forward towards the doors of her sanctuary.

Hestia paused as a vile pain spread throughout her chest like a deadly infection and her lungs beseeched her to stop walking for a second.

Her knees felt weak after running constantly for hours, and the young witch selfishly gulped in as much air as her lungs would allow. Inhaling a deep breath of cold air, Hestia exhaled a slightly shaking breath as she reached out with her bound hands towards the doorknob.

A pair of boot heels stepping on a twig and a fallen overly large tree branch behind her reached her eardrums, and she froze, feeling the blood drain from her face.

_Greyback_ , she thought, not even daring to turn around.

Hestia recognized his walk, and the low growl emitted from his throat. The only announcement of his arrival was a slight drop in the air temperature and the eerie descent of absolute silence. Without having to turn around, Hestia knew the wolf, the worst of his kind, Fenrir Greyback stood behind her.

"Hello, Little Mouse. I caught you."

Hestia felt his claws dig into her shoulder before she saw it. The eyes that were once filled with so much…determination and purpose were now replaced with bitterness and hatred and…something else that the young woman could not quite identify, and she didn't want to…

The werewolf's overly long, talon-sharp claws sat precariously against her skin, against the pale column of her throat, soft enough to not pierce her neck, but hard enough to enforce the much older man's intended message.

The harsh feel of his claws should have been cold against her bare skin, but her numb body could not feel a thing except for the excruciating pain of the wolf's claws digging into her flesh. Her throat held in a grasp, and all she could do was stare lifelessly at the cold eyes that held her throat hostage and a terrifying coldness in a man that she had never seen before.

Hestia had never seen a werewolf in his prime this up close and personal before, and now…

Greyback was going to kill her. To make some kind of a statement, Hestia was sure, yes, she was sure of this.

The werewolf was more like a cat than a beast. Instead of killing fast, it preferred to toy with its food.

The first strike was with a poisoned claw to slow the reaction time of the victim, after that it was playtime. The "meal" would be allowed the chance to run, to feel the pounding of their own heart just a few more times and then the wolf sank his teeth into their neck - just deep enough to let them bleed out slow.

Hestia let out a muffled whimper that was more of a mewling plea and closed her eyes as she felt the wolf's fangs pierce the skin of her neck and felt a searing pain.

Her very last.


	46. Through the Portrait

**A/N : In case it's not clear, any future segments involving Crouch/Alice are flashbacks of sorts. It should be obvious at this point in the story, but just in case it isn't wanted to clear that up without having to write 'Flashback' at the top of the chapters. Anyways, enough rambling from me. Enjoy! :)   
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* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-SIX **

Her parents had lied to her. _Lied_. They had told her she could come home for Halloween and they had _lied_ , sending her a letter via owl post-last-minute stating they now had travel plans and she was to stay put for the weekend and continue her studies.

Hogwarts, as much as Alice Prewitt cherished it, was _not_ home. Far from it. Not even _close_. Home meant peace and quiet. Slices of grain cake served with tea with Mum. Helping Dad with chores around the house. Home meant arguing with Gran who always asked why Alice never grew her hair out, she would look so pretty if she would let it grow a little bit longer, never mind Alice's protests that she liked her hair this short, easier to keep out of the way, and it didn't matter, because when she did find a man to love her one day, he wouldn't care about the length of her hair and tell her how to dress and act.

That was home to Alice Prewitt. Hogwarts, sadly, was not her home.

Not… _this_.

Nothing here on the stairwell where Alice rested her back against the cold stone wall near the Gryffindor Common Room's portrait resembled home. The music blasting its way through the walls of the common room was so damned loud that it made Alice's skin tingle and her lungs felt like wet mush.

The bass thumped in time with her racing heartbeat as though they were one, filling her from head to toe, and though she liked this song, being surrounded by the rest of her House while they celebrated Gryffindor winning the latest Quidditch match against Slytherin, conversing and mingling with other people was the last thing she felt like doing right now. Alice just wanted sweet silence.

When a migraine struck, Alice was its prisoner, quite helpless in her cage of pain. She was blinded with flashing colorful spots and craved darkness, quiet and stillness.

Often nausea would overwhelm her, and she would vomit. The pain would throb so violently around her skull that she wondered why it didn't just crack open. Today was one of those days. Hence why she was _here_ , not in _there_.

Poor Alice wondered why her head was still intact, why it hadn't split open already. Her head throbbed and pounded against her skull. The pain felt like someone had taken a knife to it. She exhaled a shaking breath and rested her head against the cold stone wall, ignoring the murmurings of the talking portraits.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Alice willed the pain to go away. The rest of the world became detached, all she could concentrate on was the pain rooted deep in her head. Alice could barely hear the people chattering around her. All she felt, all she knew was the pain of that moment, and Alice knew if she stayed here, then she would surely burst and implode in a fit of anger if someone checked on her here when all she wanted was to be left alone in sweet, blissful silence. _Quiet_.

Stifling a moan of agonized frustration, Alice, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut, using the wall as a support brace, allowing her hands to guide her, shakily rose to her feet, brushing her hands on the seat of her pants as she stood up slowly.

A shuffling noise reached her eardrums before Alice recognized it was the sound of her own feet.

Alice reached at the edge of her eye to wipe at the stray tear that threatened escape from her lid, courtesy of her rapidly swelling headache, sinus pressure at the forefront of her temples so thick she thought her head might implode. She doubted Madam Pomfrey would be able to give her anything for it that would help.

A Pepperup Potion would do her no help for common migraines. Alice heaved a sigh and inched her way along the wall towards the stairs, away from the pounding bass of the music that was the cause of her hurt.

"I wouldn't go that way if I were you, Prewitt," a male's voice from behind piped up, coming from her left slightly, and Alice heard herself exhale slowly.

 _Barty_. Alice felt her posture straighten and stiffen involuntarily, though she forced herself to relax as she slowly turned around, and found her fellow seventh-year companion's cold gaze solely fixated upon her, completely unreadable, though Alice couldn't quite be certain, she _swore_ a flicker of amusement darted through the man's dark brown eyes. There was a slight hesitance in him.

Alice turned her head to regard Barty Crouch, who'd moved to stand somewhat disturbingly close in proximity next to her, their shoulders touching.

"Why not?" she heard herself asking, giving Crouch's towering and somewhat intimidating but slender form a quick-once over, thinking that, as much as she remained cautious towards this young man, there was no denying his handsomeness, how he tended to favor black leather when not in their Hogwarts uniforms, though currently both of them were in their Hogwarts uniforms, though Barty had discarded his black sweater completely and had the sleeves of his white-collared shirt worn normally underneath his Slytherin sweater rolled up to his elbows.

When Barty finally spoke to her, his voice was curt though laced with traces of what Alice could only describe as minor amusement.

"Pringle is on the hunt for whoever set off a Dungbomb in the Great Hall. If you listen close, you'll hear him. He'll be headed this way in about five minutes, give or take. I wouldn't linger out here if I were you, but it's your choice if you want to get caught. _Or_ …"

Crouch drawled slowly, and for a moment, Alice thought he sounded…almost…playful, and her suspicion was confirmed when he turned and shot her a surprisingly brilliant and dazzlingly white smile.

"You can come with _me_. I know a place where Pringle won't find you, Prewitt. Your choice." He fell silent and moved away slightly from Alice as he passed her by, heading down the stairwell in the exact same direction Alice had been intending to go. Alice strained her hearing to listen, and sure enough, Hogwarts' caretaker's hollers reverberated off the walls like a clap of thunder, and it was coming closer.

"I see your point," Alice huffed sourly in frustration as she turned to look at Crouch, unable to form a polite response towards the Slytherin as his pretentious voice got the better of her. She sighed and reached up and tucked a wisp of her dark brown short pixie cut back behind her ear and regarded him with no small measure of apprehension in her inquisitive eyes. Alice had been hoping to head towards the library, assuming she could avoid Madam Pince, and be left alone in sweet, blessed silence, though it would seem fate had other ideas in mind.

Though there was the small prickling of doubt in the back of Alice's mind that told her that, even if she were to head to the library to pick out a book, she wouldn't be able to focus on the words on the page. Usually, when she wanted to read, she did not have this problem, as she found reading as easy as breathing.

But…something was clearly troubling her, something not having to do at all with her still throbbing, pounding headache threatening to rip her apart. Alice furrowed her brows into a slight frown as she regarded Crouch, whose dark eyes glistened with something akin to intrigue and he smiled at her again, as though he were enjoying some private, intimate joke with himself and she did not get it.

Alice, for her part, was wondering why she had not informed Professor McGonagall of what she had caught Crouch attempting to do to Mary MacDonald the other day in the corridor following a break between their classes.

How Alice had rounded the corridor to head towards the Great Hall for lunch with Lily, and the pair of young women had caught Crouch and Macdonald in a rather…compromising position that did not look good at all, and the tears streaming down Macdonald's face made it evident she had not consented.

Thank Merlin Lily and she had immediately intervened upon seeing it. She bit the inside wall of her cheek as she mulled over this troublesome thought in her mind. How, if it were not for her and Lily intervening and getting Mary out of his clutches, it would have surely ended in a trip to the hospital wing for the poor Hufflepuff.

Why had she not gone with this already to McGonagall? Was it out of some misplaced sense of shame or guilt? She did not want to embarrass the Professor, or herself, and there was no visible proof that Crouch had intended the Muggle-born Hufflepuff a year below them any viable harm.

Without proof of Crouch's misdeeds, it was a baseless accusation which would bode ill for her and surely land her and Lily Evans in detention, and surely, Professor McGonagall was well aware of what kind of student Barty Crouch was.

Even so, Alice had told no one (and neither had Lily, to the best of her knowledge) that they had saved Mary Macdonald from Barty Crouch Jr. and his Slytherin goons the other day from what was likely to be a truly horrible fate.

It did not escape Alice's attentions while the handsome Slytherin student continued to study her in a way that made the young Gryffindor feel increasingly uncomfortable, though not necessarily distrusting, that he pulled a face and scrunched his nose at the hollers and celebrating cheers of her fellow Gryffindor classmates, the noise emanating from behind the Fat Lady, who was most disgruntled at the noise and at not being able to leave her position as a protector.

Alice felt a light pink blush speckle along her cheeks as she could practically hear James Potter holler something incoherent from the wall her back still rested against. She winced and visibly cringed as Crouch quirked a dark brow at the disturbance. "Sorry about the noise," she stammered, her pink blush intensifying.

"I thought about reporting the disturbance, you know. It's hard to clear your mind with that trash blaring through the walls," Crouch commented quietly, almost teasingly in a way, jerking his head towards the Gryffindor Common's Room's entrance, ignoring the Fat Lady's eye roll and look of disgust at seeing a distrustful and ambitious wretched _Slytherin_ so close to her haven, seemingly unaware of Caretaker Pringle's shouts growing even louder.

Alice felt her soft lips stretch into a smile but didn't quite reach her eyes. They were light with a morose sadness, and the forced expression of the contrary on her mouth would have looked comical to Barty if didn't make his heart felt heavy, and the words she uttered to him carried such weight, such a burden.

"I wish you would have," she remarked quietly, almost shyly, playing with her pinkish tipped fingers to keep them warm, all the while actively averting his gaze. Alice bit the inside wall of her cheek and nervously glanced over her shoulder.

Apollyon Pringle's shouts were growing even louder, and if she did not either descend further down the stairs at a rapid pace she was incapable of given the nature of her pounding headache, or retreat back into the Gryffindor Common Room and into that den of noise, which she was loath to do and would only worsen her throbbing skull, then Pringle would surely catch her out of bed after hours, and then she would land herself in a serious spot of trouble with _him_.

She didn't necessarily fancy spending an evening in Crouch's company, though the young man himself had given her no just cause to hate him. He never behaved poorly towards her. On the contrary. He was…something of a contradiction. Just Barty Crouch's name irked Alice, sending her spine weak, and as Pringle's yells intensified, his head slowly inclined. Antagonizing slightly. His dark brown eyes glistening, boring through.

His lack of response irked Alice, and she began to feel a little nervous the longer the two of them lingered out here, though she essentially knew the man was right. If they lingered, both would get caught by Pringle and face detention.

 _Or worse, someone from the Common Room could come out and see the two of you together, and then Lily and Remus and James will ask questions_.

What did he want with her, then? Was he just…toying with her somehow, because of what had happened the other day in the corridor with Mary and Lily? What did Crouch _want_ of her? Noting his continued silence as she watched him stroll towards one of the statues as his foot stepped off the bottommost step, Alice trailing right behind him, hardly aware that her feet were no longer taking directions from her mind anymore, she began to feel irritated towards Barty Crouch's lack of responses.

If he wanted something of her, then why didn't the man just come outright and say it? Was he still pursuing her and interested in her, was that it, then? Oh, Alice wasn't _stupid_. She pretended to ignore the glances in Potions he gave her.

She _saw_ the way he looked at her. That look of desire and lust. Intrigue. Though she could not fathom why at all Crouch would be interested in her.

Alice didn't consider herself anything special. Both she, Lily, and Crouch had been offered and accepted membership into Slughorn's little 'Slug Club,' though Alice could not help but to notice he had passed by Frank Longbottom and James Potter offer into the 'exquisite club,' for reasons she didn't understand.

Barty Crouch Jr. had potential, promise to be a truly great wizard, and possibly a friend if only he would stop hanging around the likes of the Lestranges and Rodolphus and Bellatrix Black, and the witch hated Alice for some reason.

Crouch's only problem was that he seemed easily distracted around her.

She supposed she ought to be flattered by that, in some small way.

Professor Slughorn had scolded him just the other day for a display of carelessness for accidentally dropping a vial of salamander tails into a student's cauldron as he passed by after their shoulders had accidentally brushed against one another's as he had sauntered past Alice, Lily, and Mary's table rather slowly.

Alice's thoughts were immediately interrupted as she heard the shout of Apollyon Pringle drawing even closer, and her gaze flitted back towards Barty.

"Your choice." It was all he said, though Alice could have sworn she saw Crouch smile, and something in his dark brown eyes seemed to spark a foreign sense of…tenderness, something she had not admittedly seen in the man before.

Alice begrudgingly accepted the fact that Barty Crouch Jr. was right and followed the Slytherin student down the stairs and through a side, dark corridor.

As she followed behind Crouch's towering form, a question burned on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be asked. "What you did to Mary the other night was inexcusable, Crouch. Why…why were you picking on her like that?"

Barty did not seem to anticipate her question and he startled.

"I…it was a laugh, Alice. That was all. I intended no harm to come to her. It was a _joke_ , and it was taken too far. I did not mean for it to escalate any further. My father has already sent me a Howler for my actions, and I don't need any more people lecturing me on it, Prewitt. I don't know how the man found out about it, but the man has his precious little _spies_ everywhere. I am… _sorry_. I do not want to discuss in detail what happened the other day, Alice," he snapped, though if Alice was not mistaken, Crouch's voice was softer somehow, more subdued, less coarse and rough than before. "I have apologized to you, Al, is that not enough? It's clear that you and your friends think me to be a merciless brute. But I'm not…" His voice cracked and he turned away. "I'm not _heartless_ , despite what you may think of me. I merely believed that you of all people would understand the world you live in, Alice, but perhaps I was mistaken in that regard. You're naïve, Prewitt, and could never understand the world as I see it. You…you're lucky to have someone, your—your father, who…loves you." His confession came out hushed, in stammers. "I envy that."

As Crouch turned to take in Alice's expression, his brown eyes had darkened and began to fill with obvious scorn, though there was the flickering of another emotion that Alice was admittedly having trouble identifying what it was.

Alice blinked owlishly at Barty Crouch Jr., not at all sure what to make of the sudden shift in his disposition.

"Alice." It felt strange to hear Crouch say her name, and Alice winced as she visibly flinched just ever so slightly, and she bit her lip in a pout, hoping he had not seen it. "For what little it's worth, I am… _sorry_. My…my father, he…he did not react kindly to my…to what I did to poor Mary, and I think that should be sufficient punishment enough. Please don't…don't hate me, Prewitt. I…don't have many friends here in Hogwarts that understand, but you…you're like me, I think. I'd…like to try again to…earn your trust and hopefully your…friendship, in time."

As if on cue, Alice noticed that his right arm drifted towards the crook of his elbow and he clutched onto it tenderly, as if in pain. She could not help but wonder if the stories of Bartemius Crouch were true. If the man really hated his own son as much as it was rumored that he did. If he hurt his son. But his voice cracked, and Crouch did not finish his sentence, nor did he make it a point to look Alice in the eyes.

Alice frowned at this sudden shift. She knew this went against her better judgment, but she couldn't help but ask a question of her own.

"You don't…get along with your father, do you, Barty?"

Alice saw Barty Crouch Jr. physically stiffen in response to her query and felt her heart drop to the pit of her currently churning stomach as she ran her tongue along the wall of her teeth, resigning herself in defeat for another outburst.

The young witch flinched again as Barty slowly swiveled towards her, and she bit down hard on her tongue as for a split second, it looked as though Crouch were about to explode with all the unbridled rage boiling within his blood, that Alice knew he had no outlet to vent his frustrations and his pains, but the second their eyes met, he stopped. "I…I do not," he said quietly, his voice somber.

For a moment, the two Hogwarts students briefly looked at each other, their eyes locked in the other's gaze, neither one of them saying a single word.

Alice could not help but stare at Barty in wonder, and it realized it was Crouch now, and not she, who suddenly began to look uncomfortable, as though he regretted the turn their conversation had taken. She hadn't expected him to answer her question, let alone truthfully.

And yet… Crouch wouldn't look at her. Letting out a concentrated and slightly shaking breath, Alice, perhaps against her better judgment as her own curiosity was overwhelming her, she leveled her eyes with Crouch's as she did her best not to raise her brows at the man in a sarcastic manner.

"You've said your apology, and around me, at least, you can save your breath, Crouch. _I'm_ not the one you should be apologizing to, Barty. If you really want to…make amends….and have an attempt at my… _friendship_ ," Here, Alice almost cringed at the word, hardly daring to believe the statement that was pouring unchecked and unprompted from her own lips. "Then you will apologize to Mary at your earliest opportunity, Crouch, before it's too late to make amends, Barty. _And_ to Lily. You frightened all of us with that little display yesterday. What on earth were you _thinking_ , Crouch? You want my friendship, you've been going about the wrong way in trying to earn my trust, Barty. _Why_?"

The look of remorse intermingled with that of sudden anger was a strange combination to behind in Barty Crouch Jr.'s eyes, and it succeeded in making Alice feel a little uneasy. His next words surprised Alice and caught her off guard.

"I will apologize to her in the morning, Prewitt. I was—I was going to do that anyway, but right now, I think we should concentrate on getting out of here, yes?" he prompted, and Alice blinked owlishly at Crouch, not understanding.

And then, as Pringle's shouts dawned on the pair of them, comprehension dawned in her eyes and she let out a muffled whine of anticipation at getting caught. "What should we do?" she whispered hoarsely, biting down on her lip.

Alice glanced to the left and right of the darkened corridor Barty had inexplicably wandered down, and she, of her own volition, had followed him.

Her legs were no longer taking direction from her own mind, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she had been…spelled somehow into following Crouch, though she thought she would know if she were under the influence of the Imperius Curse. Though she'd (thankfully) never been under its influence and she hoped she never would, so she could only surmise at this time, she had chosen to follow him in the vain hopes that it would lead to sweet, blessed _silence_.

She could not help but wonder if nothing had occurred at this precise moment to disrupt their conversation, perhaps things between the Gryffindor and the Slytherin students, and unorthodox acquaintances, and Alice supposed that, if Crouch were kinder to her, willing to open up and actually share in a dialogue with her, then maybe, just _maybe_ , they might be friends, might have taken a different turn, but that did not seem to be the case.

Fate, it would seem, had an alternate plan for her this evening.

The two of them flinched at precisely the exact same moment as they heard the disruption growing nearer, Pringle's heavy, thudding footfalls coming from the other side of the corridor. Alice secretly, within the private restrictions of her own mind, was grateful for the sudden break in their conversation, for she wasn't sure what to make of. What little she did know of Crouch, was that he was like her in that he had very few true friends in this life.

Alice wondered what it was that Barty wanted of her, if he had purposefully been seeking her out to engage in conversation with, or if it happened to be pure happenstance that he was walking by the moment she found herself outside of the Gryffindor Common Room's portrait, nursing a headache.

"Damn," Crouch swore through gritted teeth. Alice turned to look at Barty Crouch Jr. once more, this time, however, in a much more hesitant way. "We need to _leave_. Right now. Unless we both fancy spending a night in detention cleaning out frog guts from Slughorn's cauldrons and I don't know about you, Alice, but I can think of much more pleasant ways to spend a Saturday evening, can't you?"

At that pleasant visual image, Crouch scrunched his nose in disgust, and if Alice wasn't mistaken, a fierce protectiveness flickered through his dark brown orbs.

"And it wasn't _you_ that set off the Dungbomb, and I didn't do it either. I won't let you take the fall for this, Alice. If I…If I'm going to be your… _friend_ ," he said. "Then I can start by helping you get out of trouble."

Alice blinked owlishly at the young Slytherin seventh-year student and shifted the weight of her feet as she nervously weaved her fingers in between her knuckles, all the while struggling to formulate an apt response in her mind, but Crouch continued speaking in a low, hushed voice, though it was nonchalant.

"I am guessing that you want to hide from Pringle to avoid getting in trouble for a prank which you had no part in, but you also don't want any of your precious Gryffindor friends to know you were caught here with me, as it would attract unwanted gossip, Prewitt, would I be correct in that assumption, therefore, heading back that way," Crouch jerked his head in the direction the two of them had come, back to where the Gryffindor Common Room was, "would not be in your best interest."

His face remained passive, though Alice detected the slightest tinges of bitterness laced throughout his somber and reserved voice.

Before Alice could make up her mind and speak, offering an appropriate answer, Crouch swiftly passed her by, their shoulders brushing against one another as he did so, a faint breeze gently wafting her way as he walked towards a large oil portrait of a knight on a grey horse galloping through a shallow river.

"I don't offer this to just anyone, but…Alice. Would you like to leave?" asked Barty Crouch Jr. quietly, while casually looking up at the portrait in front of him as though it were one of the most exquisite pieces of art he'd ever seen.

"Wh—what?" Alice stammered, feeling quite certain she had misheard the man, as she turned in alarm to stare at his back. Perhaps he's not so bad after all.

Though, there was the twinge of caution that resonated in the back of her mind, harboring her to be wary around him. Simply because he was a Slytherin.

 _Though Evans still has her friendship with Severus Snape_ , Alice mulled over this thought and furrowed her brows in a frown and wondered it was truly possible to look past the House Crest on their Hogwarts sweaters and befriend him. Crouch at least, in Alice's mind, appeared willing to try to change for her.

That, she supposed, was a good enough start, though Alice could still not seem able to force her mouth to respond, and she swore she saw Barty smile.

"Would you like to escape, Alice? Just for a little while? I can tell you aren't feeling well. Headache?" he asked casually, and his brows furrowed in concern when she nodded and confirmed his suspicions by pinching her temples. "I thought as much. I get them too on a weekly basis. I can tell by the look on your face, this one's brutal." He almost sounded sympathetic and kind, Alice thought. "Come walk with me, then. Fresh air will do you good, Alice," he encouraged, not unkindly.

Alice blinked owlishly at Barty Crouch Jr., who turned to regard her, peeling his gaze away from the portrait when she did not immediately answer.

"I know all too well about gossip, Prewitt," he began, his voice softer and slightly humorous, which Alice thought strange coming from him. He was often so solemn and serious in Potions and Transfigurations that they shared together. "And the heaviness that will come with it if we allow ourselves to be caught out here. It won't bode well for either one of us if we get detention from Pringle. Both of our Houses will start to talk, and I don't think either of us wants that. So, I ask you again _politely_ , if you would like to escape with me and take a walk."

Alice felt her lips part open to speaking, but she still could not find her words, and she was beginning to grow frustrated with herself. Though she felt very little effect and fear when it came to witnessing Crouch's temper firsthand for herself, for some reason, this sudden shift in his mood, this abrupt caring change, she could not keep up.

"I—I don't understand, Barty," she murmured, nonplussed.

Barty Crouch Jr. offered her what she could only describe as somewhat of a playful smirk and placed his hands along the limestone wall and lifted the portrait, revealing behind it a large gaping passageway big enough for a human.

"I—oh. Is—is that…?" Alice breathed, her eyes widening in shock and awe, trying to peer over Crouch's shoulder as she moved to stand behind him and had to stand up on her tiptoes in order to do it, through the black pathway.

"It is." It was all Barty answered. "It leads out to the grounds, near the Whomping Willow. It's the same passage your dearly beloved friend _Lupin_ takes three times a month for his transformations. I've seen it, Al," he answered airily, all the while not looking at Alice's flushed features, and Alice blinked in shock.

She felt herself falter backward upon hearing Crouch's words, and she bit down on her tongue as a surge of adrenaline and panic coursed through her veins.

Alice would have fallen off the top step of the stairwell had Crouch not immediately shot out an arm to catch her, and she felt all of a sudden so dizzy.

"Th—thank you," she managed to gasp out, her voice a hoarse whisper, though her mind was still reeling from the revelation he had just confessed to her.

 _Oh, for the love of Merlin, he knows! HE KNOWS! How does he know?!_ "I…" Alice stammered, and blinked, having to crane upwards at Crouch, watching in silence. _Did someone talk? Did he see something last week?_

Remus's condition was meant to be a secret. Lily had confided in Alice once James had confided in her the truth about their quiet, reserved, bookish friend, and Alice, forever loyal to the few precious friends she did have, had told no one.

The shock must have been evident on her face, for Crouch turned at the waist slightly to regard the young Gryffindor student who'd been stunned into silence.

" _Relax_ , Prewitt," he urged, letting out a tense little sigh through his nose. "His secret is…safe with me. I won't go running to the Headmaster with this, and besides. He already must know of your friend Lupin's condition, or he would not have permitted him to come to Hogwarts to study. You _know_ I'm right."

Alice froze, at a complete loss for what to say. He really was smarter than all the students in Gryffindor gave him credit for. Quiet, shy at times, but…smart.

"You and your friends haven't done anything to warrant spilling of that little news, and if you must know, I saw him head towards the Whomping Willow right before a full moon. The fact that he misses classes three days a month unless the full moon falls on a weekend, the scars, the wounds, the bites. It's evident what your friend is, but…he's not so bad, I guess," he sighed, and he offered her a charmingly white smile that Alice was briefly tempted to return.

Alice felt her initial excitement at the discovery of a new secret passageway ebb away as she looked towards Crouch and let out a squeak as caretaker Apollyon Pringle's shouts grew even louder. He was much closer than before.

"Back to this," growled Crouch, now sounding somewhat irritated as he jerked his head towards the portrait.

"This is how I sneak out at night when I can't sleep. I've never been caught. And it's how I offer it to you now to escape from Pringle so we both don't get detention. The choice is yours of course," he added, noticing how Alice Prewitt had swiveled her head over her shoulder to glance furtively down the hallway, where she could swear that she saw Pringle's short, stout frame drawing nearer. "But if _I_ were you, I wouldn't want to stay here at present and get caught. I rather fancy staying out of detention, don't you, Prewitt? But I can't force you to come with you. All I can do is _ask_ you to come. The choice is yours."

Looking back towards Crouch, Alice bit the inside wall of her cheek. This went against everything that she ever knew of Slytherin House, to put her trust in Barty Crouch Jr., of all people, but Alice knew that Crouch was right after all.

If they stayed, they were sure to get caught, and then once word leaked out that Alice Prewitt was found in the sole company of Barty Crouch Jr., then the wagging tongues in both of their Common Rooms would start to talk.

It wasn't exactly common for a Gryffindor and a Slytherin to befriend one another, if that were even what this _was_ , if she could adequately describe Crouch's sudden shift in attitude towards her, now that they were alone together and not in class. If they were caught, Alice couldn't even begin to fathom the unseemly rumors that would float about the entire castle about her new association with Crouch, as her friends would wonder what on earth she wanted with Barty at all.

And if she were caught by anyone other than their Heads of Houses in Crouch's company, it wouldn't bode well at all for her. Alice emanated a tense exhale, and finally her mind was made up as the sound of Pringle's harsh barking shouts drew even nearer.

"All right, Barty. You win. A _walk_. But…nothing more, and nothing less than that," she whispered, somewhat reluctantly, painfully wringing her hands together as she drew nearer to their only escape, but just as she placed both hands on the wall of the entrance, Crouch shot out an arm and stopped her.

"Have your wand out and lit," he murmured, glancing back furtively over his shoulder nervously before returning his attention back to Alice. "Once I close the portrait back behind us, it's going to get dark. I don't want you tripping and hurting yourself, Alice."

Alice nodded in understanding, fumbling her wand slightly as she raised it and pointed it towards the passageway. " _Lumos_!" she muttered in a hushed whisper, careful not to give away their position to Pringle, and was rewarded with a bright ball of white light that emanated in a soft pearly glow from the tip of her wand.

The young witch could not ignore the hot prickling feeling of doubt that crept its way down her spine as she hoisted herself up over the edge, wand at the ready, and wondering whether or not her decision to trust Barty Crouch Jr. so blindly like this and following the man down a dark passageway that led to Merlin only knew where was such a good idea, given his reputation for a fondness for pretty faces, but he had, for reasons unknown to Alice, seemed fixated on _her_.

But if there was one thing Alice wasn't, given she was a member of Gryffindor House, it was a coward, however, and there was a different part of her that somehow told her troubled conscience that she could trust Crouch now.

"Lower your wand and give me your hand." It was not a request, and the edges of Crouch's voice had hardened and were clipped, though Alice surmised that it was less to do in annoyance with her sudden reluctance and more to do with Pringle's rapidly approaching footsteps, his hollers echoing in their eardrums.

Risking one last glance over her shoulder at the open portrait door, she let out a tense sigh as she turned back around to see Barty Crouch's arm extended out towards her, and it did not escape Alice's attention it was the only part of the young Slytherin seventh-year that was not currently shrouded in the darkness.

Her final thought as she nervously outstretched her palm and reached for Crouch's hand as the portrait door swung closed behind them was poignant.

_Merlin's beard, I hope this isn't a mistake…_


	47. A Message

**CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN**

The threatening thunder rolled over Remus's head like the fury of Merlin Himself. It tumbled through his father's little village in the countryside of Wales, through the darkened black and purple thunderclouds, spreading out into the early morning sky, hailing the promise of rain to the ground below.

The small cottage of Lyall Lupin's home was perched on the plain near the woods, so old and poor that it was surprising how it was still standing.

And yet it seemed alive and welcoming, a warm ribbon of smoke rising from the old chimney. The walls were made of the same wood and the roof was clearly stone, so old that it was a wonder how it did not yet cave in. The cottage was the only thing there.

There were no other houses around it, and this one would have looked abandoned if not for the smoke. Lupin emanated a tense exhale and found his father in the backyard, neck craned to the sky, eyeing the black and purple thunderclouds that rolled nearer, a low omniscient boom of thunder rent the air.

Remus looked upon his aging father, Lyall Lupin, who grew more wrinkled with each day, looking as though he had too much skin to cover his wilting frame. His face had lost its healthy sheen, and how it looked as though he faded to an ashy gray, looking as though dust had begun to gather on his failing body. Remus remembered when his father had looked a powerful man. Now, though, Lyall had lost his youthful and handsome looks.

He was clean-shaven, and his gray hair was trimmed short, revealing a decrepit mask where every wrinkle, blemish, and imperfection on his father's lined and forlorn, weather-beaten skin could be seen. Remus hurt when he looked at Lyall like he was doing right now. He wished to remember the almost mountainous man he had been, the strong-willed and merciful wizard, the gentle and caring father, the adoring and passionate husband to his mother, Hope.

Yet when he looked upon him now, all he could see was a wizened and somewhat frightened old man. As he looked upon him, Remus could not help but to wonder if he was more scared of living or dying. Lyall Lupin was a proud man. He was strict, disciplined, and of high principle. At times, he could be incredibly short-tempered and had done some wrong in his life, but he wasn't a bad man.

Lyall had just been washed with a bad experience and born more short-tempered than most.

He wore his pride like a parapet. Remus did not know whether it was to shield himself from further pain since Hope's death or not let anyone else in, but his father had never re-married. Though Remus did not fault him for that. If something, Merlin forbid, were to ever happen to Dora, he would never seek out companionship again, either. For he did not want another, nor need another but her. _Just her_. He supposed that his father felt the same for Mother.

His judicious intellect, particularly around all things stemming from his only son's condition, precise eye, and impetuous temper led to a profoundly tarnished reputation in his old age amongst the Lupin family's distant relatives. From Remus's early memories of him, he could recollect his father's leathery skin. It had seen more distress than happiness following his only son's transformation into a werewolf as if he had been fighting all his life, all his life, and Remus knew this to be true. He had his dusky hair that rested atop his herculean sallow figure. A disorderly mess of hair and wrinkles sat on his brow bone, forehead, and under the green eyes that never smiled. His hands were withered, and his fingers were like an insect antenna. He was bold, fearless. Brave and true. Strong-willed.

Lyall Lupin had the resounding presence of a fiery phoenix but the quiet yet strong aura of a wizard, and he did not have to talk to be the loudest person in a room. Lyall let out a noncommittal grunt and silently handed back the photograph that Mrs. Weasley had taken of the two of them over Christmas at the Burrow a few months back. His gaze remained fixated on the moving photograph of the young witch who had, it would seem, captured his only son's heart before silently handing it back.

Lyall's first initial impression of his son's girlfriend was that she could have graced any cover of _Witch Weekly_ or the Daily Prophet with a face like that, but she was better than that. Somehow, the girl's imperfections made her perfect. There was a shyness to the young Tonks woman, hesitation in her body movements, and a softness in her personality, he could see it for himself in her smile. All who see her eyes know that she sees things, things that no one else can.

Her light, glistening gray orbs speak of horror and peace, turmoil and joy, days to come, and days already past. Her bold forehead was creased from days of sorrow when depression weighed heavily on her soul. Though not considered pretty by standard terms, something about her is attractive. The knowledge that only comes through much sorrow and pain shines in her eyes. Though small in body, she was fierce in spirit.

"Though she be but little, she is fierce…" Lyall murmured under his breath. "She is a beauty, son, I'll grant you that. Something tells me with a face like that, she could have any man she wanted, and she's chosen _you_ , Remus. I am… _proud_. You should be proud, Remus. I did not think that this day would ever come for you, given your…stance on relationships in the past with your condition, that you would find a young woman to spend the rest of your life, but I could not be happier for you, son. Clearly, this one must be a very special witch to convince you to have changed your mind. I always knew you were behaving ridiculously in this regard, and I'm glad this Tonks woman has changed your mind. I was starting to think you might never marry, and our family name would die out with you being the last of the Lupins. Here, I believe you came for this, then?" he asked and did not give his only son a chance to respond as he dug into the pocket of his outer coat pocket and pulled out a beautiful but elegant plain yellow gold ring. "I kept it after…after she passed, thinking…if you were ever to…to meet someone, that your mother would want you to have it. She told me as such before…I still wish you would let me _help_ you, son. It's not every day my boy gets married. Why won't you grant an aging man this one wish? Let me help you, Remus. Please. Buy her a new ring, son, if you think she won't like this one, there's no shame in it."

" _No_." Remus's voice came out a harsh bark and he held out his hand and tenderly held the gold ring that used to belong to his mother in the palm of his hand. "I don't need nor do I _want_ your financial help, Dad," he snapped, sounding angered. Recognizing his voice sounded perhaps harsher than he meant it to, given how he watched his father flinch away in hurt and slumped his shoulders, Remus felt a shift within himself give way and he emanated a tense exhale. "I—I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to snap at you, I just…I—I want to give Dora this ring. It was Mother's. I think hers will be perfect for Dora."

"Very well." Lyall heard himself admit defeat in a tired exhale, knowing not to argue with his son over this matter, and his shoulders slumped in resignation.

Lyall's gaze drifted down to Hope's ring now clutched in his son's hand, who gave a sharp tap of his wand and in his other hand procured a simple black ring box, where Remus carefully slipped his mother's ring into it and tucked the box away securely into his coat pocket.

"Your mother's ring has been in our family for centuries. I am…grateful that your wife will wear it now, son."

Lyall felt Remus stun at his compliment, but he was good at hiding it as he took the photograph and carefully slipped it into an interior pocket of his coat. His father gazed at his only son, and still, he could not help but wonder what would have happened had Remus's younger brother, Romulus, survived. Their second child came into the world much too early and was dead on arrival, and Merlin had never given what would have been their eldest son a chance to draw his first breath, and Remus was now close to Romulus in age had he lived.

Yet, there was something in Remus's eyes that Lyall knew he needed to help mend, as his father, it was his duty, although he knew that whatever it was, he could not.

"Come. Walk with me, son." Lyall clapped a hand on his son's shoulder and began to steer him towards the forest at the edge of his cottage's property. "

Remus nodded and quickly fell into step beside his father, who, despite his frailness and how much older he was looking these days, walked at a rapid pace.

"I know you came here specifically for _that_ ," Lyall began cautiously, gesturing wildly with his hands towards Remus's coat pocket, "and I could not be happier for you, my son. I want to meet her, and soon, and I expect some kind of invitation by owl post, but I am afraid I have another matter that I could use your… _instincts_ on, Remus. There's been murder this morning."

Remus felt his ears perk up at the sudden shift in his father's intonation. His father's voice had hardened, the edges clipped and curt.

He sounded disgusted.

"What 'matter? What do you mean there's been a murder? What happened, Dad?'" Remus demanded hotly, feeling a stab of fear prick his heart as the solemn tone of his father's voice refused to leave his mind. "Has something…happened?" When his father didn't answer, his anxiety spiked and worsened, surging as adrenaline through his already ignited, hot bloodstream. " _Dad_?" he growled, feeling his temper swell in fear. "Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong. Please. Was there a…?"

Lyall sighed, pinching his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

"I'm afraid there's been…another 'incident.' Greyback killed Hestia Jones an hour ago. I checked on her husband, Rob, a bit ago, shortly before you arrived. Took me and another neighbor to subdue him enough to give him a Sleeping Draught to sedate him. He'll be out for another hour. Two at best, but I need to go check on him, but if I were you, I wouldn't linger, but if this is Greyback's work, then…watch yourself, Remus," Lyall growled, ignoring the small strangled noise the emanated from the back of his son's work.

He snorted and glanced sideways at Remus out of the corner of his eye. "I cannot say for certain, but that is why I need your… _help_ , son. You act surprised to hear me say that it's Greyback's work, Remus." Lyall regarded his only son quizzically. "You didn't think he'd just…what, up and disappeared, did you? Foolish." He shook his head in disgust and clucked his tongue in disappointment. "You _know_ that Greyback was recruited at a young age."

Remus felt himself become frozen, rooted to his spot.

_Not Hestia. Not her…not another one…_

While not exactly friends, the two of them, and for whatever reason, she and Emmeline Vance had never exactly seen eye-to-eye with Dora, he still mourned for the loss of a particularly gifted witch and fellow Order member, though he knew better than most. Not many stood a chance against Greyback and lived. The few exceptions being himself and Bill Weasley.

"That does _not_ make this any better, Dad," Remus snapped harshly in response, feeling the icy chill course through his bloodstream, freezing his insides as the very werewolf's name who had bitten him almost rendered him frozen. "Why didn't you send for reinforcements from the Ministry? Was someone killed? What happened? Were you hurt? What if he would have come after you, Dad? A—and I wasn't here to protect you? What then?" He had a dozen questions burning on the tip of his tongue, though only one he desperately wanted the answer to.

_Why did Greyback kill Hestia? To get back at Dad? Or…me?_

The Order had already lost so many. Amelia Bones, now Hestia…

Lyall offered a mute nod of his head though he did not elaborate, merely gestured with a jerk of his head towards the forest. "In there, son. She… it…look. Just go _look_." But his father's voice cracked and wavered as he turned away, unable to articulate his thought. "Go and see for yourself. I need to know if it's _him_."

Remus offered a curt nod of his head and felt his hand instinctively drift towards the interior pocket of his jacket, wand fingers hovering over his hand, just in case he needed to draw it. He wandered through the thick, dense brush, only hearing his feet tread, hearing the cracking twigs and leaves underfoot.

The forest behind his father's house that was once so alive now chilled him. In this cold air, he felt himself actually shaking with nervous trepidation.

The trees that sheltered so many with their spreading canopy of green and provided so much are now lifeless sticks of charcoal, no more vibrant than the old lamp-posts in the city.

A smell of sweat, fear, and thick coppery tang hovered in the air, and there was no clue of what awaited him, though he closed his eyes and allowed the Wolf to assuage control of his sense of smell for the moment. The sickening smell of metal and rotting flesh blanketed the air in a choking aroma. Lupin supposed he should have been used to this by now, knowing what kind of monstrous vicious savage _beast_ Greyback was.

But the strings this scent pulled hit him like a wave as it wafted through his nostrils. The victim was female, short blonde hair, and vibrant green eyes.

Her once lively skin was now dull, gray and was covered with insects that crawled up and down her stiff corpse, almost devoid of skin and pitted by burrowing insects. There was practically nothing left to recover to bury her body properly, though the Order would still give her a funeral.

Remus had hoped his father had been lying when he said it was Jones, but now, as he looked upon her lifeless body, there was no shadow of doubt in his mind. It was _her_. In life, Hestia Jones had a ready smile and knowing eyes.

In death, even a violent and bloody one such as this, she was ghostly pale, what was left of her lips tinged blue from the cold. Remus knelt on the ground by the left side of her head, instinctively checking for a pulse, signs of life, though he already knew the act would prove futile. Hestia Jones was dead.

She had left him and the rest of the Order behind, for whatever followed this existence. Yet, even though Lupin knew Hestia Jones was gone, he knelt and stroked back strands of her short shaggy blonde hair, now matted, and tangled with dried leaves, twigs, and congealed blood, away from her forehead.

It was part of bidding Hestia farewell and making a simple wish that wherever she was, she was no longer suffering and was with her loved ones.

"We need to give her a burial." The statement escaped Lupin's lips as a hushed whisper, and he was surprised, given the violent brutality of the gory scene before him, he was even able to find his voice. Hestia was a good witch who deserved that much, at least. A funeral, as much of one as the Order of the Phoenix, could offer her. Hestia Jones was staring off into space, but Remus couldn't tell what it was that she was looking at or for. As far as Lupin knew, Hestia had been ripped apart from the inside out, starting with her stomach and Greyback had left Hestia here to die, with her womb cradled in her arms.

Where there had once been smooth skin was torn muscle and blood, as raw as any carcass at a butcher's. Hestia's corpse lay still, her skin so pale as to make the dried, garish blood that much redder. Remus stopped, the insides of his palms curling and trapping the sweat inside in the frigid October air.

He scrunched his nose and fought back the urge to vomit, turning away as his stomach heaved, nostrils filled with the smell of metallic blood and rotting meat. Without her eyelids, her green eyes stared into the frozen sky while the lip-less mouth hung open, though it was not what his wolfish sight was drawn to.

A ripped piece of parchment was clutched into a ball in her curled fist, though it was not, like the rest of her, splattered in blood.

The heart had been cleaved from the body. The arteries, now drained of their life fluid, stuck out like so many rubber hoses. The skin had been peeled back and ripped off, there were teeth marks evident in what flesh was left. The ribs cage had been cracked and pried open; the whiteness of the bone shone out in the sea of flesh.

The face was now the greyish color of a cadaver and Remus couldn't help but wonder how much of the procedure of being ripped apart limb from limb that Hestia Jones had lived through. Certainly, there were rope burns on the wrists, evidence that she had tried to fight. But the mouth wasn't gagged.

Maybe the other wolves enjoyed the screams. If so, this wouldn't be the last victim. Fenrir Greyback's murders had only just begun, though his eyes were currently fixated on the piece of scrap paper clutched in Hestia's closed fist.

_Greyback left a message_ , Remus thought, biting down on his tongue hard enough that he tasted metallic iron on his palette.

_But intended for whom? Father? Or…me?_

It was, unfortunately, neither of those, though but gods, he wished it were. He knelt shakily next to Hestia's corpse and raising his wand, carefully lifted the shredded piece of parchment gingerly from her tightly clenched fist and it landed steadily in the palm of his hand, where he unfolded it with slightly shaking fingers. Lupin had never felt as bitterly frigid as he did with every word that leaped out at him, pouncing at him from the paper.

His fingers trembled along with his lips, every breath leaving him as frost, and he knew it had nothing to do with the frigid cold temperature of the early morning October air. How such a simple statement, a mere scrap of parchment could make his bones brittle and blood freeze within his bloodstream. _No_.

Remus shook his head to clear it and glanced with wide eyes at the message scrawled in black ink. _No. No, no, I am…misreading this. Surely_.

He clenched his eyes tightly shut and emanated a tense exhale through his nose. His life as a werewolf had never particularly offered a satisfying sleep. It must have started to spot on his vision. His throat dried and his heart thrummed erratically against his chest, pounding, and threatening to break free.

Lupin could smell the stench of his own fear as his gaze remained fixated on the note.

**Watch your back, wolf. You'll soon have a knife there.**

**I'm coming for her next.**

**Just her.**

As Remus finished reading the taunt, the yell that erupted from him was looking a vicious snarl, a booming bark.

A chill ran through Lyall Lupin's spine as the father heard his son's yell of anguish. It made him shudder as a freezing cold wind would wake someone. His blood ran cold and a bead of sweat dripped down his lined, weather-beaten face. Lyall stood there behind his son, helpless, not knowing what to do and entirely too traumatized to think.

Tension grew in Remus's face and limbs, his mind replaying the last time he had come across one of Greyback's victims. He did not think he'd seen anything this grotesque. He felt his breathing become more rapid, shallower.

"Son?" His father's voice sounded much closer this time, though garbled, as though underwater. Remus flinched and shirked away the moment his father set a slightly shaking hand on his left shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"It's _him_. You were...right, Dad. And…I found this. I think he…I think it's a message for me, Dad."

Lupin heard the shaking of his own voice and felt the trembling of his limbs as he wordlessly handed over the note. He felt his stomach twist and turn violently in circles, as though someone had plunged their bare hand and was purposefully twisting his intestines into intense cramps.

He felt like he was going to be physically ill. Lupin ground his teeth as the horrible swarms of visions of Dora's death at either Greyback or Crouch's hand swam to the forefront of his mind, each one more violent and bloody than the last ones.

"Merlin's beard…" growled Lyall darkly under his breath, before silently handing the note back. "If this is true, son, then it sounds like your future wife is Greyback's next target. What are you going to do to protect her?"

Lupin felt his panic begin to spread like wildfire in his abdomen as he shakily rose to his feet, though not before his surge of anger that coursed through his veins caused him to inexplicably set the taunting note on fire with his wand.

The feat sat quietly on Remus's chest, eroding the person he was born to be. What started as a contortion of his stomach at the sick sight that was Hestia Jones' corpse that lay sprawled at his and Lyall's feet became a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand.

His breaths became erratic, deep, shallow. Remus fought it. Lupin fought the feeling as his body writhed to be free or shut down entirely. Each time this happened to him, part of him got stronger, learning how to cope with this strange feeling, now that Dora was in his life, and he was slowly but surely learning to nurture the almost foreign sensation of having a life partner to look out for, to cherish and protect her with all that he was, though he knew himself to be not that much at all, in the end.

All the while, the other part of him weakened. To recover, this new version of fear was going to need a name, and Remus crowned it fear of failure.

Of failing to protect Dora, that one day, he might not be able to save her. If that day ever came, then he might as well have given up and slain himself, for he did not think he could bear to live in a world without the young witch by his side. Against this fear of failure, Lupin pitted the fear of never trying, of failing through cowardice. This was how he kept moving forward, why others thought him brave. He wasn't.

Remus just knew how to push through fear better than others. Make forwards less painful than hiding in the shadows. A cough from his father startled Lupin out of his swirling vortex of conflicted, terrifying thoughts, and he turned towards Lyall with a furtive, guilty look on his face as he realized his father was still waiting for him to answer, and, sensing his son needed to be reminded, Remus heard his father ask him the question a second time as he repeated it.

"What are you going to do to protect Miss Tonks, Remus?" Lyall asked.

Sensing his son's hesitation and conflicting emotions flooding and flickering through Remus's light brown eyes, Lyall pursed his lips into a thin rigid line and clapped his son on the back and steered him away towards Hestia's corpse. Upon seeing Remus open his mouth to vehemently protest, he shook his head.

"We need to send the Aurors at the Ministry to deal with that. Let them. They're more equipped to deal with this than you or I are, son. This is a crime scene. We shouldn't even _be_ here, by rights, but I wanted you to see it for yourself in case...he's at large again. But don't change the subject," he added gruffly. "A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets. The advice my grandfather gave me when I turned twenty, and it's advice that I've tried to give you throughout your life, Remus. What are you willing to fight for?" He fixed his only son with a pointed stare.

"Her."

Remus's answer was immediate and left his lips without any hesitation, and his answer seemed satisfactory to Lyall as he nodded, firmly keeping his hand clamped on his son's shoulder as he steered him towards the front door of their cottage, and to Lyall's surprise, Remus shrugged out of his father's surprisingly strong, ironclad grasp.

"No, Dad. I—I cannot stay, I should get back, but I promise to come to check on you, and soon. I need to alert the rest of the Order and we need to start making funeral arrangements for Hestia. And I need to get back to Dora. If Greyback and Crouch are after her, she isn't safe alone anymore and I don't trust her not to wander off by herself. You asked me what I would do to keep Dora safe, Dad."

Lyall nodded silently and drew in bated breath as he waited for his only son to answer.

"I'd follow her into Hell and back itself if that's what it took to keep Dora safe, Dad. From anyone who would seek to do her harm," Remus growled, and Lyall barely stifled his small smile of amusement as he heard the low warning growl emanate from deep within the confines of Remus's chest, as he recognized it to be courtesy of the Wolf within him, that fierce protectiveness. The edges of his lips curled upwards into an animalistic snarl.

" _And_?" prodded Lyall, sensing his son needed further probing, scowling slightly as he furrowed his dark brows together in a frown, folding his arms across his chest and shrinking into his sweater and jacket as much as he possibly could for warmth, his defenses against the bitterly cold morning air in October. "What are you going to do about it, son? Don't _make_ me ask it a second time."

Remus flinched as the familiar saying he'd adapted from his father poured from Lyall's lips, a phrase the stern werewolf activist and Ministry employee were only too fond of still to this day uttering to his son and reminding him.

Lupin emanated a tense exhale through his nose and lifted his chin slightly to meet his father's gaze.

Lyall let out a sigh and raked his fingers through his light gray hair, all the while never taking his gaze off his son's lined but still handsome, and hardened features. These angry eyes of Remus's were in a sense, the man's shield, and sword, they were the gathering of clouds for a rainfall Lyall knew he would never witness. Not in his lifetime, anyways. Maybe one day he'd let Lyall see that torrent, the release that would feel like a downfall. But first, he'd have to let him in, and Remus was much too haunted to open up, at least not to his father. But maybe to this woman…

When he spoke, the edges of his voice were hardened and cold.

"Not let her go."


	48. To Not Let Go

**CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT**

Tonks thought she would be able to handle it. Another funeral. Another body, another Order member to mourn. They knew the risks.

This was war. After everyone mourned the loss, there was no more sentimentality for the dead. At least, that's what Mad-Eye always told her.

It was easier if you didn't think of them as people at all.

Cruel though it sounded, once the light winked out in their eyes, they were another carcass to bury. The soul had already moved on and the living were left with the task of burial and the funeral arrangements. Tonks and Remus, along with Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones' husband, Rob, stood at the front of the funeral line.

Emmeline occasionally shot Tonks a look that the young witch could not readily identify what she might be feeling. The silence between the pair of them fell but Tonks could practically feel the thick tension in how Vance saw her.

And she did not like it. Not one bit. Her eyes, emerald, and cold, were glossed over with a fresh layer of tears that pricked at the corners of her vision, and as Vance shot her and Remus another mournful look, Tonks swore—she _swore_ , that she saw the tightening on Emmeline Vance's jaw, though a slight gruff cough from Moody coming to her left quickly broke her out of the moment.

Was it hatred? Loathing? Jealousy? Tonks found herself swallowing.

Everyone's heads were down, though Tonks cast a wary glance about at the rest of the Order in attendance.

Maybe it was them showing respect, or maybe they were afraid to look at what was coming next. She held Remus's hand the entire time, and she could feel his palm shake badly. One glance at Emmeline was more than enough for Tonks. The young witch not that much older than Tonks herself had been Hestia Jones's best friend. Emmeline wiped her tears on the sleeve of her black robe and rested her head against Lupin's shoulder.

Tonks felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle and stand on end, though she bit down hard on the inside wall of her cheek and ran her tongue along the top wall of her teeth. _Emmeline's hurting, T_ , Ollie's voice rang up from the recesses of her mind. _Don't fault her for taking comfort in Remus_.

Tonks stifled her growl of annoyance, though she knew Ollie was right. She shook her mind to clear it. This petty jealousy of hers had to stop. There was nothing on Lupin's end that indicated he harbored an attraction towards Vance, and he had said as much during the early days of their partnership and went out of his way to reiterate it now that the two of them were in a romantic relationship. Her feelings were utterly useless and unfounded and would do her no favors here right now.

She gave a curt nod, though Remus completely missed it, and decided she would be the stronger. Vance needed the comfort, and for that, she would bode no ill will on the young witch seeking comfort from Remus.

Emmeline kept it together until Professor McGonagall passed out a moving photograph of Hestia to everyone and that was when all the memories came flooding back to poor Vance like a tidal wave. Vance cried as if the sheer ferocity of it might bring her best friend back to her as if by the force of her grief, the deed would be undone. Hestia had been her best friend, her only one.

And she could not be gone. Even from the back of the crowd that had gathered collectively to mourn Hestia Jones's passing, the rest of the Orders' heads felt like they swiveled as one entity, having to crane their necks to locate the source of the screaming sobs.

The soothing words of Lupin and Professor McGonagall seemed to make no difference at all.

Remus tried to hold Emmeline back, to calm her down, to comfort her, even as his own tears fell thick and fast for their Order member, which bothered Tonks, and she loathed herself for that little fact, and she knew she was being entirely selfish. Childish.

But in Vance's hysteria, she was too strong and wild. After whirling about, unable to look through her puffy, red-rimmed eyes at the photograph of Hestia that was being passed through the rest of the Order, Emmeline fled further down the graveyard, towards Jones' gravesite where she was buried.

"Go." It was a simple command, and Tonks hated hearing the crack and dip in her voice as she blinked back tears of her own, though they were not for Hestia, but for her. "Rem, _go_ ," she urged, laying a shaking hand on his shoulder, and upon seeing his wrought and grief-stricken face, she gave a jerk of her head towards Emmeline's crouched form at the gravesite, where Minerva McGonagall was already striding towards Vance with Professor Snape, intent on calming her down. "You're one of the most level-headed members of the Order, Remus," Tonks sighed, and she was not aware of how tired she sounded until she heard herself. "Vance needs you. I will be _fine_ , Lupin. I can take care of myself. I think I'll take a walk. I could...use fresh air. I'll meet you back at the Burrow. _Go_."

Remus nodded mutely, though he made no move to go to Vance's side. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He'd had more than his fair share of funerals. To see Dora lose sleep at night every single night for the last week following his return home from his father's house with the news that Fenrir Greyback had murdered Hestia, and when he'd informed Dora of the taunting message that had been left behind, intended for him, she'd not reacted.

It was killing him to see her this way. He'd tried several times to get her help, Sleeping Draughts from Professor Snape to help her sleep, but Tonks possessed a stubborn streak and refused to accept anything from Severus, which he supposed he ought not to have been surprised considering their volatile history, but it did not make it hurt any less to see her growing even more tired.

Lupin knew her reasons and could respect and understood them. He would support her no matter what. He wasn't going to leave her, because she had practically begged him to stay, and more importantly than that, he _wanted_ it.

He would always stay. To be in Dora's presence was as close to peace as his wretched, cursed, wolfish self could come.

The slightly detached look Tonks had given him before turning her back on him and walking away only added cinder to the fire that had begun to curdle in his blood, unable to explain away the sudden shift of anger that he felt towards Dora's strangely cold dismissal.

"Dora." Remus flinched as he watched as Tonks halted in her tracks, her hands balled into fists at her side.

There was a silence to Tonks's soul as she walked away, grieving in her own way, Lupin supposed, for Hestia Jones, like she was the fall leaves under frost. Remus swallowed past the lump in his throat and did his best to quell the strange swooping sensation in his stomach as he cast a furtive glance towards Hestia Jones' grave in the distance, where Professor McGonagall was sitting with a still hysterically wailing Emmeline, distraught and beside herself.

Lupin sighed, emanating a tense exhale as he realized his voice was pressured with ire, and he quickly recognized that his sudden curtness was coming from a place of fierce, almost wolfish protectiveness for Tonks. How many times now had she wandered off alone and gotten in trouble?

Between her and Sirius, he was kind of beginning to lose count in that regard.

Tonks slowly turned at the waist and cast her gaze, which was slightly suspicious and distrusting, towards Vance, before she bit down on her lip.

The dark look of silent, seething jealousy told Remus everything he needed to know regarding his and Vance's friendship. She thought Vance had…

_No. She wouldn't_. James offered helpfully in the back of his mind. _Vance might have had… 'designs' on you at one point in time, but the entire Order now knows of your relationship with Tonks. I don't think she'd act on it, Moony._

_You could try asking Tonks of her feelings regarding this, Rem_ , Lily piped up, her voice soft, though laced with a sense of apprehension he was not used to hearing in his best friend's wife's sweet voice. _And be honest with her_.

"I _see_ the way you look at Vance, Dora," Remus began cautiously, swallowing nervously and closing his eyes for a moment and praying to Merlin and his friends above that his voice and his temper, which rapidly was swelling to the surface as his agitation worsened, remained calm. He didn't want to fight.

"There is _nothing_ between Emmeline and me, Tonks. She is just a friend and fellow Order member. She's one of our own. Vance is my friend. Nothing more, and nothing less than that, you hear me? Maybe, if you'd just give her a chance, she could be a friend to you too. She's hurting Dora. Can't you see?"

Tonks bit down even harder on her bottom lip, and Remus swore he could see the sudden shift within his girlfriend as her gray eyes flashed and became steel, rivaling even that of the most pristinely polished set of Baroque armor of the knight statues at Hogwarts in the Great Hall. "Then _go_. I told you, she needs you. Go. I will be _fine_. I want to…there's someone I need…"

But her voice trailed off as it faltered, as did her resolve, and Remus heard Tonks let out a tired sounding sigh as she once again turned her back on Lupin and pinched at the front of her temples with her thumb and forefinger.

Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown as he felt his hand instinctively drift towards the pocket of his brown jacket, where the black ring box containing his mother's yellow-gold wedding ring was nestled securely.

He had been hoping to ask her within the next few days the question that he never in his miserable, wretched life had dreamt he would ask a woman, though the grim tidings of Hestia Jones' death and now her funeral had put a damper on his spirits, and he did not know when he would ask Tonks to marry him. Remus blinked, trying to sort through his emotions and clear his mind.

Lupin felt his hands clench into fists of his own and he shoved them in the pockets of his jacket with the effort to restrain himself. Exhaling a shaking breath and blowing out a cold puff of cold October air, feeling his nostrils flare, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths before responding to Dora.

Though when he opened them, Tonks's back was turned towards him, her arms folded across her chest, and her attention fixed further down the graveyard. "I…you need to let me _help_ you, Dora," he pleaded desperately.

He reached out his right hand and gingerly gave her left shoulder a firm but reassuring squeeze, silently trying to indicate he wasn't going anywhere.

"You aren't sleeping, love. I wish you would let me or Professor Snape _help_ you. Give you a Sleeping Draught. In your sleep, I—I don't know if you know this, Dora, but…you talk in your sleep. To your…former _partner_ ," here, he tried his hardest not to spit the last word as though it were poison that had settled on his tongue. He knew he had no right to be jealous of Ollie, the man was long dead, and had been for a few years now, but he couldn't help it.

Every time the Brennan man's name was mentioned in passing conversation, be it by Dora or Alastor, Remus had never been able to fathom the pain and fear in Tonks's eyes or in her voice, and always sought to change the topic of conversation, sensing her former partner was still a sore subject.

Lupin could not, for the life of him, figure out why it bothered him so much to hear the man's name mentioned in the same breath as Dora's. It was true, that it troubled him that Ollie Brennan had gotten to spend more time with Tonks than he ever had, prior to meeting the vibrant, young pink-haired witch, but…the man was _dead_. And as cruel a thought as that sounded, why then, whenever Dora thought of Ollie, was his heart always in such awful pain?

Even right now, there was the wolfish, monstrous part of himself that cherished the fact that her former partner was dead, a truly loathsome thought.

Lupin found himself growing more irate and more angered at Ollie, though the man was dead, at the constant trauma and worry he was causing Tonks, even in death. That Brennan was often the one in Dora's center focus, and not him.

But _why_? He had no right or cause to be this angry or upset over Ollie. The man was dead, and Dora just happened to be a naturally caring young witch. She would have done the same thing if it were anyone else in the Order.

_Even if it was me?_ Remus blinked, startled, thinking of that a moment.

He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around Dora and never let her go, to reach inside and tell her that it was not hopeless, that there was still meaning to her life, our life, he had to correct himself internally. One that they would mold and shape together, assuming she said yes to his question.

Lupin swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and continued. "I know you haven't been sleeping. You—you aren't eating much, either, sweetheart," he commented, his dark brows furrowing into an even deeper frown as he took notice of how thin Tonks was getting as the days dragged on. How her collarbones were prominent and seemed to stand out, the dark circles underneath her eyes becoming more pronounced and purple from lack of sleep.

"I know you may not want to hear this but…your partner is _dead_ ," Remus growled, visibly wincing as Nymphadora slowly turned around and regarded Lupin with a growing look of antagonizing hurt and betrayal in her eyes. "You _killed_ him, though it was an accident, he won't be coming back." Lupin glanced down and realized his hand had curled into a fist over his wand without him even realizing it, and he quickly stowed it in his jacket pocket.

Breathing out a slightly shaking breath, he shook his head and carded back that damned stubborn lock of his light brown bangs, stifling his wolfish growl of frustration and continued attempting to reach Dora, somehow.

"Doesn't it seem easier to accept the fact that he's gone? That it's an easier out than this—this _torture_ you're putting yourself through because you won't let him go!" Lupin cried, swallowing hard and blinked back wretched tears. He'd _die_ before he'd ever see himself shed a tear in front of Nymphadora. "He's killing you, because you're _letting_ him. Even in death, your friend has a vice grip on your mind and it's hurting me to not be able to help you. I—I hate it, but I don't know what else to do for you! Tell me. Tell me what to do," he begged, biting his lip and gripping onto both of her shoulders in an effort to steady her. He didn't like how pale she looked.

When Tonks finally seemed to regain the power of speech, her voice was hoarse and soft and did not at all sound like the sweet, somewhat shy, and jovial tone he had grown accustomed to during their time as partners, then as lovers.

" _Go_. Vance needs you, and McGonagall looks like she needs you…"

Lupin felt his breath catch in his throat and his heart rate speed up at her statement.

It was _not_ her voice. It may have come from her lips, Tonks might have formed her words, but the voice did not belong to Dora. The tone was wrong. Her voice was flat, curt, and hardened. Emotionless. Not sad or upset or devastated as he had expected Tonks to be following news of Hestia's death.

Once more, there was the faint flutter of the bitter autumnal breeze and the silence of them both, and Remus did not want to leave despite his loss of words, nor the immense sense of hurt he felt towards the harshness of her tone.

_She's grieving in her own way, Rem_ , Lily soothingly advised. _Don't blame her for the way she's reacting. Grief can manifest itself in different forms_.

He bit the inside wall of his cheek as he once again watched Dora turn her back on him and start to walk away. "Dora," he called out one more time.

Tonks froze in her tracks, and when she turned around and lifted her chin slightly to meet Remus's gaze, he almost found himself wishing she wouldn't, that she would have kept her trance fixated on the path before her.

For the heartbreak and listlessness in her gray eyes was entirely too much for Remus to bear. Lupin emanated a tense exhale and the low growl was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "I want you to head back to Molly and Arthur's and _stay_ there. If someone is after you…it's not safe for you to be alone, and I want you _safe_ , love. Molly's making meatballs for the rest of the Order for…the reception," he said. "And Dora…don't let me catch you wandering outside alone _ever_ again," the Wolf within him snarled, almost possessively.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown, though her lips parted open in shock and anger, as she wanted to protest Remus's demand—not a request—a demand, and had been about to answer with a follow-up retort that she was a grown witch perfectly capable of handling her own, but promptly shut it when both Moody and Remus shot her a dark look capable of turning her to stone.

Tonks felt her gaze shift to the side again and became glazed with a glossy layer of tears. As she blinked and painfully twisted her fingers together, her tears dripped from her eyelids and slid down her cheeks in gentle tracts.

She bit her lip tightly in a futile attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from her mouth, and Lupin felt his heart sink. Her lower lip quivered.

" _Fine_." Her voice was cold, with no semblance of warmth to be found. She dipped her head in acknowledgment, though she shirked away the moment Moody hobbled forward. "If that is what you wish, Rem, then I'll go. You should tend to Vance." The exhaustion and defeatism in her voice were evident.

With that, Tonks turned back around and Disapparated with a loud _crack_! and a turn of her heel, quitting the scene before Alastor or Remus could so much as utter a single word. Lupin frowned and stared after the spot where Dora had stood only moments before, wishing that he could help her, but how?

It hurt as hell, to see the woman he loved this way. His jaw clenched and his teeth dug along the wall of his mouth as he shoved his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged out of Mad-Eye Moody's grip as the man laid a gnarled and withered hand on his right shoulder, muttering something about vigilance.

Lupin felt beads of sweat form on his brow and he let out a quick and aggravated breath as he felt the weakening of his legs, though he forced himself to remain upright and shook his head to clear, raking his hands through his thick tuft of light brown hair, and upon hearing Professor McGonagall's pleas for more assistance in helping subdue Emmeline to get the distraught, grieving witch under control, turned swiftly on the heel of his shoe and strode towards the pair of them. He felt his hand curl into a white boned fist and before he could fathom what he was doing, he had lashed out at a tree branch in anger.

It hurt as hell as his knuckles stung and bled, garish red crimson against pristine white. _If Crouch or Greyback dares to lay a hand on Tonks_ , he thought, silently fuming, and seething in his sense of newfound anger as his jaw locked in anger, tighter than rigor mortis. _Then by Merlin's beard, I'll kill him_.

_Kill them both. Rip them apart, tear them limb to limb, as Greyback did to Hestia_.

Remus almost swallowed his tongue as the beastly thoughts of the Mad Beast within him threatened to take over, throttling his urge to roar like an enraged dragon at the unnecessary tensions mounting between him and Dora.

A few hot tears escaped and stung, blurring the corners of his vision, rendering the graveyard and the woods at the edge of the property in a blur.

But the worst part was not the stinging upon his bruised and now bleeding knuckles, but the simple fact that it was not enough for Lupin to swap with the anguish that pierced his broken heart.

* * *

Tonks had not gone back to the Burrow as she had promised she would. She had fully intended to, but her feet seemed to have other ideas in mind for her, no longer taking directions from her mind, and somehow, she found herself here. She could not tether an understanding to Remus Lupin, or to the Wolf within him. Tonks hated it when he got in moods like this.

And now, not wanting to currently be in the presence of other witches and wizards, Order members and friends or not, she found herself here, in this place of death, loss, and torment. "You'd hate this damned place, Ollie," she whispered in a broken voice as she blinked back salty, briny tears angrily.

Tonks had never experienced grief quite this bad before. It snuck up behind her quietly and took her under its arms in an instant when Ollie died.

Tonks hadn't even been able to find it within herself to attend his own funeral, not even under the threat of being on the receiving end of a jinx by Moody, who had considered her not attending Brennan's funeral a sign of utmost disrespect for the man who was her best friend alongside Charlie Weasley in Hogwarts, the very same man who'd gone ballistic in a fit of slight jealousy over learning that she had given her very first kiss to Charlie and not _him_.

Every memory of her deceased former partner played like a song in her head, repeating itself for what felt like an eternity. She felt lost, mostly because when Ollie died, she lost an integral part of herself, one she'd never get back.

She could not get his warmth, his light, his friendship back and she wanted it back so badly that her life depended on it, that not having him around ached, but it was all gone, vanished into nothing.

Or rather, _he_ was gone. And he wasn't coming back.

Moss laden bricks of gray, fitting as guards on the threshold. Behind the fool's ancient wrought-iron gate was _his_ gravesite. Rows and rows of crumbling mounds stood in various interpretations of upright, porous trees hunched over most of the graveyard, plunging the piece of property in healthy shadow, causing the graveyard to feel like it echoed.

This damned place smelled of Death, and to enter it, Tonks had to skirt around a pile of wet fallen autumnal leaves. There was no wind, just a…howling.

The temperature felt as of a mild apparition and so she heard the wind's company, even more so. Silent. Tonks sniffed once and wiped at her eyes with the back of her palm as she reached his tombstone, waving her wand and conjuring a simple white lily, fingering the little thing's delicate petals.

So soft and fragile. Just as her broken heart was over Ollie's death, his absence in her life had left a gaping hole in her heart, one that had filled and healed somewhat, now that Remus was in her life, but…no one could replace _him_. The grief of missing her former partner and best friend came in waves, threatening to consume Tonks entirely. It was her master, for now.

She was at its mercy and at times, especially times like right now, it bit at her with such ferocity, that Tonks feared it would leave as nothing but an empty shell, with nothing left to live for, worse than being a recipient of the Dementor's Kiss.

Tonks exhaled a shaking breath as she reached Ollie's gravesite.

"I…I'm so _sorry_!" she wailed, feeling her face crumple, twisting, and contorting with grief, and it was only here in front of Ollie's grave that she allowed herself to cry. She had never gotten to tell Ollie that she cared for him one last time. She didn't get to hold Ollie close before he slipped away. She did not even get to look into that loving, mischievous face, which always brought her so much happiness when they would joke around behind Moody's back during training. "Ollie, I...don't...think I can do this..."

Ollie had been Tonks's anchor, whenever she'd started to drift. A friend to her when no one else would have her because of her Metamorphing.

He had always been there for her with a smile shining in his bright eyes. And now, because of her, murderer, Ollie Brennan was gone. _Forever_.

Waves of pain washed over Tonks as she felt the strength in her knees leave her and the kneecaps of her black skinny jeans dug into the grit of the earth. She felt her body convulse to meet each one. Ollie was gone, his light extinguished by death's empty darkness.

All Tonks had left of Ollie was the fading image in her mind. She could still see him with his feet up on his desk at the Auror Office, a habit that had always irked Moody to no end, teasing the old man relentlessly about his paranoia, kicking the vending machine in frustration with the edge of his boot whenever the damned thing would swallow his Knuts or Sickles and not give him his promised Chocolate Frog.

But no matter how hard Tonks tried, she could not fully see her best friend's face. Like a ship straining to see a light in a storm, Tonks desperately searched for a picture of Ollie's face somewhere in the reserve of her memory.

None came. All she remembered was the brightness of Ollie's eyes, but the details of Ollie's face were just gone. Like him. In despair, she felt herself press her forehead against his tombstone, the pads of her fingertips ghosting along the engravings etched in the stone, permanently bearing his name.

She only wished that she could make Remus understand somehow, how much Ollie meant to her without his insecurities, his jealousy preventing him from fully coming to an understanding regarding her feelings for Ollie.

Tonks was not a _child_. Far from it. His overprotectiveness and smothering relentless coddling were starting to wear thin on her, and a shuffling sound that sounded like a twig snapping jolted the young Auror out of her dark haze of swirling thoughts. The jutted, wrestling branches of the, in her mind, spooky graveyard, danced above her head but she felt as though the limbs themselves had bent down to try to catch a strand of her hair.

A whisper wafted through the air towards her. " _Nymphadora_ …"

A ghostly call left her timorous and she shivered at the unknown voice, chorusing in screams and whispers, and she could not pinpoint the voice's location or that of its mysterious owner. "Wh—what _is_ this?!" she moaned. What little she was able to ascertain of it, was that it was male, and it sounded harsh and grating, like the sound of a wooden crate being dragged across a cobblestoned street.

" _Nymphadora…I see you…_ "

" _Nymphadora_ …"

A tightening of her throat and a short intake of breath forecast the explosion of emotion which to date, she had managed to keep buried deep inside. Not anymore though, that image of things shared with a love which were not to come was too powerful and gut-wrenching to be kept in check; the tearing at her soul was too compelling and energetic to be contained.

Every moment she made left a sense of severe dread, and Tonks stifled a muffled yelp of surprise as she heard the noise again, this Stranger's voice…

" _Nymphadora_ …" _There it was again_ , she thought wildly. _But where…_? She gulped as her eyes rested on a black-cloaked figure resting idly against the branch of an old oak tree. Directly behind her, blocking her exit.

"Who—who's there?" Tonks's wary, skeptical voice filled in hesitantly as she bolted to her feet, brushing her hands on the seat of her jeans and gripping around her wand in a tight fist. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Whoever it was, she could tell the build belonged to a man. _Crouch_? Though the thick black cloak the man wore, with the large hood drawn up over his face to conceal his face told her very little of the Stranger's features.

What little she could see of this intruder, she decided she did not like. The man was taller than her, stocky, well-built. A sharp profile, a well-defined jawline, strong cheekbones. Two or three-day stubble lingered on his chin.

He kept his body turned to the side, rendering it impossible for Tonks to make out any details of the man's face from this angle, and she could tell by the he-stranger's stance if she were to advance on him, he would likely flee.

"Did you _mourn_ him? This friend of yours?" the Stranger taunted with a jerk of his hooded head towards Ollie's grave, and Tonks shivered at how rough and coarse the man's voice sounded, spurring nausea in the churning pit of her stomach, but cradled a hidden desire to submit to this man's query.

She swallowed, head inclined, her gray eyes unmoved and face angered.

"There you are." It was all this new arrival, this Stranger said to her, and the blasé method of speaking chilled her and rendered her blood to ice.

"Who are you?" She tried again, daring to take another half-step forward, though flinched when the black-cloaked Stranger shifted, swiveling what little of his features she could see towards Tonks, and he tilted his head.

"No one of consequence," was all the deep, baritone voice answered.

"Do I—do I _know_ you?" Tonks breathed, feeling her blood churning in her veins. She felt frozen, rooted to her spot and completely unable to move, let alone think of a way to get out of this and away from this He-Stranger.

He could raise his own wand and kill her now, and she'd not know it.

When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft and less rough than before more subdued. " _No_." But then Tonks immediately sensed the change within him as his posture stiffed. "Who I _am_ is not important, little dove," the man growled, though Tonks could swear the man's tone almost painted a vicious, antagonizing hurt.

The Stranger moved, shifting slightly to the left of the tree, and though he became quite still, and Tonks could feel the Stranger's eyes, though she could not see them, could not see their color, nor read the emotions within, she could feel his eyes practically crawling all over her, and what was new with this?

There was an eerie sense of confidence growing on her, at least, that's what she told herself, that she need not shirk away at the mere desires of men.

The Stranger clad entirely in black folded his arms across his chest, and Tonks could practically feel the wrath burning off the man's stocky body in waves. Though his eyes remained concealed from view, his chin dipped slightly, and Tonks did not even have to look to realize he was staring at the scars on top of her hands, self-inflicted wounds two days after Ollie's passing, that had never fully healed.

"You did not answer my question, dear," the Stranger growled. "Did you _mourn_ this man? Your friend. Or did you, like everyone else in this society, wait a week out of respect for the dead before moving on with your life?" There was no hint of concern or pity in the man's gravelly voice, just inquest and almost a sense of insatiable curiosity, a thirst to know the truth. "Those markings on your wrist. The scars…was it _that_ bad? His death?"

Slowly, she faced this he-stranger with an icy cold stare.

"I saw my best friend get ripped apart limb from limb, torn to _shreds_ when I turned into an Animagus and could not control myself. I tried to—I tried to kill myself after he died, I tried to slit my own wrists and my own magic kept healing me somehow," she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks as she rolled up the sleeve of her long-sleeved black blouse and showed him the angry red scars on her wrist, evidence of her past and present depression, "and everyone else says that it's not my fault, but I know the truth. So, you stand here, not even knowing me, bastard, and ask me if I mourned him?"

Tonks swallowed hard past the lump in her throat and looked away.

"No. It wasn't all 'that bad.' And yes. I mourn him every single day." She shifted slightly and regarded this Stranger who had intruded on her privacy and furrowed her brows into a frown. "What the hell are you doing here? What do you want with me? Are you with Crouch? Have you come here to kill me?" she snarled viciously.

She saw him unmoved, though Tonks could have sworn this mysterious cloaked stranger startled at her words. "Why lose your venom on me, _witch_? I have done nothing to warrant such anger. Who was this ' _partner_ ' of yours? Ugly? Rich? Handsome? You should consider yourself fortunate that you killed him before he found out what you _really_ are." The man's voice sounded clipped and hard. "We've been watching you a while now, Tonks."

Tonks felt her temper bristle and the hairs on the back of her neck, though she made no comment, nor did she move to look at him. The fear traveled in her veins but never made it to her facial muscles or her skin.

Her eyes wandered down as she glanced at the man's wand in his hand, which he had an infuriating obsession with twirling in between his fingers.

Tonks set her face to 'casual indifference.' Her only way out was for this Death Eater of Crouch's ranks to overestimate her skill level, to assume her lack of fear came from mastery instead of a raw nerve when she was actually terrified. "Nothing you say will upset me Who the hell _are_ you? What do you _want_?"

This man, whoever he was, just _had_ to be a Death Eater by that cloak, the cold, condescending tones of his voice, how this man was mocking her.

"To bring you a…message," the Death Eater answered coldly, the Stranger turning slightly, and it greatly unnerved Tonks that she could not see the man's eyes. She saw the red, bloodied creases on his knuckles; sweltered, angry, freshly made wounds, as though he'd punched a brick wall in anger.

"What 'message?'" Tonks demanded hotly, though it was not enough to quell the stab of fear that pricked at her heart. The fingers of her wand hand twitched, a drop of familiar fever and rage spreading through her bloodstream.

" _Don't_." It was a simple one-word answer but carried a heavy burden.

_Don't? Don't what?_ Tonks blinked owlishly, all her anger momentarily forgotten as she waited for the Stranger to respond and further elaborate.

Though she was given no time to react as the Stranger shrouded in black moved so swiftly to close off the gap of space between the two of them, and Tonks let out a hiss, thinking he moved languidly and fluidly, like a Dementor. She felt the tip of his wand press into the column of her throat.

When the Stranger spoke, the man's voice was icy and listless, flat. "Don't misinterpret my meaning, _witch_. You're only still _alive_ right now because _he_ wants it," the cloaked man whisper hissed through gritted teeth. "You're not my fellow friend, my comrade, not with _us_. _Not like us_. Nothing more, and nothing less. _Justice_. I can't think of another word more loved by the people," he sighed. "It _does_ have a nice ring to it. However…"

The man let out a low warning growl and ground his teeth. "Without ever exercising your own strength, you seek the death of others at the hands of someone else. You want Crouch dead. I can see it in your eyes, but you lack the strength to do it yourself. You don't want red on your ledger. You have a code of honor as an Auror, not to kill, no matter what they've done. It's your _weakness_. It will _always_ be your weakness," he snarled. "Well. The ' _justice'_ you refer to smells pretty rotten to me. The stench of a bloodbath. In the grand scheme of things our lives are insignificant…light as air…much like a candy wrapper. I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but it will only bring you disappointment if you hope to have a life like _his_. _Lupin's_."

The man spat the word as though it were poison, and Tonks stiffened as she heard the familiar cracking sound of another figure Apparating in the graveyard. The cloaked man's head whiplashed sharply upward to regard the noise, and he became stock still, like a deer caught in the sights of an arrow.

Tonks swore she heard the man let out an animalistic growl as he turned back towards Tonks and rolled his neck to crack it.

"This conversation has far too many clichés. It's begun to bore me, little dove." The Stranger turned his back, no doubt preparing to Disapparate, though he paused. "But seeing you like this was worth cheering this dreadfully grey Tuesday morning. I feel…sure we'll meet again very soon, Miss Tonks. I may have to bow out now so whoever just arrived and interrupted our 'little conversation', so your friend doesn't discover us here, but…I'll find you again, Auror. I wouldn't want to disappoint you, nor myself…but I seemed to have drawn attention, but it matters not. We'll find time to finish this, you and I. I…enjoyed our 'talk.'"

The young witch shuddered as the cloaked man's last word was far too algid and it almost rendered her blood frozen and stripped her insides off.

She would sooner slit her wrists a second time than talk with this creep again instead!

"Wait!" she blurted out, an arm outstretched as if she thought that could stop this Stranger from leaving. She could tell he would not kill her.

Not if what he had said about Crouch wanting her alive was true. Her suspicions proved true as the man stopped midway to twist his head, features still shrouded in the shadow underneath the hood of his black woolen cloak.

"…is he going to kill me after I've outlived my purpose? Crouch?" Tonks cringed at the flatness of her voice and it almost painted everything grey.

The Stranger stood still, unstirred, and all she could do was stand by her former partner's grave and listen to the silence that was practically deafening.

"I only do what the Master tells me. Most of the time, unwillingly," the man retorted, his words escaping him as a low threatening snarl. Though there was a slight tinge of melancholia, which became calmer as the worst of the man's drop of fevered rage seemed to dissipate. "But coming here...talking to you? It's the only command of his that I was _happiest_ to follow. And...No."

His face shifted slightly, and though Tonks could still not see the Stranger's eyes, the young witch could not help but imagine them a contrast of cold iciness and scalding fire. "I won't."

With that, the man turned on the heel of his black boot and Disapparated, once more leaving Tonks alone to her panicked state and thrumming heart. Gaining back her solitude almost felt like sweet victory.

Albeit short-lived. _What the bloody hell was that?!_ She wanted to scream. Had that impromptu visit all been some kind of…test? A hallucination? Was she still sick somehow, so sleep-deprived that she was seeing things now?

The vision she had, began to swim in front of her as tears welled from deep inside and coursed down her cheeks and she turned back to the graveyard.

Full of stone, moss, yew trees, and the decaying remnants of bone and flesh. But it was empty. There was nobody here but her. Her friend was gone.

Tonks jumped and stifled a cry of surprise as a familiar voice rent through the air and shattered the silence, a man's voice that she recognized.

"I miss him, too."

Tonks let out a muffled yelp of surprise and whirled around on the heel of her black ankle boot and found herself face-to-face with Charlie Weasley.


	49. To See an Old Friend

**CHAPTER FORTY-NINE**

Tonks blinked and turned her head slowly to take in the sight of her old friend and former classmate, Charlie, standing almost directly behind her. Their eyes fell to each and Tonks was almost catching her breath, though she couldn't tell if that was the sight of seeing perhaps her only other best friend in this life now that Ollie was dead, or if it was the sheer exhilaration of seeing him again.

" **CHARLIE**!" she squealed, delighted, and bolted to her feet. "Is it really you…?" she breathed, hardly daring to believe that her only other friend in life had traveled all the way from Romania, away from his precious dragons, to see her.

Either way, she opened her arms and perhaps for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, felt herself smile a genuine, true smile at seeing an old friend. Charlie walked up to her slowly and pulled her closer to him, wrapping his broad arms, which were covered in scratches and burns from his life's work with dragons, around her. His embrace was warm as he pulled Tonks close, ignoring the muffled squeak as his strong hug was enough to crack her ribcage.

"It's me, T," he breathed, and he seemed to harbor no ill will when Tonks rested her cheek on his shoulder and breathed in the scent of fire and ash.

His hug was stronger than anything Tonks had ever known as if holding an old friend wasn't quite enough, Charlie had to feel every once that he was press into every ounce that was him. In that moment of feeling him so close, Tonks felt more awake somehow, more alive than she'd felt in a long time.

That's what she felt, though if she were to try to tell Remus this, she felt certain that he would not understand. But having Charlie here, it helped.

Tonks let out a muted sigh as she felt Charlie's strong grip slacken and he reluctantly relinquished his hold on her first, and Tonks quickly did the same and copied his movements. "How did you find me here, Charlie?" she asked.

Charlie hadn't changed an ounce. She'd not seen him since the day they graduated from Hogwarts.

A few more burn markings here and there. An occupational hazard of working with dragons for a living, a red, weather-beaten face, his fingers covered to the brim in vicious looking leathery calluses, and black and purple bruises in various stages of healing.

His red hair was cut brutally short, though Tonks crinkled her nose as she could have _sworn_ she smelt a lock of his ginger hair smelled as though it had some point caught on fire. The second eldest son of Molly and Arthur Weasley rolled his eyes and clapped Tonks on the back, and Tonks allowed herself to be led away from Ollie's gravesite, though it did not escape Tonks's attention that Charlie risked a glance over his broad shoulder at the tombstone bearing their deceased friend's name, and his lips pursed into a grim line, and something in his eyes softened.

"I got in about an hour ago. Moody asked me to come to get you. Says he won't tell Remus Lupin where you disappeared to, but he's _not_ covering for us when we get back and if you get caught, don't look to him to help you out of this one, because he won't help. _His_ words, not mine," Charlie snorted, earning an eye roll from her.

"Yet another thing I owe you for, Charlie. If we're caught, _I'll_ take the blame, my friend. I won't have Lupin yelling at you," Tonks grinned, shooting the redhaired Weasley man an infectious grin and interlocked her arm around Charlie's and allowed herself to be escorted back to the Burrow via Side-Along Apparition, and paused once they reached the outskirts of the hillside, the reeds of the grass practically covering their knees.

Tonks let out a sigh and could already see the crowd of people gathered outside the Burrow's vast countryside, all of them congregated to mourn Hestia. "Oh, damn it," she swore, spotting Remus in the distance conversing with Arthur and Kingsley, and she recognized the growing look of anger intermingled with unbridled worry.

She stifled a groan of annoyance as she was sure she saw Lupin look their way and narrow his eyes in suspicion, though he made no immediate move to step off the Burrow's front porch. "Quick!" she squeaked, shoving Charlie violently to the ground and ducking down among the tall reeds, laying flat on her stomach and having to prop herself up on her elbows to carefully poke over the reeds of grass to better get a look at Remus's face, which was set tighter than rigor mortis in agitation. "He's in a 'mood,' Charlie, I'm _not_ going up there just yet. I need him to _calm_ _down_. And I want some time with you. I don't get to see you. I _missed_ you, Charlie."

Charlie shot Tonks a dark look at the rather forceful and violent way she had seized a fistful of his collar and shoved him down face-first into the reeds.

Upon seeing the desperation in his friend's face, Charlie's hardened face softened, and the corners of his mouth twitched as he fought back a smile.

"All right. You win, T. So, what, we just…stay out here in the dirt?" he added, glancing out at the reeds in which they knelt in the grass to take cover.

"No." Tonks emanated a tense exhale and knelt to a crouch, making for the west side of the hill, near where Luna Lovegood and her father lived. "Let's—let's go around the back. We can sneak in the back way of the Burrow and I'll make up some excuse. We were in the attic the whole time with the ghoul…."

Charlie Weasley made an odd little strangled noise at the back of his throat that suggested to Tonks that he highly doubted the intelligent man would believe her bald-faced lie, and her heart sank as she realized she was going to take the fall for this. She let out a sigh and stretched as she was finally able to stand up straight as they made their way over the hill and snaked their way to head towards the back entrance of the Burrow.

"It's really something, isn't it? Your home?" Tonks followed her friend's gaze as she heard the content little sigh Charlie gave off, and she knew he missed home more than he would ever let on. His family. "I love how peaceful and quiet it is out there. It helps me…to forget…"

Charlie gave a start at the young witch's words as they walked down the hill and turned to regard his friend with no small measure of disdain in his eyes.

"I don't think Ollie would _want_ you to forget him, T," he answered solemnly. "We're _both_ doing a disservice to his memory by trying to bury him."

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as she felt her fingers curl instinctively into a tight fist around his burly arm as she thought of her mysterious visitor, one of Crouch's goons, no doubt, who'd paid her a visit shortly before her arrival. She briefly wondered if she should tell Charlie of her surprise encounter with whom she could only assume was one of Crouch's Death Eater friends, _if_ the man even had any friends, though she doubted it very much.

Tonks let out a snort as she allowed Charlie to lead her down the hill. "Remember when you set off a Stinkbomb in the Great Hall under the Slytherin table to get back at them for winning the Quidditch match against Gryffindor? And then I joined you in detention that week because I got caught painting a d—"

But Charlie held up a hand to stop her, and he looked like he wanted to laugh. "That was _you_?!" He erupted into laughter and shook his head. " _You_ told me Ollie did it and you had volunteered to take the heat for him! _Why_?"

The noise that burst forth from Tonks was like a cross between a snort and a drunken laugh, with her never knowing when to breathe between the giggling.

" _I_ did it, Charlie," she confessed, skirting around a patch of mud as the two of them trekked up towards the back entrance of the Burrow. "I don't know why."

She shook her head in disbelief.

"I know it was one of the _dumbest_ things I could have done to get detention. I knew if I told you and Barnaby and the others what I did, you'd make fun of me for it and it not being 'proper.' But I remember the Slytherins tripping you in the hall, shoving Ollie, beating him up just because he was friends with a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff, and I just…I don't know…" Tonks shrugged. "Got sick of it, I guess. I hated it," her breathing increasing slightly as she recounted her story. "I never liked the disparity between Slytherin and the rest of the houses. Ollie was our friend, Charlie. I didn't like how the other Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs treated him, simply because of the crest that was on his Hogwarts sweater back then. Ollie was a _kind_ man, with a good, _good_ heart. And now, I…"

Tonks paused, furrowing her brows in a reluctant frown, thinking of _him_. Of Snape. The Potions Master, while not her favorite person in the world, had admitted that, in his own way, he _did_ care for her, and her mind recollected to the morning in St. Mungo's when he'd snuck in to confront her over her foolish behavior of going off alone to confront Barty Crouch Jr. Snape cared for her. Sort of.

The fact that he had switched allegiances should have been proof enough. Tonks frowned and stifled a growl of utter frustration.

She stomped her foot in a moment of anger as she recollected "I _hated_ it, Charlie, how they treated Ollie just because he was a Slytherin. He was _kind_. He was _good_. Not like…not like the rest of his house. Ollie was a gem, and he didn't belong in Slytherin! He should have been a Hufflepuff like _me_ or a Gryffindor like you. Ollie was brave and loyal to a fault and it...it was what got him killed..." Tonks went on, shaking her head to clear it.

"Holy Merlin's left nutsack…" Charlie swore under his breath, grateful his mum wasn't around to hear such language pouring from his mouth, staring at Tonks with widened eyes.

As she recollected the memory of willingly landing herself in detention to spend time with Ollie and Charlie in order to make a statement. Tonks was looking uncharacteristically angered, filled with rage.

"You really did it, huh? All this time, I thought you were just covering for Ollie. That was _you_? All just to stick up for your best friend? _Why_?"

"Yeah." Tonks's confession escaped her lips as a hushed whisper. "I just…thought that they wouldn't have suspected it would be me. Ollie was _so_ pissed at me the next day, putting myself at risk like that, said I might as well paint a target on my uniform since pretty much all the other Slytherins knew I did it the next day and would try to get back at me for it, but…I just _had_ to!"

Charlie was staring at Tonks incredulously, as though she had sprouted a pair of antlers and regarding the young witch with a look of admiration intermingled with that of disbelief.

"Are you _kidding_? It wasn't a mistake, Tonks! Yours was one of the most brilliant pranks I think I've ever seen, and that's including anything Fred and George ever came up with," he chuckled. "Slytherin House had it coming, and if Ollie were still alive, he'd probably tell us both the same thing. I was just surprised it took someone that long to spray paint a d…" Charlie trailed off and shook his head. "Wait till you tell Lupin of this," he snorted dryly. "He's not going to believe his sweet precious girlfriend would _ever_ be capable of having her mind in the gutter like you did when you were in Hogwarts." He let out a snort and rolled his eyes. "I can almost picture his face…"

Tonks felt her face pale in shock and slight apprehension, even a flicker of fear darted through her eyes. "Oh, _no_! No, no, no, I'm _not_ telling him that. He—he used to be a prefect. He won't think the fact that I painted a…onto the Slytherin table is very funny." Tonks furrowed her brows into a confused frown.

"Yes, he will. _I_ do. I think it's hilarious!" Charlie snorted, his shoulders shaking as he turned his head to the side and coughed to disguise his laughter.

"So, you're not mad? Even after all this time?" Tonks asked, stepping back a half step and loosening her grip on Charlie Weasley's arm to study his face. "You don't think what I did was stupid? I—I know I should have told you…."

"Of course, it was stupid, T, but why the hell would I be mad, huh? You never were like any other witch of your age. You still aren't. You see the good in everyone, even people in Slytherin House, and now I do too, thanks to _him_."

Tonks nodded, noticing the somber look in Charlie's eyes. Ollie's death had affected Charlie too, in more ways than one. He walked a little slower than before, and there seemed a light extinguished in his kind brown eyes that were so like his mother's.

Though there was something bothering her, and she could not quite phrase how to put it. Something the Stranger had said in the graveyard.

 _You should tell him, T_ , Ollie's voice piped up. _Keeping secrets like this is only going to come back to bite you. And you should tell Remus too, if you can_.

Tonks let out a sigh as they reached the back porch of the Burrow, and, upon seeing the people gathered in the living room, Tonks didn't want to go in.

In truth, she wasn't feeling a hundred percent and was getting one hell of a splitting headache that felt as though it threatened to crack and split her very skull wide open into fragmented pieces. Tonks's head felt as if someone had shaken it until her brain was thoroughly bruised.

Shooting pains stabbed chaotically through her muscles and there was a ringing in her ears. Gingerly, she reached over to clutch at Charlie's hand but recoiled at its coldness. She licked at her parched and cracked lips feeling the thickness of her saliva.

She suddenly felt cold again and wanted nothing more than to curl up with a blanket and tea.

Charlie made to move to open the door, but before he could, Tonks shot out an arm and grabbed him by the forearm.

"No, wait!" she begged, biting her bottom lip. "I—I need some air, Charlie. I...I'm not feeling very well. Do you think we could sit out here for a minute?" she managed to gasp out, and the color draining from her face must have been evident enough, because Charlie's cheerful expression evaporated and he nodded, taking a seat on the topmost step of the Burrow's back stoop. "I don't want to go inside just yet."

Charlie mutely nodded and patted the surface of the step next to him. "Sit." He did not speak again until Tonks got herself situated. Charlie's frown deepened and he pursed his lips into a thin line.

"All right, Miss Thing," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "It's time for you and me to have us a little _talk_. What's going on with you? Ever since I found you in the graveyard you've been…mopey, and not to mention fidgeting. You're hiding something, and you're hiding _from_ something, but this is _me_ , T. Friends don't keep secrets from one another, especially not like _this_ , Tonks," he finished lamely. "And half the time I try to talk to you, I don't get even a _little_ bit of sass coming my way, so what's the deal? What's going on, Tonks? Are you in any kind of trouble?"

Tonks flinched and bit the inside wall of her cheek, feeling a sheen of sweat form on her brow. Tonks wanted to talk to someone about what this strange Visitor, that black-cloaked Stranger had said about Ollie. She'd been unable to shake his appearance in the graveyard from her mind, and it was bothering her why the man hadn't killed her, and what was even more troubling, was that she couldn't see the man's eyes, and therefore, had no clue what the man looked like, who he was.

Why he had shown up _alone_. _Without_ Crouch. There were too many questions swirling around in her tired mind and nowhere near enough answers.

The second the owner of the mysterious voice that had been haunting her nightmares for the last several months had dared to show himself to her, she'd felt a chill in her bloodstream, and had fully been expecting the man would kill her.

Not that she wasn't grateful for it, but of all of what she knew of Lord Voldemort's followers, she had fully been expecting it. To die, just as Ollie had.

"Charlie, I…" Tonks veered the theme, though she didn't know how to begin. She felt a mad blush speckle along her cheeks, and she glanced down at her lap, hands fidgeting, her fingers weaving in between her knuckles. "There's something I have to tell you. I don't know how to begin or explain it, but I have to tell some—"

But Tonks did not get a chance to finish her sentence as the soft susurrations of her voice were lost beneath the thunder that rolled overhead as it cracked the air and shattered the almost eerie silence between the pair of friends.

Charlie groaned as the moment got interrupted and grabbed Tonks by the hand.

"Whatever you can say can wait a second till we get inside, T. Storm's here again. Why don't we grab something from the kitchens? Mum made meatballs for the reception and you know she'll be bloody _pissed_ with both of us if we don't try some? Then you and I can sit and talk about what's bothering you, yes?"

Tonks's second-best friend watched out of the corner of his eyes, brown eyes twinkling, as the bright young witch smiled back in consideration and, somewhat reluctantly, rose shakily to her feet and brushed her hands on the seat of her black skinny jeans and straightened her long-sleeved black blouse, so the scars on her wrists weren't evident.

To the best of her knowledge, Lupin had never seen them, and she aimed to _keep_ it that way. Her pain over Ollie's death was _her_ burden to bear, and she would _never_ put that on Remus's conscience.

Tonks let out a slight hiss as Charlie, without a word and without waiting to be asked, grabbed Tonks by her right hand, feeling a scalding fiery heat journey from his hand to hers where it shot up her arm and all the way down her spine, and flung open the door to the kitchens, and she let out a muffled squeak as the pair of them came face-to-face with Remus, whose face remained impassive, though Tonks was not at all fooled.

"Where _were_ you, Dora?" he demanded.

He sounded almost angry with Tonks, and she immediately jerked her hand out of Charlie's grasp, as though the touch of his calloused hand had burned her, still hot with dragon fire, the moment his gaze drifted downward, and his darkening brown eyes landed angrily on their interlocked hands.

"I thought I told you to come _straight_ back here. It's been forty-five minutes. How _dare_ you not send a message letting any of us know where you're going, it's not safe for you with Greyback after you, when I _specifically_ told you…" Lupin snarled, his gaze drifting to Charlie and Tonks. "Are you trying to get yourself _killed_? Or maybe it was Merlin's grace or your great sense of humor that saved you! Do you not _understand_ that Greyback has made you a target?!" he yelled, seizing fistfuls of Tonks's black long-sleeved blouse and shaking it slightly, not even caring that both Molly and Arthur had swiveled their heads to seek out the noise of the disturbance.

"Remus," Tonks started to say, but the low warning growl emitted from Lupin's chest told her not to interrupt, and she clamped her mouth shut.

He let out a wolfish, animalistic, and snarled, balling his hands into a fist. "I _agreed_ to be your partner for as long as Dumbledore would pair us together, and I could protect you through the Battle of _Hastings_ if I had to, but it's just not possible to protect a woman who's trying so damn hard to get _killed_ all the time!" he bellowed, relinquishing his grip on her shirt and she stumbled backward with the sheer force of it.

Tonks, for her part, despite Remus's snarling and growling, stood her ground and turned towards Lupin with a newfound resolve, trying her hardest to mask the fact that her heart was beating so rapidly against her chest that she could hear the blood pumping through her veins.

Judging by the murderous look in her boyfriend's eyes, she was pretty sure that he had something to say to her.

Even from a distance, back when they'd first Apparated to the Burrow's property, and Tonks had spotted Remus on the front porch, he'd looked angry.

But at such close proximity such as this, Tonks could almost see Remus heaving with fury and could feel the full extent of his rage and his agitation.

Tonks hardened her gaze and glanced towards Charlie Weasley, who was looking equally parts amused at his fellow Order member's growing jealousy, and equal parts disturbed at seeing the flickering shadow of the Wolf within him dart across his lined and handsome features. Tonks lowered her voice so that only Charlie heard her.

" _I_ will deal with this. _Not one word_ , Weasley. I mean it."

"But—" Charlie whispered in protest, but Tonks immediately cut him off.

Tonks softened her expression and gave a cough to clear her throat, trying to ignore the swells of nausea that wracked through her system, wondering where the bloody hell it was coming from. She'd felt mostly fine this morning. She shook her head to clear it.

"Rem, I'm sorry for worrying you. I did not mean to…scare you like this. I—I wanted to take a walk to get some fresh to alleviate a nasty headache and Charlie very kindly volunteered to walk me back to the Burrow when he found me. I had…every intention of attending the reception in a little while, but I…"

Tonks felt her voice trail off as she shivered violently in the chilled living room of the Burrow as she felt waves of heat course through her bloodstream, a cold sweat glistening on her gaunt features. Everything felt like it ached horribly.

"Tonks?" Remus's voice had, thank Merlin, shifted from one of rage to sudden concern. But his voice sounded muffled, muted, almost as if underwater.

"I…" Tonks stumbled towards the corner of the room, using the wall as a brace, and with each fumbling step she took, her stomach tightened and ached all the more, and when the smell of Molly's meatballs heavily filled the simple living room and wafted towards Tonks, Tonks was slowed immensely by a sudden horrible queasiness in the pit of her already churning stomach and her nose decided she could no longer attempt to move any further.

She clutched onto the wall and then felt a strong hand grip by her shoulders. It was Lupin. Repulsed by bitter acidic reflux from her throat, Remus held Tonks by the shoulders.

"Dora? Tonks? Dora, talk to me. Are you all right? Are you sick?"

Tonks couldn't answer. She dry heaved and gagged but could not dare to bring anything up. Then she remembered she'd skipped breakfast this morning and hadn't eaten lunch, already feeling ill but hadn't wanted to eat anything, knowing Molly would be cooking for the reception for Hestia's funeral today.

When the nausea finally cleared, she exhaled a few more times and straightened her posture with the help of Remus, whose expression was ten times more agitated and worried with her now, but for a completely different reason.

"I think I should take you to see Professor Snape, love," Remus suggested, sounding thoroughly vexed and on the brink of hyperventilation. "He stopped by to speak to me about something pertaining to guard duty tonight, but if you're ill, I'll get someone else to cover my shift. Kingsley can take over for me, Dora."

Tonks sighed and shakily stood up straighter, clutching onto Lupin's arm.

"Is he—is he still here?" she managed to gasp out weakly, swallowing back the worst of the bile that continued to creep its way up her throat. "He hasn't left?"

She kept swallowing, and her throat kept clenching, but no matter what, she couldn't stop the warm feeling rising through her chest. Then she could taste it at the back of her mouth, and clamped a hand over her mouth, and thank Merlin's beard, Charlie thought to conjure an orange plastic bucket.

Ashen-faced, Tonks clung to the basin-like it were a life raft. Her stomach felt like the bag in a set of bagpipes being vigorously squeezed. With a heaving lurch of her stomach, somehow, she managed to bring up her dinner from the day before last. Letting out a groan and wiping her mouth with a handkerchief that Charlie mutely handed her, now that her stomach had stopped lurch, she merely felt bruised inside.

"Maybe I—I should go see him if he's not left yet. I think it would be a good idea. Oh, thanks," she murmured, silently accepting a glass of water from Charlie. Remus shook his head, confirming her suspicions, and Tonks felt her heart sink.

As much as she harbored no ill will towards Snape, she did not particularly fancy being in a secluded room on the second floor of the Burrow by herself.

"Here, let me take you." Lupin began to tug on Tonks's arm and was surprised when Tonks halted the man in his footsteps as he made to drag her towards the Burrow's stairwell, and she gingerly removed his arm from hers.

"No. I can…I can take myself, Remus. Don't worry about me. I'm sure I'm fine. Just a stomach bug or something. Or hunger's caught up with me since I didn't eat anything this morning. I'm sure that's all this is," she added, hoping to placate his nervousness, though she did not sound convinced herself.  
"Besides, McGonagall still looks like she could use the support," Tonks added, glancing towards the Transfiguration Professor and Kingsley Shacklebolt, both of whom were gathered around the kitchen table with a grieving Emmeline Vance, and Hestia's husband, Robert. "I think…I'm not feeling well. I'll head back to your cottage after I see Snape, but if you see any baked apples or anything else that you think I could eat with an upset stomach, will you please bring me home a plate?" she asked, biting her bottom lip and quirked a brow Remus's way.

His dark brows furrowed in a frown. "Are you _sure_ , Dora?" he asked, stepping back, though not before giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze and leaned over and rested her forehead against his. He flinched at the heat she gave off and seeing the sheens of perspiration gathering on her brow. "You're burning up, love." He moved one of his hands not resting on her waist to feel her forehead. "Do you have a fever? How long has this been going on? Why didn't you _tell_ me you weren't feeling well this morning, Dora?" he demanded, concerned.

Tonks swallowed nervously and nodded. "I…didn't want to worry you, Remus. I—I am _fine_ , Rem, please don't worry about me. Severus will help give me something for it, and I'll—I'll be good in no time, I promise." Tonks managed to gasp out. Though she didn't _feel_ fine. Far from it. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed alone and sleep whatever this was off.

Remus did not look convinced, though Tonks was relieved when he gave a curt nod of his head, though her boyfriend was not looking at all pleased.

"I'll be home to check on you in an hour or so, Dora," he said, and something in his eyes softened as he took in how sick Tonks looked, and she hoped that, although this was not how she would have chosen to quell his temper, the worst of his anger towards her had passed, and suddenly, she felt guilty for making him worry.

"Remus, I...I'm sorry for making you worry," Tonks blurted out, unsure where this sudden apology was coming from, or the swell of fear that pricked her heart. "I.."

But Lupin shook his head and waved away her apology. "It's my fault, Dora. I shouldn't have been so hard on you. I..." He hesitated and bit the inside wall of his cheek. "There's something that's been on my mind, Dora. I want to…I want to talk to you about something, I had a question that I wanted to ask you, but it can wait until later when you're hopefully feeling better. I'll bring you a plate and I'll see you in a little bit, Dora."

Tonks nodded and made to turn on the heel of her ankle boot and head up to the second floor of the Burrow.

What the hell Severus was doing isolated alone from the rest of the Order talking to someone, she almost didn't _want_ to know, though she decided not to question it, and before she could take the first step, Remus's arm caught her by the shoulder and he spun her around to face him, and without a word, pressed his lips against hers. Remus's kiss stole the words Tonks didn't need to say.

In that silence all of their secrets were laid bare, all of our passions and the spark of love that existed between the two of them.

At that moment, in his love, Tonks was strong. One kiss and she had the courage to do what needed to be done.

He reluctantly pulled away first and cast her one last worried glance over his shoulder as he headed towards the Burrow's kitchen to prepare her a plate to bring home and to help McGonagall and Kingsley tend to Emmeline Vance and Rob Jones.

Tonks breathed out a shaking breath as she found her inner strength (and her resolve) to climb the stairs to go and see Severus, not aware that Remus Lupin's father had taken an interest in the young woman who'd stolen his son's heart and was climbing the stairwell after her, though respectful and kept his distance.

Tonks emanated a tense exhale and raised her fist to knock on the fourth door to the left, upon hearing Severus Snape's droll baritone as he talked to someone, she shuddered and felt more bile rise to her throat, but she fought it down. She could not get sick again. Not right now.

She was surprised when Snape already half-opened the door in an agitated state. _You've been expecting me_ , Tonks thought, knowing the sallow-faced man was currently reading her thoughts.

 _Good. Then I don't have to explain myself_.

Severus snorted and rolled his eyes and scoffed in disgust.

"No, Nymphadora. You do not, but here you are. Just when I thought I was permanently rid of your presence forever, like a wretched curse, here you are, to plague me yet again," he growled through clenched teeth, seemingly displeased to see Tonks, and he was rewarded for his rude comment when Ptelea poked his leafy head out from his usual lock of Tonks's pixie hair where he nestled (his favorite spot) and blew several raspberries at Professor Snape, a frown furrowed on his tiny face.

" _Ptelea_!" Tonks scolded, though she sounded like she was fighting the urge to laugh. Allowing the Bowtruckle to hop onto the top of her palm, she let out a sigh and turned towards Remus's' father, whose expression was looking quite shocked at seeing a little Bowtruckle exhibit such rude behavior, let alone reveal itself from underneath a lock of her dark pink pixie cut. "Mr. Lupin, sir, I—I recognize this is forward of me, but…"

She cast a furtive glance towards Snape and then back down to Ptelea, whose leaves had almost looked like they wilted under Severus's unusually stern and wrathful gaze as his black eyes bored into its.

"Say no more. While you're in your…appointment, Miss Tonks, I'll watch him for you," Lyall finished her thought, seeming to be able to guess what she was thinking, and Tonks blinked owlishly at Remus's father, wondering if he too, was another Legillimens, but had no time to comment as the older man gently held out the palm of his hand and coaxed Ptelea onto the top of his hand, much to Tonks's surprise, who felt her jaw drop open in shock at the ease in which her Bowtruckle traveled from her palm to Lyall's without much of a fuss.

"This is a first. He doesn't usually take kindly to strangers," Tonks admitted, letting out a tired sigh and winced as her stomach gave another rolling lurch and she fought back the urge to vomit again. "I…but I thank you, sir."

Lyall let out a chuckle as the Bowtruckle's content chirps reached his eardrums and the tiny creature nestled comfortably in his shirt's front pocket. "Thinking nothing of it, my dear. I'm happy to help you in any way I can. My son cares for you a great deal, you know. I am…glad he's found happiness with you. He deserves it, though he would have you believe otherwise. My wife, Hope, was particularly fond of Bowtruckles. I know a thing or two of how to handle them. But I need not keep you," he added, gesturing back to Snape.

Professor Snape's dark black brows furrowed in a scowling frown, and Tonks stared as he quirked a slightly suspicious at seeing Lyall Lupin hovering near the entryway. "Well, well. _Lupin_ ," he drolled. "How… _surprising_ to see you here, Lyall. What is it that you want? More Wolfsbane ingredients?"

Tonks blinked owlishly at Professor Snape as Remus's father, a man whom she met briefly only once, though she hoped to converse with him more at Bill and Fleur's wedding in a few days and get to know Remus's father, to her knowledge, his only family.

It did not escape Tonks's attention how white-faced and agitated Severus seemed, and it only seemed to intensify in Lyall Lupin's presence, though why that was, Tonks did not know and could only fathom a guess as to the reasonings.

Lyall stepped forward, raking his hands through his thick tuft of gray hair that was still quite thick and luscious, despite his age, and Tonks could see the shadow of the handsome man that Remus's father must have been when younger. He coughed once to clear his throat and folded his arms across his chest.

"I believe my son's partner is suffering from an ailment of the stomach and the minute you've finished prescribing something for her, I should like a word with you, Severus, before you leave, if you have a moment. In _private_ , please."

If Severus was surprised at the modicum of respect that Lyall Lupin offered him just now, he gave no indication and was good at hiding it, despite Tonks's deepening frown of suspicion as the Potions Master's gaze locked and it seemed as though he were boring into the man's soul, though Tonks knew what the Legilimens was doing, though Lyall offered no explanation to Tonks for the sudden request to speak to Severus alone, and why should he?

His business with Professor Snape was _his_ , and not hers. Tonks, however, could not deny that she was curious, and she swiveled her head back around to regard Severus, and his face was about what she had expected. His expression remained impassive, bored.

The only acknowledgment he offered to showcase that he heard Mr. Lupin's words and had processed them was a slight inclining of his head, and he stood back and rather reluctantly allowed Tonks to enter into the room alone.

Severus tightly clutched onto Nymphadora's arm, all the while casting a suspicious glance back over his shoulder towards Lyall Lupin, whose arms remained folded across his chest and was resting casually against the wall, one leg crossed over the other, though the casual position against the wall he adapted did nothing to quell the troubled expression etched onto his lined and weather-beaten face, his gray hair disheveled, his sharp green eyes brimming with pure intrigue.

Lyall Lupin's face was the last thing that both Severus and Tonks focused on before the Potions Professor and Order member, with a heavy scowl on his emaciated features, closed the door to the spare office of the Burrow, where he had, it would seem, according to Tonks, been in the middle of brewing the Wolfsbane Potion in private for Remus, unbeknownst to her or to Remus, and suddenly, she felt guilty for ever thinking of this man in a purely negative light.

Snape gave a sharp tap of his wand and allowed the wooden door with the deadbolt lock to serve as a barrier of protection and privacy for the young witch, providing Tonks with the only measure of comfort that Severus could provide.

Sweet blessed silence and privacy. Severus sighed and turned towards Tonks, hands clasped together in front of him, though his expression of discontent remained unchanged. "Now, _witch_ ," he snarled meanly, not noticing Tonks's attempt to stamp down her small half-smile at the rude insult, knowing now this was all a façade, a mask he wore for others to protect his undeserved reputation.

There was a flickering of something unreadable in the man's black eyes that resembled coal, something akin to minor concern, perhaps, even if she wasn't mistaken, caring for her. It seemed an eternity before he spoke again.

"What can I do for you?" His voice sounded softer than before, subdued.

Tonks felt the heat creep to her cheeks and nervously fidgeted with her fingers, constantly weaving her fingers in between her white-boned knuckles.

There was a hint of hardened edge to the Potions Master's droll tone that told Tonks she must look up, so she did, and the expression she saw in Snape's face almost made her gasp. A look of… _pity_. Sympathy. For _her_. But _why_?!

Tonks immediately turned down food when Severus turned back around to face her, biting off a chunk of an apple but accepted a glass of water, which she took tiny sips of while she perched herself on top of Severus's writing desk, much to his chagrin, and he pulled a face though he made no move to kick her off. She did not want to chew on her nails or lips, so she found herself gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

She'd bit down on it earlier in the graveyard, and it still hadn't healed from her encounter with the Stranger, and soon, the metallic tang of iron filled her palate as blood settled and lingered on her tongue. She sighed.

Nervously, she lifted her head and met Severus's gaze, and something within the man's black eyes told her conscience she could trust the Potions Professor, so she opened her mouth and began to speak, telling him everything.

Her only hope was that he would help her…


	50. High Tensions

**CHAPTER FIFTY**

His brain stuttered for a moment, as his thoughts stuttered to catch up. Lyall frowned at the Potions Master standing opposite him in his home. His face fell as Snape finished recounting his conversation earlier with Miss Nymphadora Tonks. In that instant, his skin became greyed, his mouth hung with lips slightly parted and his green eyes were as wide as they could possibly stretch normally.

Words left him as Lyall heard himself stammer and splutter, trying to think of a follow-up to the emotional blow that Severus Snape had just dealt him. Remus's father stared into those glistening dark orbs belonging to the Potions Professor, burning with a wave of intense anger and confusion, and his heart fell silent. Finally, Lyall managed to find his voice, though it was rough, coarse.

"How can you be sure, Severus? You are…positive? You're certain of this, sir? You aren't lying to me? This isn't…this isn't some kind of trick?" Lyall Lupin considered himself a fool to ask Hogwarts' Potions Master this. He could not quite believe what he was hearing, and now he felt a strange need for error on Severus's Snape's expertise on this matter. Snape's face remained impassive, though as obedient as ever in regard to the man's annoying, constant questions.

"It is _fact_ , Mr. Lupin," he began, somewhat hesitantly as he cleared his throat and intertwined his fingers together, tugging on the sleeves of his black robes as he rested against the wall of Lyall's cottage, where Lyall had insisted Severus accompany him so that they may speak in private, away from listening ears and prying eyes. "The do—"

Here, Snape caught himself as he had been about to utter the word ' _dog'_ in pertains to Remus, though something told him the man would consider such a term an insult towards his son, and he paused, taking a moment to reconsider his choice of verbiage.

"Your…son's… _girlfriend_ ," here, he spat the word as though it severely revolted him, and he repressed a shudder, which Lyall Lupin pointedly ignored. "She came to me requesting I give her something for nausea and spoke to me of strange bleeding she had been having, asking after it and what she should do."

Lyall nodded, feeling his forehead start to throng with perspiration. "For how long?" he pressured, recognizing his voice was wrought with high tension.

"Three days, she said," Severus drawled, twirling an empty vial in between his fingers. "No more than that. She does not suspect, I don't think."

Remus's father's frown deepened, and he let out a tired sounding sigh. In the dimly lit kitchens of his simple three-room cottage, the man looked haggard. He let out a tired groan and thumped his palm alongside the edge of his cheek. "But…couldn't it have been…her time of the month?" he asked, scowling as a light pink blush crept along Severus's cheeks as the sallow-faced Potions Master of Hogwarts flushed at the intimacy of the personal question.

Severus shook his head, confirming the icy dread that crept as a chill down Lyall Lupin's spine. "I too asked her the same question, Mr. Lupin," he commented, and Lyall swore he saw a flicker of…something dart across the man's blackened eyes, though what that emotion was, not even Lyall knew. "But Miss Tonks claimed that it was too early according to her latest count."

The Potions Professor almost lazily swiveled his head to regard the agitated and pacing older man in front of her as he tugged on a tuft of his gray hair. "I think you and I both know the answer, Lyall. You are not a _fool_ so stop pretending that you _are_ one. We're both Legilimens. She was _not_ lying to me."

But it felt as though Severus's words bounced off of Remus's father and were as the wind. "What of a stomach illness? Couldn't it have been something she ate, perhaps, that's causing the…discomfort?" he asked, growing more agitated.

_Seven hells. I didn't think it possible, but in all my years, this is the first case of something I've heard of something like this. A werewolf mating with a human_. Fuming, recognizing his anger was coming from a place of worry for his son's future wife, not knowing what the consequences of such a union would be, if it would be born with any wolfish characteristics like its father.

Lyall ground his teeth in anger as a bizarre fire of fury towards Greyback for cursing his son swept through his bloodstream, igniting a rage so hot at the memory of bursting into his son's bedroom when Remus was only five, the night his life had changed drastically for the worst, following Greyback's attack.

And now…it could not be so. There _had_ to be some kind of mistake.

Lyall blinked and coughed once to clear his throat and forced his attention to return to Severus who remained standing by the doorway, looking annoyed, as though Professor Snape were offended that Remus's father would dare to question or doubt his years of experience.

"She says there was nothing but a light cramping on her stomach and then the bleeding for four days. She said."

Lyall inhaled sharply a cold breath of cold October air that wafted in through the open window of his cottage.

"This…this bleeding, you say that occurs, it happens how many days after…after…"

Ah, but _Merlin_! Could this possibly get _any_ more _awkward_ for him? He was waving his hands about maddeningly in circles, not wishing to delve into the private, personal details of his son's intimate life with this young witch who he was hoping to marry, given what they now knew. He would expect it of Remus, or _so_ help him…

Mr. Lupin was appalled at how his words were failing him, how he could have been struck dumb as such. Severus Snape, however, was sharp-witted and quick to comprehend the distraught father's meaning.

"Two weeks, Lyall. A fortnight, to a turn of the moon it could also recur," Professor Snape grumbled darkly, crinkling his nose in disgust, and it did not take a genius like Dumbledore to notice that Snape was just as uncomfortable thinking it as Lyall was, glancing down at his wand, which rested idly in his hands as he twirled it round and round, as though unsure what to do with his hands, wanting nothing more than to leave this wretched little miserable cottage and return to his own home.

Lyall groaned in agitation, fearing the worst. "Yes, yes, of course, Severus." He sighed again and pinched on the front of his temples with his thumb and forefinger. He did not know why, of all the many problems following the resurgence of Fenrir Greyback into his only son's life, who had taken an interest in Remus's girlfriend, why this was the most troublesome.

He needed time to think. He needed to ingest this further.

Nymphadora Tonks was _pregnant_ with his grandson.

As this single thought pounded and throbbed against his temples, so did the spiral of many other possibilities as he took advantage of the time spent in silence to further digest. Lyall knew he should be rejoicing, that the last of the Lupin family was not about to die out once his son and this young witch married, that Remus had finally found a bright young woman to spend the rest of his life with, start a family of his own, the simple fact of the matter was, that he had heard of no cases in the entire wizarding world where a human had successfully mated with a werewolf.

Theirs, his son's, and this girl's would be the first in history if all went well, and the fact that he could not ascertain if the child would be born with any ill side effects as a result of their coupling greatly disturbed Lyall. Remus's father stifled a groan and collapsed into the chair nearest him, resting his head in his hands.

"Of course, Severus. I should not have doubted your expertise. It will not happen again, Professor."

He should be calling on the rest of his family to celebrate this news, once Remus and the girl found out, of course, but…but there was an odd foreign anxiety that swooped, churning the pit of his stomach and it had made him lose his appetite for the mug of freshly brewed tea he'd just finished making, which was something of a rarity for him. Though, if there was one thing that he could be certain of, what he felt more than anything was—was that of unbridled fear. For perhaps the second time in his life, he feared something that was supposed to otherwise be cherished. He _feared_ for Remus's unborn son or daughter, for his grandchild.

This being the first case of its kind, the researcher had no way of determining if this would be a relatively safe pregnancy for Miss Tonks, and the anguish and mental turmoil it would undoubtedly unleash upon poor Remus would be too much for his son to handle, and if Lyall knew his son, and he liked to think that he did, Remus would blame himself for her condition, when the simple fact of the matter remained that, given theirs was the first of their kind to occur in history, the two of them would have to simply let fate play out and decide.

Remus, especially during his monthly cycles, had a tendency to let the Wolf within him out and could ofttimes become a rabid beast when it came to protecting his right and that which he loved, and he loved this woman, of that Lyall had no doubt.

He'd seen it earlier in the man's eyes when Remus had come up the stairwell of the burrow to escort Miss Nymphadora Tonks home. His son looked at the vibrant pink-haired witch-like nothing else existed half the time, much as he used to look at his wife, Hope when she was alive.

Remus would become fierce and overprotective, Lyall knew, once he would learn of Miss Tonks's pregnancy, of that, the father was quite certain.

Though Lyall could not deny that, as much as he hoped once the time came for Remus to learn he was going to be a father, that he would see a shift within his son's behavior, that he would start to view himself as a man and not a beast, that there was perhaps a part of Remus that wouldn't take the news well.

He supposed he would not fault his son if that were the case, for he himself was having trouble processing the news. He had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his churning stomach that Remus would somehow fear that he had passed on his condition to an innocent child.

Lyall could only hope that their baby would be born with no sign of its father's lycanthropic features, but he had no way to study this, at least, not without intervening and volunteering to help Remus keep a close eye on his wife, when they married, and it would have to be soon.

It touched him, this spark of regret he often felt whenever he looked on his son, that he if he had been but a few seconds faster, he and Hope, they would have been able to save him from Greyback, and if he had, and he was receiving the same news from Severus Snape of the Tonks's woman's pregnancy, not long at all, according to Snape from what the man knew of these sort of conditions, maybe a month or so along, then he'd celebrate it.

But until he knew for certain if his grandchild were free of the curse of its father's affliction, he could take no chances. Not yet. He needed more time.

"Time never has been on my side, has it, Hope?" he grumbled, which earned a quizzical quirked eyebrow from Professor Snape, though he said nothing. Lyall sighed heavily and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of gray hair and turned back towards Snape, who was eyeing him cautiously.

"What else have you said to her, Professor?" Lyall inquired, clenching his eyes, and grinding his teeth angrily.

But Merlin's beard, Miss Tonks's case could not have fallen into a worst of timings, not with the Weasleys' eldest son's wedding on the morrow, and Lyall heard himself cluck his tongue in disappointment. This should be something to be celebrated, not wrought with worry over and despised. He was going to be a grandfather. His son was going to become a father. If Hope were still alive, there was no doubt in his mind his wife would have been over the moon at the prospect.

"Nothing, Lyall, per your…little message to me through the closed door." Severus dipped his head in acknowledgment at Mr. Lupin's skills as a Legillimens and clasped his hands together. "I have only told her to return to me should the bleeding and her…sicknesses persist. She does not seem to be tolerating the smell of meat from what she told me, much less most foods over the last three days if what that wretched shapeshifting banshee was telling me was true. It could be what we thought it is, or it could be that Nymphadora is suffering from something else. It's too soon to say for sure, but I think she's…"

"Yes, yes, get on with it!" bellowed Lyall, his temper exploding at last, and he hated this part of himself, that his fear manifested as fiery hot rage, a trait that, unfortunately, Remus had inherited from him as he'd grown up and aged.

Lyall sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and raised his hand half-hearted in a silent apology to the Potions Master for losing his temper. "Have it that way, Severus. When she comes back to you, if she comes back to you, say nothing to my son's future wife. She does not need to know of this news, Professor. Not yet. I need to know if…"

_If my grandchild will be a werewolf, too_ , is what he wanted to say, though his voice lacked the strength to force his tongue to release the words, though, with both men being skilled Legillimens, he did not need to say it.

But his voice trailed off and he turned away sharply, and he did not even have to look at Professor Severus Snape to feel the man's aghast look of loathing and surprise at his unusual and frankly, unorthodox and unheard-of demand.

Severus blinked, feeling quite certain he had misunderstood.

"Sir?" His voice, though in its usual baritone flatness, there was no mistaking the slight tinge of concern laced throughout his voice. "You and I both know your son's girlfriend, while I can't think of anything else more than I'd love to do than to poison her so she'll leave us all alone in sweet, blessed _silence_ , needs more care during this time. The first few weeks and months are the most crucial, Lyall. You would truly risk your own grandchild perishing from lack of care, sir?"

Snape did not seem to be aware that his voice had risen an octave, or that his hand had balled into a fist and curled instinctively over his wand.

Lyall Lupin remained unfazed by the Potion Master's outburst.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Severus, but is that…care I detect in your dulcet tone? Hmm?"

When Severus did not immediately respond, his face paling as the younger man and Potions Master realized he'd accidentally let something slip.

"I _know_ what I said, Severus." Lyall fixed Severus with a pointed glower, though even he could not hide the guild that marred his pristine glistening light green eyes. "I do not think that I need to repeat myself. You won't breathe a word of this to my son or that young woman, or anyone else living until I have more information if you value keeping that languid silver tongue of yours, Snape."

Severus's black eyes narrowed until they resembled that of a pit-viper snake's slit pupils, and he was every bit the snake-like Head of Slytherin House that Lyall knew the man to be, reformed Order member or not be damned. Severus pursed his thin lips into a rigid, unmoving straight line and finally, reluctantly, and mutely nodded his agreement to keep Lyall's secret, until such a time was deemed appropriate that the news could be revealed to Remus. He tucked his wand back into an interior pocket of his black robes and emanated a tense exhale through his flared nostrils.

"If that will be all, Lupin…"

Lyall nodded, hearing the audible sigh of relief from the Potions Master as the distraught soon-to-be grandfather blearily lifted his head, and, through his haze of foggy vision, watched as Severus dipped his head in acknowledgment, as close to a sign of respect from the sallow-faced, greasy-haired Professor Lyall could ever hope to be on the receiving end as the man turned his back and left.

Remus's father stifled an agonized groan as he heard the front door to his cottage slam shut, and once more, the man was left alone in empty, desolate silence.

He let out a tired sounding sigh and waved his wand, watching through exhausted, red-rimmed eyes as the bottle of wine perched on the kitchen table in front of him floated in mid-air, the glass along with it, pouring a copious amount of red wine in it.

When the goblet was practically full to the brim with the dark crimson liquid, Lyall reached for the glass across the table and didn't even have to think.

He raised the cup to his lips, throwing his head back and drained the entire goblet in one swift swig, slamming the now-drained cup down on the small wooden kitchen table and folded his arms across his chest, shrinking into his woolen sweater as much as he could for warmth, letting out a tired sigh.

Lyall Lupin risked one last glance over his shoulder at the entryway of the front door to his cottage, where only mere seconds ago Severus had stood.

"Well," he said to no one in particular as he glanced around the desolate kitchen. "That went even _worse_ than I expected. Merlin's Beard, what do I do?"

He let out a sigh, thumping his palm alongside his forehead and groaned and glanced towards the ceiling and closed his eyes.

"Hope," he whispered, lowering his voice, hoping that his wife, wherever she was, hopefully somewhere happy and waiting for him to join her, "I—I wish you were here so you could tell me how to help our son. I—I don't know if you overheard any of that just now with Severus, but…we're going to become grandparents." 

* * *

**A/N: Aww! Remadora is in for one heck of a surprise! How will Lupin react to the news that he's going to be a father? Coming up next chapter is the next much-awaited Bill/Fleur's wedding, which I won't spoil for anyone, but there's a big surprise at the end of the chapter, and I think it's going to be a real treat! :)**


	51. The Promise

**CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE **

Tonks woke as if it were an emergency as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing, and to her, over the last few weeks it had, seeing the Stranger's cloaked silhouette in her nightmares, sometimes the occasional glint of an eye, but that was all. Her heart beat fast and there was a buzzing in her brain, and she felt panicked as she collapsed back against the pillow, feeling like her mind was shot.

The exertions of her dreams, of hearing the man's haunting voice in her sleep felt like a marathon of erratic problem-solving that never ended for her.

Slowly and reluctantly, she uncovered her face, blinked, closed her eyes, and blinked again in the vain struggle to clear her mind. Her dream had ended abruptly, as she was shaken back into reality. She was in Lupin's bed, debating whether or not she should get back. Her muscles felt weak, just like her energy.

Everything was blurry. For a second, Tonks did not know who she was or where she was. She didn't know how she got in this bed, or where her clothes were. Then, as she sat up and blinked, and her eyesight slowly adjusted, everything became processed.

She'd been sick last night. The thing above her head was the ceiling, and she still felt quite nauseous and hoped whatever Remus was doing, he was making a light breakfast, because she didn't think her poor stomach could handle anything heavy today, not with all the food that was sure to be at Bill and Fleur's wedding reception in a few hours. Tonks let out a sigh and groaned tiredly.

Truth be told, the potions Severus had provided her helped very little, and she still felt quite nauseous and was content to pull the duvet covers back up over her head and sleep the rest of the day, but Bill and Fleur were expecting them soon.

What time was it? How long had she been asleep? Did she have clothes on? All of those questions shot through her mind as she let out a loud yawn, ready to start (or continue) the day, and she reluctantly heaved herself out of bed and swung her legs over the edge of Remus's bed in his cottage in Wales.

She paused, straining to listen for any hint of where Lupin had gone to, and she stifled a smile as she heard him talking to someone (presumably Ptelea, who had taken an immense liking to Remus over the last few weeks and now spent more time on his shoulder than hers) and it sounded as though he were preparing lunch, so it must have not been as late as she thought, which she felt relieved.

"Rem?" she called out, raising her voice, and was rewarded less than a minute later when she heard Lupin's footsteps coming up the stairs and he stood in the doorway, a slightly amused expression on his face as the corners of his mouth twitched as he fought back a smile.

She would have returned the smile, but waves of nausea added to her misery already brought on by last night's sleep-deprivation.

Her brain felt like it would swell beyond the capacity of her skull and now her dehydration was too obvious to ignore. Her stomach lurched and she scrunched her nose and swallowed the bitter acidic bile rising in her throat.

The sound of Remus clearing his throat next to her as he perched himself on the edge of the bed caused her to jump, startled, cringing as she looked guiltily towards him. The look on Lupin's face suggested he was enjoying this too much.

His smile was wide and his light brown eyes twinkling as he sat next to Tonks, a glass of ice water in his hands. "Good morning, Dora," he said warmly. He held out the glass for her to take and plunked in what looked like an Alka-Seltzer tablet. "I thought you might be needing one of these this morning, love."

Tonks mutely nodded and accepted the glass of water, raising the cup to her lips and drank, pulling a face as the disgusting liquid washed down her throat.

She let out a shuddering little sigh as Lupin moved to feel her forehead. "Are you feeling okay, Dora?" he asked, his voice soft and quiet, and concerned.

"I…y—you didn't have to take care of me last night, Remus," Tonks murmured, feeling her face flush in shame as she glanced around at the three basins perched on the wooden night table next to her side of the bed. "I take it by these I took a little trip down the porcelain highway?" she groaned, suddenly ashamed, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she downed the drink.

Lupin snorted. "It was more like a cross-country trip. Are you still sick?"

"No," she protested, though the moment she said that her stomach gave a painful little lurch, though she fought it back through a sheer force of willpower.

She could not— _would_ not—miss Bill's wedding, not when Arthur and Molly had practically bent over backward, along with the rest of the Order of the Phoenix to ensure the Burrow's property was fit to receive guests on both the Weasleys' family's side and Fleur's family. Molly would absolutely _kill_ her if she missed it.

"You didn't have to take care of me last night, Remus," Tonks repeated. "I would have been perfectly content to stay over at the Burrow last night, Lupin."

But Remus shook his head, his smile still lingering. "I don't think Molly and Arthur would have been up for your feverish Weird Sisters sing-along last night, sweetheart. No, the job fell to me and considering the circumstances of how you're feeling, I was only too happy to do it." His smile faltered slightly, and he sighed, brushing back a lock of her bangs and swooping it out off of her forehead.

Tonks noticed his sudden change in disposition and furrowed her brows into a frown as she rose from the bed, stretching and rolling her neck to crack it.

"What is it? What's wrong, Rem?" she murmured, and her frown deepened when he jumped, startled, seemingly nervous as she said his name.

"Mmm? Oh, nothing," he said a little too quickly. Tonks wasn't convinced and crossed her arms across her chest, though she chose not to comment on it.

Whatever was bothering Lupin, she had to trust in Remus that whenever he was comfortable coming to her with what was on his mind, that he would do it.

And she would be here for him, ready and willing to listen to him.

"Fair enough," Tonks murmured, quirking a brow Lupin's way, still not buying it, but had no time to comment on it, as she recognized she needed to get ready and dressed for the reception. "I guess I should go take a shower and get ready," she sighed, raking her fingers through her disheveled pixie cut and glanced towards Lupin, who quickly nodded his agreement and took the water glass in his hand and turned away for a second.

Tonks stifled another huge yawn with the back of her hand and downed the rest of the water Lupin had given her and gave him a quick peck on the cheek as she padded barefoot towards the bathroom just outside his bedroom, down the hall to the left, rubbing the sleep from both eyes.

She stepped into the shower, toes flinching as they touched the chilled ceramic floor. Her mind still felt like it was in shreds, unable to get the image of the towering black-cloaked Stranger from the graveyard yesterday out of her mind.

What did he want with her? What was Crouch planning? Tonks turned the dial, old and metallic, releasing thousands of lukewarm drops, darkening her hair, and trickled down her back. Her eyes fell closed over and over, each time, showing her the image of his cloak, the limited view of the side profile of the man's face.

The water rained down, dripping by her side, as she allowed her mind to fade into sweet dullness and everything else around her was a foggy illusion at best.

The sensation of the steamy water calmed her, taking her mind off things. All the things she honestly didn't care about or didn't want her mind revisiting.

Tonks let out a shuddering sigh and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around her middle and padding back towards Lupin's bedroom, waving her wand and a hot gust of air blew towards her face and dried her hair in an instant.

She grabbed her new dress off the closet rack and hung it on the hook of the closet door before sauntering back towards the bathroom, working quickly to dry off and apply light natural makeup, starting with a foundation on her face, on her cheeks, and forehead, finishing off with a powder, eyeshadow a light pink gloss on her lips, though Tonks scrutinized her appearance in the full-length mirror which hung on the back of Lupin's bedroom door. Her first initial impression of her appearance as she scrunched her nose and changed her hair into a neutral strawberry blonde color, letting it fall loosely into her natural, shoulder-length waves, for Bill and Fleur's wedding was that her normally pale skin held sort of a sun-kissed glow, and she very rarely went outside, so this was strange for her. Not quite tan, but simply…radiant. She wasn't used to it at all.

 _Wonder what Rem's going to think of my new dress_ , she thought as she scrutinized her appearance in the mirror and slipped on her black strappy sandals. For Bill and Fleur's wedding, she'd gone with Ginny to one of her favorite Muggle shops in downtown London and discreetly educated the bright young witch on how non-magical dress shops worked. Ginny had been fascinated by the credit card machine at the front counter, and her curiosity had earned a raised brow from the clerk, though Tonks had been able to steer the conversation in a better direction.

The dress she now wore to attend as a guest to the Weasley's eldest son's wedding was a long black maxi wrap dress with flouncy short sleeves, black and dark pink floral embroidery detailing on the bodice, with a tie at the waistline, and a femme flowy high-low bottom hem, the very epitome of femininity and flattered her slender figure.

She ran a flat iron through her bangs and swooped them to the side as was her custom every morning, finishing off the entire look with a spritz of setting spray for her makeup, and hairspray for her, and gave her reflection a final nod of approval and turned to head downstairs to find Remus, only to find herself standing directly in front of him as Lupin was effectively blocking her exit, who seemed to be the middle of eyeing her as though she were the last woman on the entire planet, a strange unreadable expression in his eyes.

"Beautiful," was all he said as he took in her appearance and her new dress, though there was no mistaking the nervous sheen in his eyes as he moved to close off the gap of space. Tonks smiled and felt a light pink blush creep to her cheeks.

"Oh." She felt the heat creep to her cheeks, knowing when he complimented her, Remus meant every word. "Thanks. You're looking handsome this evening yourself, love, you should wear more tailored suits more often," she murmured, glancing down and weaved her fingers in between her knuckles. "Well," she sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Guess I can't stall anymore, as… _enticing_ as the idea of staying in bed all night with you sounds. We should go. We should have been there five minutes ago. Molly will _kill_ us if we're late and I don't fancy being on the receiving end of her temper tonight, do you?" She moved to squeeze past him, though she was surprised when Lupin shot out an arm and roughly grabbed her shoulder, silently communicating with her to stay put. "What…?" Tonks heard her voice trail off, confused. "We'll be _late_ , Rem!"

"I know, I just…" Lupin hesitated as he bit the inside wall of his cheek and nervously fidgeted with his fingers. She thought Remus was looking exceptionally well put together and groomed in a simple dark gray suit for Bill and Fleur's wedding.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she took note of how nervous Lupin was looking. "I don't know what's going on with you, Rem, but…whatever's bothering you, there's nothing to be nervous of. It's just you and me here, Rem."

As if to emphasize her point, noticing him almost sway on the spot, Tonks steadied him by his shoulders by placing both of her hands there and not letting go. "What's going on?" she encouraged. " _Talk_ to me," she pleaded, biting her lip.

Lupin nodded, exhaling slowly through his nose and raked his fingers through his recently trimmed light brown hair, courtesy of Molly last night, and let out a sigh. "Dora," he began somewhat hesitantly, turning away for a second to seemingly compose himself, and when he looked back, there was such an immense look of uncertainty, fear, and a strange sense of exhilaration that she did not quite know what to make of it.

Though she had no time to comment on it as he swallowed down hard past a growing lump in his throat, his face paling.

He was growing more agitated as the seconds passed. "There's just…something I need to tell you. It's just…what I have to say isn't entirely easy and I'm not sure how you're going to react," he said quietly, looking pained. "But…if I don't ask it now, then I don't think I will." Remus paused to draw in a breath and continued, reaching down, and clutching onto both of her hands tightly, as if afraid to let go for fear he would never hold her again, never see Tonks again. "I figured that with you as my partner in the Order, even if we didn't end up together, I thought that I could be happy, just knowing you're in the world. But I realized that it's not true."

He quickly realized what he said, and his face blanched as he immediately stammered, trying to correct himself.

"No, I—I…that's…that's not what I meant, I just…you mean so much to me, Dora, and I want to spend the rest of our time in this world together, whether that's two days or two hundred years. I keep falling in love with you as the days pass, and each time is harder than the last. There is not a thing in this world or the afterlife that I would not do to keep you safe. Do _not_ think you ever have to ask for my love and affection because you don't. What you and I share together, I cannot replicate with another woman, and I do not want to, Dora. This love, this feeling, is just you and me. The trust that I give you, that I know you will give me too, is what keeps us safe."

He took another deep breath and stepped back, running a hand through his hair nervously.

 _There's no going back after this_ , he thought, looking pained, as he swallowed and continuing. "Whether my heart beats for another day or another hundred years, it is yours. It will _always_ be yours, and as long as yours and you are mine, I _promise_ that I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and by my side."

Tonks's face rapidly drained of color as he wordlessly unclenched his fist and held out a beautiful but elegant yellow gold ring. It was a little thing, plain in design, but for her, it was more than enough.

Lupin could have given her nothing, and she still would have said yes, and pressed the ring into her palm and curled her fingers over it.

"Nymphadora Tonks. Will you marry me?"

Tonks was losing her sense of self in his eyes, drowning in the brilliant pools of brown flecked with hints of gold at the edges.

Only one answer came to her mind.

"Yes." She whispered it, her voice soft and quiet, as he slipped the ring onto her left ring finger, and Lupin tentatively lifted one of his hands from her shoulder, allowing the appendage to ghost over the skin of her pale cheek.

Tonks sighed softly, closing her eyes as his hand wiped away the remaining tears that clung to her eyelashes as she gave her answer.

Then, without warning, something warm yet slightly coarse pressed themselves against her lips.

Tonks fought the urge to press back, knowing that right now, such a thing may be too much. For now, just relaxing and keeping still would be enough. She had to remember to keep things slow, for them both. If she moved too quickly or too fast, she might scare him away.

But…perhaps a little pressure was not going to overwhelm him? Breathing slowly through her nose, Tonks took a deep breath and gently returned that pressure which was on her lips. His reaction was slightly startled, and for a moment, Tonks feared she had pushed Remus too far, past the point of no return.

A beat. A pause, and then she sighed into the kiss as she felt Lupin deepen it. He kissed her and the world of his simple cottage fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be, Tonks thought. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest.

Those kisses were his salvation and his torment. He lived for them and he would die with the memory of them on his lips. Lupin dedicated his life to being with her from the moment of this particular kiss, for he knew that if he lost her, he would lose himself. She was the half that made him whole, made him feel worthy of her affections. His usual mode of hurrying from one thing to the next was suspended, he had no wish for the kiss to end.

A kiss like this was a beginning. A promise of much more to come.

A future that they would mold and shape together. As husband and wife.

* * *

Darkness had long set in and yet, the music in Bill and Fleur's wedding tent set up outside the Burrow had ceased to stop. Bill and Fleur had participated in an age-old tradition and had broken a jug to see how long their love would last, which had resulted in roughly one thousand years. Tonks stood off to the side with Charlie to her left, who kept whispering comments in her ear, teasing his older brother's dancing skills, which she responded with a raised brow and a dark look.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with Bill's dancing, Charlie, be nice to your brother at his wedding. Don't make me jinx you in front of everyone," she snorted, rolling her eyes as the wedding guests cheered Bill and Fleur to the sounds of violins and fiddles currently playing the Irish ditty known as The Humors of Glen Dart.

"No?" he teased, glancing towards Luna Lovegood and her father, who were dancing in circles and waving their arms as though fighting off invisible insects. "And what about the Lovegoods?" Charlie teased mercilessly, biting his bottom lip in return, and was rewarded for his quip by a snorting giggle from Tonks.

The pair of them stood off to the side, and Tonks let out a content little sigh as she watched the bride and groom dance, several of the guests joining in, and she felt Remus's hand on her shoulder as he had entered the tent from checking in with the Aurors who were stationed on the Burrow's property tonight.

"Probably swatting away Wrackspurts," Tonks responded and let out a snort and clamped her hand over her mouth, feeling her shoulders shake as she laughed. She let out a huff of frustration and swatted Charlie's arm away as her friend tried to drag her to the dance floor for a dance.

Normally, she'd be one of the first, though she was still left with a lingering sense of nausea and fatigue from last night, so tonight, she was content to watch, and settled for nursing her chalice of ice water and merely picked at the small plate of food that Sirius had brought her.

Tonks felt the heat creep to her cheeks as the song ended, ignoring Charlie and Sirius's teasing looks as Lupin snaked his arms around her middle and rested his chin on her left shoulder, almost possessively so, though she'd learned to expect it from Remus by this point.

Throughout the course of the reception so far, everyone they'd tried to tell of the news of their engagement discreetly, not wanting to upstage Bill and Fleur's evening or make a fuss, had been completely supportive.

Sirius had insisted on being Lupin's best man, to which Remus had responded he'd have it no other way. Moly and Arthur were delighted, and practically begged the two of them to allow them to host their wedding here at the Burrow, just as they were doing tonight for Bill and Fleur, and Remus's father, Lyall, was increasingly thrilled at this news, though his face had fallen when his son had been the one to divulge the information, and Tonks, had she had shown his father the plain yellow gold wedding ring she now wore proudly on her left finger, his lined and aging face had become careworn.

Almost… _worried_ and Tonks could not begin to fathom why.

When Remus had broken the news to Lyall, his silence spoke the loud 'yes' to Lyall, without his son even having to breathe, when Lyall had asked him if the two of them would be having a wedding, and relatively soon, all things considered.

"It makes me glad." Lyall flinched and ground his teeth, clutching onto his wine goblet hard enough that he almost felt the glass crack in his palm, trying very hard to mask his guilt over his conversation with Professor Snape the other night. "I assume before too long I am to expect a grandson or granddaughter already?"

Remus visibly shirked away from the question and looked away, contemplating his father's question, and even Tonks found herself aghast at it.

She furtively shook her head no, a light blush speckling along her cheeks.

"None that we know of. Though I'm sure we'll let you know firsthand if that happens."

The remark had made poor Lyall's weak knees in his old age almost give out, though he was able to mask the growing discomfort and raised his own wine glass in the direction of his son and his future-daughter-in-law. "To your wedding, then."

Lupin clinked his flagon of wine against his father's before both had drained its contents. Even now, Lyall could see the shift within his only son.

Lyall, ever since meeting Nymphadora Tonks, had been perceiving this change of attitude within Remus, this feverish kind of obsession and wolfish protectiveness towards the bright young witch, and Lyall consented only to nod.

For now, he would say nothing, taking matters into his own hands no matter what. He merely grunted in response and tottered off, leaving Tonks alone with Remus. Tonks frowned after Remus's father as he hobbled off to sit at a table with Charlie and the others' Auntie Muriel and Elphias Doge and Harry Potter.

Though she would be the first to admit, hers and Remus's was a strange relationship, for neither one had specifically told the other that they loved each other.

For her part, Tonks had been afraid to speak the words out of a sense of fear that Remus would somehow think less of himself because due to the nature of his status as a fully-fledged werewolf, he was not like other wizards, and she did not want to push or scare him off.

Yet, she felt confident the two of them would get there in time, and Lupin had found other ways to express how much he cared for her, and she knew that he did, or he would not have asked her to marry him earlier.

Tonks thought the aging man would have been happy at the revelation that his only child was getting married, though she had no time to ponder it as a familiar-looking tuft of curly red hair caught her eye and she coughed once to clear her throat and shot out an arm to stop the individual passing her by, grabbing his shoulder.

The man startled, and blinked owlishly at Tonks, looking stunned.

"Wotcher," Tonks answered by way of greeting and shot Harry, disguised as a Weasley relative, a coy little glance, and she immediately saw Harry relax. "Arthur told us you were the one with curly hair tonight, Harry. Have fun and enjoy yourself but don't drink _too_ much of the Fire Whiskey," she grinned, flashing a white smile, and bit down on her tongue in disappointment as she felt Lupin's grip on her waist slacken and his chin left her shoulder as he gave her a swift kiss on the cheek before spotting Alastor and Lyall in conversation and moved to stand next to him.

Tonks would have followed, though, at that moment, a well-clad waiter in a pair of white and black dress robes passed her by carrying a tray with cuts of pork served with a refreshing apple sauce, easing the perfectly cooked meat down.

The horrible stench wafted through her nostrils and to fight back the wave of nausea that churned her stomach, she pinched her nose and stepped outside the tent, politely detaching her arm from Charlie, who was still insisting on a dance with her before the night was out, and she made an excuse for herself, mumbling that she needed fresh air and broke away from the music and merriment that filled the tent.

Breathing heavily once the smell of the meat had long since left her nostrils, Tonks closed her eyes and allowed the fresh air to soothe her fractured nerves.

The sound of the music and laughter from the reception played upon her eardrums, and the feel of the cool but refreshing night swirled around her as she folded her arms across her chest and stared up at the night sky. The stars twinkled brightly overhead, and thank Merlin it wasn't a full moon tonight, she thought.

She sighed softly in contentment and tilted her head skywards to stare at the silvery orb that hung high above her head, feeling a strange sense of…something, though what that unfamiliar feeling was pricked doubt in her heart. She couldn't quite describe it, but whatever the feeling was, Tonks felt like something was going to happen here tonight, though what that 'thing' was, she hadn't the faintest idea.

"Dora?"

The young witch jumped and nearly tripped out of her sandals, though Tonks caught herself in time and twisted at the waist to see who called her name, though she knew she need not bother. She knew all too well it was. Lupin. "Remus, don't _scare_ me like this! You almost gave me a heart attack, sweetheart!" she breathed heavily, holding a shaking hand to her heart, and closing her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to soothe the pounding corded muscle.

"What's wrong?" Remus demanded, frowning at her slightly, and came forward and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "Are you still feeling sick?" he questioned, regarding his fiancée with a rather concerned expression. "You left the tent without a word. You cannot do that, sweetheart. I need to…I need to know where you are, love. I was worried about you, Dora. _Don't_."

Tonks inexplicably felt a chill wash over her body. Wasn't that what that Stranger, the Death Eater (or so she assumed) had said to her in the graveyard?

"I'm sorry, Rem," she sighed, nestling her chin against the crook of his shoulder. "I just needed some air. I wanted a chance to breathe for a little while. It was getting stuffy in there." She turned her gaze back to the brightly lit sky and sighed in contentment. "It's nice out tonight, isn't it?" she asked, noticing his gaze following hers and took in the pitch-black sky above them and he released a small sigh of his own, one of his hands drifting to the back of her hair and pressing in.

"It is." Though there was no mistaking the note of concern in his tone, and Tonks glanced out of the corner of her eyes at Remus, seeing his softened gaze.

Following where his gaze had settled and what it was he was looking at, Tonks glanced down at the yellow gold ring that used to belong to his mother and held her out in front of her so she could see the soft pearly sheen of moonlight that seemed to set the yellow tones of the little simple piece of jewelry almost on fire as it glinted and sparkled in the light. "Well? How does it look, Remus?"

There was a pause as he contemplated what to say. Lupin's response was a light laugh and a pressing of his lips against hers. "You look good wearing my future. Mrs. Lupin," he added, a soft smile breaking at the edges of his mouth.

Tonks felt her lips part open slightly as she could have sworn her heart melted a little at his words, and felt his strong hand come up to cup her chin as she tilted her head as he leaned in to kiss her, though the moment was interrupted as what sounded like thunder seemed to crack the air as if the sky would split apart. It rolled like the ash of a volcano, becoming a rolling booming rumble.

The pair of them looked towards the charcoal sky, and then they heard it.

The screams. Ear-piercing and terrified. One of the Aurors who had been stationed up closer to the Weasley's house was running as fast as he could, conjuring a Patronus in the general direction of the wedding tent, and frantically waving his arms about in panic. " **GO**!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Get everyone the _hell_ out of here! **LEAVE**! We need to evacuate, it's an _Obscurus_! It's an Obscurus! It took out half of Ottery St. Catchpole! Get everyone out! Tell the others!" he barked.

The young witch froze, her blood freezing to ice in her veins as she was unable to pull her gaze away from the sky, now seeing it for herself with her own eyes. The huge, black swirling mist that swooped and skirted around the stars, the untamed power reverberating and echoed across the green, about-to-be ruined landscape. It declared to all who saw and heard it the raw power of its ability and gave fair warning of the wrath that was to come.

Tonks shuddered, her teeth grinding in anticipation. A thunderous boom like that meant a deluge was about to go down and none of them had anywhere to hide. They were as good as dead.

Tonks felt Remus's hand tighten into an iron fist around hers, pulling her violently behind him as he made to head for the tent to warn everyone, as the others bolted for the inside of the tent, only to find chaos as Bill and Fleur's wedding tent ignited in a fiery ball of yellow flame, billowing outwards, filling the air around them with a thick plume of black smoke.

There was a horrible ringing in her ears and a constricting of her throat as smoke filled her lungs, and she had to turn her head to the side to cough, struggling not to inhale any of the black billowing smoke that now curled and hung in the air around the tent.

If she strained to hear as she pulled her wand and fired a Stunning Jinx at a Death Eater that materialized out of the smoke, which the man rebounded, Tonks swore she could hear Lupin barking orders at Harry, Ron, and Hermione to go and get out of here while they still could.

Tonks opened her mouth to scream for Remus to help her, as whoever she continuously sent jinxes towards was rebounding them like the spells were nothing but air, an instant later, there was a blinding flash, like lightning, and a huge ball of fire belched upwards into the air. Tonks felt the blood drain from her face as she glanced out of her peripherals and realized there were only a few fighting still left standing, and she breathed a sigh of relief as Lupin came to stand next to her and let out a growl, his wand at the ready, an arm shot out in front of Tonks, preventing her stepping forward to try to check on the others.

What had become of Sirius, Molly, Arthur, Charlie, Bill, Fleur? Were any of them still _alive_? Or were they dead and out for the count?

The swirling darkness was frightening. Curled tendrils beckoned the unknowing into the tent, what was left of it, as utter chaos and madness descended.

Menace, madness, confusion, death, that was what this Obscurus brought.

Tonks let out a muffled sob as she tried to force her mind to focus, imagining if Mad-Eye were here, he'd tell her to keep a level head and maintain constant vigilance, even in the middle of a fight, but how _could_ she in all of this?

"Remus?" she begged, feeling tears gathering in the corners of her vision.

"I—I'm here, Dora," she heard his voice say, battered and broken, but alive, and the firm grip of his hand felt like a sweet dream, one she didn't want to wake from. Then she saw what he was literally growling out like a rabid wolf, and Tonks felt her blood chill to ice in her veins. The gang stepped forward with confidence, none other than Barty Crouch Jr. at the front and center, Fenrir Greyback flanking his right, and a very familiar-looking black-cloaked figure on Crouch's left side.

Tonks swallowed nervously as Crouch dared to meet her gaze and the edges of his lips curled upwards in a twisted, unnaturally wide Cheshire cat grin.

They didn't want Remus, they wanted _her_. She knew it. The Death Eaters expected easy pickings, that she would 'come quietly,' that she would go without a fight. Her brain felt like it was racing for a way out of this. There were only three of them. _But one's an Obscurus if what Dawlish says is true, then we're dead_.

Tonks heard Lupin's sharp intake of breath as his gaze settled on the cloaked figure to Crouch's left. The man, tall, towering, and lean, his face still shrouded in the shadow cast by his cloak's hood, seemed to be violently shaking.

As if he were fighting back against something and losing horribly, his white-boned knuckles clenched into tight fists, black swirling smoke seeming to leak from his clenched fists, and though Tonks and Remus couldn't see the features of his face, they could hear him, practically growing with the effort to restrain himself.

The strange and twisted proportions were reminiscent of a human but there was something wrong about it, about the way the man was standing, almost demonic. "Stop." Crouch commanded, and almost instantly, the figure's violent convulsing ceased, and he back stock still. It scared Tonks, and she swallowed hard down past the lump in her throat, one hand clutched tightly in Remus's, the other wrapped into a fist around her wand, ready to subdue these men if she needed to.

Barty Crouch. Jr. tonight was looking exceptionally regal, dressed in a black leather overcoat that ended at his knees, a wine-red crimson shirt underneath, black pants and boots, his dark hair slicked back with some form of oil to give it a healthy sheen.

Then he grinned. As he did so the temperature of the atmosphere fell a little, about ten degrees in the man's presence. Even in the dim light of the stormy day they saw his bared teeth. It was a Cheshire grin of sorts, the kind that was so wide it was more as if he wanted to eat everyone rather here than say hello.

"Lower your wands." Crouch gestured and the few flanking him did so, like puppets on their strings. He was exalted and clad in all black, Crouch was a god.

Everyone, especially Remus and Tonks, could see it in the brightness and glistening unshed moisture of his darkened brown eyes that something taboo was rapidly approaching, and the two of them were skilled at hiding the disturbance they perceived, though Tonks could swear Remus could hear her own heartbeat.

Crouch made a show of sauntering over to the table and picking up a goblet of half-full white wine, and with almost an aristocratic smile, he turned, smiling.

"Here you are. My sweet _Alice_ ," he crooned, keeping his arms spread, though the one arm holding the glass of wine he raised in a toast of admiration. He glanced towards his companions and furrowed his brows in a frown. "Al, Al, little Al. What to _do_ with you?" he growled, his eyes narrowed as his gaze drifted towards Tonks and Lupin's interlocked hands. He glanced towards his comrades, frowning. "No need to be so _hostile_ , gentlemen. Tonight is something of a celebration, boys! Because you see, Merlin has given me a gift. Do you know what that gift is, little dove?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested as he closed off the gap of space. "It's _you_."

His words sent a chill down Remus's spine, and the words were out of his mouth before he could think about stopping himself and think about the weighted gravity of their situation, that provoking them would only make things worse.

" _Get away from her_!" Lupin snarled, his voice coming out as a harsh, wolfish snarl that sent a tremor of fear down Tonks's spine rapidly, and before he could even think about sending a well-aimed Stunning spell towards Crouch's chest, Crouch snapped his fingers and sent poor Lupin flying across the room.

" _Remus_!" cried Tonks, whirling on her heel, though the second she made a move to bolt where he had fallen, though she was relieved to see him still alive as he struggled to his feet with the help of his father and Sirius, both still standing, she found she was unable to, frozen to her spot, and she growled her teeth in anger. _Damn you. Curse you to hell_. Now she was sure to die at Crouch's hand.

Crouch's arm was outstretched, no wand in hand, though he'd somehow managed to commit an act of nonverbal magic, and Tonks, perhaps for the first time, realized just how insane and powerful this adversary was, and she had gravely underestimated his abilities. He'd hit her with the Imperius Curse, as she felt her legs moving towards Crouch of their own volition, her legs no longer taking direction from her mind.

"That's better, dear. No need to fight me on this, dollface, because you aren't going to _win_ this time," Crouch grinned, flashing Tonks a charmingly white smile and wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing one of his fingers up to tilt her chin upward and forcing Tonks to meet his gaze.

 _Let go, let go_! She wanted to scream it at him at the top of her lungs, though no words were coming to her when she tried.

"I knew I'd find you eventually. You've caused me no small measure of grief, Alice. Dragging me all the way here to this…dung heap," he added, scolding Tonks as if she were little more than a troublesome kitten, glancing around at the charred and smoking remnants of what was left of Bill and Fleur's wedding tent.

Crouch sighed, clucking his tongue in mock disappointment, and shaking his head, and turned to Greyback.

"Grab them, Greyback. I tire of this…" Crouch gave a jerk of his head towards Remus and Sirius, and Tonks barely heard her own scream of desperation as Lupin made to bolt towards Crouch and Tonks, though was stopped by the point of a claw pressed against the pale column of his throat.

Frozen in place, he let out a vicious snarl, and were he a dog, like the burly _beast_ standing in front of him was, he would have been foaming at the mouth.

The way Crouch was putting his hands all over Dora, and the way he put his face close to hers, close enough for the man to kiss her, made Remus want to throw Greyback half-way across the tent. Adrenaline flooded Lupin's system, pumping, and beating like it was trying to escape.

He thought his heart would explode, and his light brown eyes were wide with fear.

This bastard had _his_ fiancée. He had sworn an oath to her and to Ted to do whatever it took to protect Dora, and now he was failing them both.

His body wanted to run towards Tonks and Disapparate with her, to take her, go anywhere and flee, just get away from Great Britain until things settled. The adrenaline surged so fast that Lupin almost vomited. He could taste the saliva thickening in his throat and beads of sweat startled trickling down his browbone.

Tonks, for her part, could say nothing. All she could do was blink owlishly and stare, speechless, at Lord Voldemort's top-ranking Death Eater, who had brutally attempted to rape and torture her and had given Frank and Alice Longbottom a fate truly worse than death itself.

She blinked rapidly, hoping in vain for Crouch's grim image to fade away and reveal this another hallucination.

But Crouch kept talking to her, that _worm_ , that _snake_ , that vicious bastard, the rough, calloused skin of his knuckles grazing the back of her neck, where his hand had curled into a tight fist around the material of her black wrap maxi dress in a possessive embrace. Barty Crouch Jr. was undeniably, horribly, _real_ right now.

Tonks felt every beat of her heart pounding against its chest, holding her breath, daring not to breathe a word. Each second that Crouch looked at her seemed to last an eternity as she stood perfectly still, watching Barty Crouch Jr.

She felt herself trembling. Tonks opened her mouth, attempting to beg, plead, grovel, whatever it was of her that Crouch wanted to call off his men, to let Remus go, but she wasn't sure if she was going to scream or vomit, and nothing came. Luckily, Crouch noticed and saved her the trouble of responding.

" _Now_ look what you've made me do, Alice. This is all _your_ fault. You know I wouldn't act like this if I didn't love you so much," he crooned, whispering it into the shell of Tonks's ear, nipping at the lobe. Crouch stuck out his bottom lip in a mock pout and sighed, reaching up a hand and tucked back a wisp of Tonks's pixie with a surprisingly tender hand that elicited a shudder from the young witch as Crouch felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood.

Tremors moistened in her eyes and it was such a delicious sight to behold, and Crouch marveled at how his sweet Alice could be so timid at the sight of him.

How much more too when he would rave himself inside her soon enough. Crouch glanced down at Tonks's hand and she whimpered as his dark eyes narrowed as his gaze lingered and settled on her left hand. "Oh, Alice...what in the seven _hells_ have you gone and done _now_? The devil take you…"

 _He already has_ , Tonks thought, but her words would not come. All she could manage was a small mewl of fear and swallowed back her tears.

"Men are beginning to think you're free to be _claimed_ it would seem…" Crouch growled, his voice a low, threatening warning snarl that almost rivaled that of Remus's. Crouch lifted his gaze as he heard Remus and Sirius's shouts, both of whom were held at bay by Greyback and another member from his clan. "Please don't make this any more difficult on yourself. This is embarrassing for us both, love. If you come quietly, we can both return home with some of our dignity intact, Alice…"

Tonks squirmed and whimpered in Crouch's strong grip, and a muffled cry of rage coming from Crouch's left startled her out of her swirling thoughts of panic.

"Ah." Crouch's tone sounded almost bored, listless, as the black-cloaked Stranger from the graveyard let out a muffled grunt, balled hands at his sides trembling, and Tonks, Remus, Lyall, and Sirius, all of whom, their throats held at captive by either claw from the other werewolves or the tip of Barty Crouch Jr.'s wand in Tonks's case, were left to watch in horrified silence as Crouch's Obscurus struggled to control his wrath, watching with widened eyes as the heat practically dried his skin, his knuckles bone-white with the effort to restrain himself from exploding in rage.

"Wh—what _is_ that?" Tonks whispered hoarsely, unable to tear her gaze away.

She cringed and tasted the metallic tang of iron on her tongue and palate as she realized she bit her tongue as the he-stranger from the graveyard let out a horrible yell and shook violently, convulsing with rage, black mists emanating from his entire body.

Whoever he was, he was suffering, body wrought with violent convulses, coming to him in short bursts, as was his rage.

It was like a vexing of the soul for what Tonks felt was not human, if it had ever been human in the first place, it was twisted and distorted but it was something strong. It burned so bad like fire lacing the man's veins and creeping up his spine, and the entity screamed and jerked in an almost unnatural way, but not of pain.

No. His was a scream of rage.

Crouch chuckled and pressed one of his hands in the back of Tonks's hair, and Tonks felt the bile creep up her throat and wanted nothing more than to smack his hand away, but she could not move. "A _gift_ for you, sweet Alice. I thought you would like it, and I did promise you one once, don't you remember, sweet thing? You've no idea how long it took me to catch it for you. It tried to defy me; you know. It did, in fact, for a while…"

Tonks froze, her blood chilled to ice in her veins.

_Then that was it that visited in the graveyard yesterday?_

Crouch talked to her specifically, but it was if he talked to everyone, and the briefest flickers of anger darted through the man's dark brown eyes as his gaze lingered on Alastor Moody, who'd returned from the Ministry, and gave a curt wave of his wand before Mad-Eye could raise his damned walking stick against him again in anger, hearing Moody's yell of anguish and rage.

A length of rope burst from the ends of Crouch's wand and bound Moody, his wand knocked out of his hand and was sent sailing clear across the tent's charred wreckage. Crouch made a contented little sigh from the back of his throat.

"Now that _that's_ settled, back to it. One more _word_ out of any of them, Greyback, rip them to shreds," he growled in annoyance, he emanated a tense exhale from his nose turned back towards Tonks, and he was in full smirk mode now, pleased with himself.

He looked towards Remus and Tonks, both of whom were beginning to lose the color in their faces. He chuckled.

"Oh, you'll _love_ this, Al. You've no idea the lengths I went to find it..." Tonks stiffened as the man turned towards the black-hooded Stranger from the graveyard, still looking as though it were in an intense amount of pain, struggling between that fine line of wanton restraint and unbridled, destructive rage as an Obscurus.

Crouch's voice was bored, his gaze listless, though intrigue flashed in his dark eyes and he inclined his head, cocking it to the side in a moment of ire.

"Reveal yourself." He commanded, almost sounding… _gleeful_. " _Now_."

It felt as though the Stranger from the graveyard moved in slow motion, and with one swift motion of both his pale hands, slowly lowered the hood of his black cloak and shifted slightly at the waist to regard both his master and Tonks, still trembling with rage and the urge to restrain himself, and met Tonks's gaze.

Words left Tonks as she stared into the man's bright cerulean eyes burning with rage and her heart plummeted to the pit of her churning stomach, and she thought she was going to vomit. The scream tore through her lips like a shard of glass. She felt her eyes widen and pulse quicken in her veins.

Tonks had been expecting the Stranger from the graveyard yesterday was an unknown man, a lesser-ranking Death Eater under Crouch's thumb, or even someone like Rodolphus Lestrange, or Lucius Malfoy, or even Antonin Dolohov.

But the Stranger was neither of those men.

Instead, Tonks found herself looking into the burning bright blue eyes of her former partner, Ollie Brennan.

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**A/N: Whaaaat?! Talk about a cliffhanger! You guys don't know how hard I've struggled to keep the big reveal a surprise. I hope I did it justice, cliffhangers aren't really my specialty, but I like to think I tried. What will it mean for Remadora and is there a chance Ollie can be saved or is he lost to Crouch forever?**


	52. Her Calling

**A/N: Some of you might be frustrated with this chapter because it's not what you think it to be, but it's far from over! To all my lovely readers who review and leave comments, I love you all! I hope that you continue to enjoy the story as much as I have while writing it.  
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**CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO **

It was happening again. Ollie stood in front of Tonks, trembling, hands clenched into fists at his side. Tonight he had been _paraded_ in front of his best friend like he was nothing more than a sideshow freak, a monster, and at that, his stomach coiled and his teeth ground in anger as he fought back the swells of rage.

Ollie Brennan had been in his own private hell ever since the accident since Dora lost control and couldn't help herself. He was very near death, but someone in Crouch's ranks found him unconscious and bleeding, took him in once the Aurors left the sight of the accident, and took one of the Carrow siblings' corpses and turned it into his own body with a bit of Polyjuice potion so the Aurors had a body to bury.

And now, Tonks was looking at him through red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes as though she were seeing a ghost.

And Ollie knew that Nymphadora was. Oh, but she _was_ seeing one. He _knew_ what he looked like. A damned mess.

His broken, battered body started to feel unbearably hot and beads of sweat formed on his brow and started trickling down his neck. With every move his body made against his mind's will, he felt his panic well deep within the pits of his stomach as he desperately fought.

Tonks's gray, almond-shaped eyes were wide and round with shock as she took in his thin appearance, sunken in, emaciated and hollow cheekbones, darkened circles underneath her former's partners. His thick head of luscious raven-black hair was gone, one last cruel taunt from Master for daring to escape.

Now little more than stubble, though he knew his hair would grow back. This was the new him. He was _not_ Ollie Brennan anymore.

No. He was the Betrayer. Ollie felt his jaw tense up and tighten in anger that surged toward Crouch. The black robes he wore on his too-thin frame clung to his skeletal frame, hanging off of him in parts where they ought not, clinging to him in other places.

Ollie could taste the acidic bile that crept up his throat and lingered on his tongue. Have to…try… " _Ollie_. _Don't do this_." Tonks was trying to reach him, almost sobbing.

It took him several agonizing minutes, and when he spoke, his voice sounded hoarse, as it had yesterday, and then he realized it was the first time he'd spoken to another human being in well over three years. Gods, he sounded awful.

" _Help_ …. _me_ …" He was amazed he could even summon the strength to find his resolve to plea for someone—anyone—to break him of Crouch's damned curse.

Each step forward Crouch commanded him to take felt jarring and brutal. With each step towards his best friend's new partner, who had been shoved to his knees in a kneeling position, Greyback poised behind him, a claw on the pale column of the man's throat, ready to strike him down at the first sign of protest.

"Boy. _Come_." Crouch commanded him to come nearer, to where he stood next to the young witch's new partner, his face crumpled in an immense look of disgust. Barty Crouch Jr. was fully smirking now, thoroughly pleased with himself.

Ollie tried not to look at Tonks, whose already pale face had drained of color, tears silently pouring down in graceful tracts down her cheeks. " _Don't_ …"

Despite his Master's command, Ollie felt himself freeze in his tracks. It was…the voice it came from her. She was…she was _talking_ to him. _Begging_ him!

His panic swelling within his chest intensified with each dragging step, and the pains in his head amplified, the damned stubborn bloody muscle that was his heart gave a painful lurch as it quivered, and Ollie Brennan felt his consciousness ebb. Black mists swirled at the edges of his mind, drawing him into sweet oblivion.

Ollie's pain was an icy wind choking the breath from his lungs and making a noose around his neck. Its savage, bitter blasts cut right through the layers of his thick black cloak and to his brittle bones, those of them that weren't broken, and gripped his brain in its freezing claws. His heart constricted in its wake, as if not sure it wanted to go on beating, and Ollie willed his heart to stop right here on the spot.

Against his better judgment, Brennan found his gaze drifting toward Tonks. She was still soft and somber, like the hard-working student she had been while the two of them attended Hogwarts together, studying until the break of dawn with him in the library to become Aurors. Ollie ached at the memories of his partner, in the awful way all the boys in the Great Hall and on the damned Quidditch teams were fond of the young witch's pale skin and pretty gray eyes.

Every inch a fairy she was. And now he was watching her, eyes glossed with a fresh layer of tears and she was screaming obscenities at his Master Crouch.

_No_. He pleaded with trembling breaths, wanting to scream it at her. _No. Don't stare at him. Don't provoke Master. The Master will be angry. He'll kill you! Kill you all! He'll cut you piece by piece. Like he did to Ollie Brennan until there's nothing left. Nothing left by dry, brittle bones, and no more heart_.

His eyes teared up. _There is no escaping this. Ollie Brennan tried to escape. Keep your eyes off her and keep your damned mouth shut. Master will punish me too if I don't…_

The man was vexed with the feat of having to do harm to his only friend, though Master's influence was strong, much too strong for him to fight it anymore. He felt accursed, wretched tears gather at the corners of his eyes, wanting nothing more than to take Tonks and everybody in this vicinity and Disapparate, wanting rather slit his own wrists or his throat first, _anything_ but to see her eyes raining spells on him, laced to the brim with unshed glistening tears, that _horrible_ , antagonizing hurt.

But there was no way Master Crouch would _ever_ let him take his own life, and if there was something the insane wizard was patient about, it would be allowing Ollie Brennan to live and in the name of his throbbing fingers as his wand hand's fingers twitched involuntarily as they curled around his wand fist as he practically growled with the effort to restrain himself against the Imperius Curse Master had continuously pitted against him every single day for the better part of two years in his captivity now, and Ollie swore he felt his pupils dilate before his eyes rolled back into his head and as the worst of the curse took over, all that anyone saw, the wolves, Crouch, Tonks, were the whites of Ollie's eyes.

Before his vision clouded and became misty with the all-too-familiar haze that was by now as a second sight to the poor broken bastard, he caught sight of his best friend's new partner, the werewolf, and the man was growling and snarling like a savage dog in the effort to appear at Tonks's side and get away from Greyback, practically _itched_ with dismay, and it posed a danger Ollie didn't miss.

If he strained his hearing, trying his hardest to resist the beck and call of Master Crouch's command, he could hear the wolf Lupin speaking to _his_ partner.

To Tonks. At that, it was enough to surge a drop of rage through his blood, and Ollie ground his teeth even tighter as he felt the fiery swells of hot dragon flame course through his blood and he growled, not wanting to hurt anyone else.

" _Kill the wolf_." The simple command flooded Brennan's mind like a swarm, that snakelike hiss that belonged to Master Crouch, and a burning rage spiraled through his system so past Ollie didn't have time to properly sort through what little emotions he had left, and he lifted his trembling wand hand and pointed it squarely at the werewolf's broad chest, who'd stopped snarling and struggling in Greyback's clutches, who looked more than ready to rip the younger man's throat out.

As Ollie's mind, what little was _left_ of it, thought of Tonks's betrayal, his lip curled, and his nostrils flared. His mind felt as if lead were coursing through it instead of blood. His once sunny memories of the young witch who was his friend now felt if they were tarred, disfigured into something grotesque and truly vile.

Ollie kept his gaze off of Nymphadora, he couldn't bear to look her way anymore, because if they made eye contact, he thought he might vomit. Disgust.

With himself. With _her_. He had…he had _loved_ her, and he had stayed by her through all of it. Over the years during their friendship and as students at Hogwarts, and well into Auror training under Mad-Eye Moody's tutelage, Tonks had become part of the bedrock of his personality.

And now…if judging by the simple yellow gold ring he had briefly seen was any indication of the woman's feelings, she…she was in love with someone else.

Engaged to someone _else_. A someone that was _not_ him. So, then…all that time then? The times they spent together. She had _never_ loved him, and it had all been a vicious, cruel lie?! It just couldn't be that Dora likes this…man more. Her new _partner_. It wasn't fair! She was in love with _him_ and Ollie knew it. She was just dating this man to spite him.

It would have been kinder if someone would have just _killed_ him. Now he had to be this person filled with bitterness and rage that he could not control.

The silence seemed to reign down on the small crowd like a bitter poison hanging in the air, and he could swear he heard Tonks sniffling, her hands forming fists. Ollie felt vindicated, feeling as though he was nothing but a pawn in Crouch's little mind games with Dora, meant to torture Tonks with memories she was so vulnerable with, not yet beating her and biting her as the man did to his whores.

Yet, Crouch was punishing Tonks somehow, though, for what, Master had not confided in poor Ollie, though right now, just as Fenrir had a claw almost buried deep in the Lupin man's throat, Crouch was locking Tonks's neck with a chain he knew she would not fight and snarl against. And he was…he was _winning_.

Ollie felt the familiar fire spark of anger course through his veins as he looked at the only son of activist and Ministry employee Lyall Lupin. _Remus_.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he felt the familiar rumblings beginning deep in the confines of his chest and the mists of black fog swirl and gather in his fists. He was losing it. Again. And if he couldn't control himself, then he'd kill her.

And, despite her betrayal, despite what Dora had done, he did not want that.

_Ollie…Ollie…._ a new voice was struggling to reach him through the haze in his mind.

A familiar voice. His eyelids were shut so tightly that the poor man could feel them begin to fidget and shudder from the bullish force not to hurt anyone, as if the very corner of his eyes were being pricked with a needle, crying silent tears that ran past his red-rimmed eyes and over his white-boned knuckles, his wand hand shaking so badly as it remained pointed at the werewolf's chest, that it was a wonder he could even hold it somewhat steady and the thing hadn't misfired yet.

_Don't_. _Constant vigilance, boy. This isn't you, Brennan. You're stronger than whatever the hell Crouch has done to you. Fight this. Fight him. Don't._

_Don't._ The very same advice he'd given Dora in the graveyard yesterday when he'd managed to escape again from Crouch's damned wretched dungeons.

**KILL HIM!** Crouch's command rang in his eardrums, and it took Ollie a second to realize that the yell that he was hearing following Crouch's command via means of the Imperius Curse came from him, his scream of anguish echoing and reverberating like a clap of thunder, such was his rage, a roar of pure anger.

" _No_ …." he growled, snarling and biting, clamping his jaws as he fought it.

Ollie clenched his jaw and ground his teeth, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as if by an act of Merlin Himself, he felt his wand arm slowly being lowered, still violently trembling. Sharp pains lanced through his head like nothing before and colorful spots flashed in front of his eyes.

It felt like his whole body had been beaten and every movement caused some spasmodic twitch or bone to ache.

Regardless, he needed to get out of here. Get _her_ out of here, away from _him_. Some people were born good and always fought off the bad in their lifetime.

Some were born bad and become good through great effort. Others born in light and fell to darkness, like Master. And others, like the Dark Lord, were born in darkness and cannot see the Light. Ollie Brennan knew what he was. Oh, he _knew_. When he came of age and old enough to understand, he realized the life ahead of him was one of anger, pain, and hatred. Did he want it?

No. He didn't. He came from a long line of Slytherins, growing up surrounded by fire and ash and Dark Arts and poison and death and plotting. _Scheming_. It was the only thing Ollie knew, and so of course, he wanted it. He was never taught what love was.

What kindness was? In fact, in his entire childhood, from his mum and dad, Ollie thought he saw just one type of smile.

A smile full of malice and cruel intent. It was all Ollie knew growing up. He was trained to be the perfect killer. A _murderer_. A taker of life, who gave nothing back. Put a wand in his hand and chances are he would use it to kill you or bludgeon you to death. And he knew of no other life. Until he met _her_. His Dora.

_Not yours. Not yours and she will never_ _ **BE**_ _yours_! Crouch's voice taunted. _Kill him_. _Tear him apart. You_ _ **know**_ _you want to. He_ _ **took**_ _her from you…_

There it was again, that snakelike voice of Master's in the back of his mind, and as he raised a shaking hand and pressed his wand deep into the Lupin man's chest, a familiar voice screamed his name, desperate, pleading, hyperventilating.

Though at the moment, it was impossible to reach him as the broken man's thoughts and damaged emotions warred violently within the confines of his fractured mind and it had become so clouded that Ollie could not tell who the voice belonged to.

The anger coursing through his bloodstreams and surging towards this monstrous _betrayal_ of Dora's, the antagonizing hurt he was sure, yes, he was sure, must be evident on his features judging by the way the Lupin man and even old Broody Moody were eyeing him, suggested that they pitied Ollie.

The tiny voice of reason and logic that sometimes sounded too much like Moody for his comfort, that told him to maintain constant vigilance and think rationally out of tight spots like this one had all but now faded from the confines of his tortured and bruised mind, leaving him with only feelings of rage, loss. Pain.

Though as he raised his wand slightly, wand hand still trembling, he felt something hard and solid collide against his chest, and a muffled squeak of surprise as he felt something wet begin to soak the front of his woolen black cloak.

Tears. Tears. Someone…whoever this was, she was…she was crying. _Why_?

And a female's voice. A She-Stranger, calling his name. No, not that. _Begging_. This woman's voice, so desperate and frantic, was _pleading_ with Ollie.

" **NO**! Put it down, put it down, Ol, listen to me, please, _please_! **DON'T**!" Through the haze of his rage, somehow, he recognized the owner of this voice.

Her face flashed through his mind. The image of a bright young witch in her mid-twenties with short hair cut in a stylish dark maroon pink pixie cut. Her eyes were a brilliant gray, rivaling that of the seas after a storm. Gray, cold, lovely.

And the witch's brilliant white smile. That smile of hers was the prettiest thing he'd seen in a long time, for it extended to her gray eyes and into her soul.

She was the gentle touch, the honesty that was a purity in his wretched life. There was a steadiness to the young witch as if all the storms in the world were nothing more than a whispering breeze if she was there. Tonks was kind, clever, perhaps that's what drew people to her. It was as if she knew she was born to be a queen of the earth, one who helped others, using her mind to fix whatever needed fixing.

Tonks was blessed to possess a fierce sense of independence and pride, and she was that way even when they were students in Hogwarts, confident, with the air of a warrior. Ollie loved her, once. They all did, and he _hated_ that of her.

He wanted it— _her_ —all to himself, and to lose her to someone _else_ was too much.

Her innocence so vibrant and free, that he envied the warmth she gave off, and if he could, he would bottle the heat she gave off, the closest a monster like him could come to the light and warmth of the sun after a lifetime in the shadows, and keep it in his shirt pocket, close to his heart and he would selfishly hoard it.

Ollie couldn't find his voice. He felt his cheeks flush hot, and his stomach was heavy as his wand remained pointed at the Lupin's man's chest, who said nothing, though a muscle in the man's jaw twitched, as did his rough light stubble growing on his chin, twitching without prompting. His face was flushed, angered.

" _Fight this_." The command escaped his lips in a low warning growl, a hushed whisper, though there was no mistaking the faltering crack in the Lupin man's voice. He lowered his voice low enough so that only Ollie could hear him.

Almost immediately, by whatever spell Crouch had placed him under, the woman's image that was his heart, what little was left of it, shattered as she looked at him, still keeping her arms wrapped firmly around his middle, and he lowered his wand arm, though his arm still violently convulsed and trembled as it fought against Crouch's Imperius Curse command to, as he ordered, 'kill the damn wolf.'

"Put it _down_ …This isn't you, Ollie. I—I'm so sorry. I should have…I looked for you…Don't listen to Crouch. Please. Please don't kill Remus, Ol. _Don't_." Tonks was pleading with him, and there was no mistaking the fear laced throughout her voice and the young witch who had somehow managed to break free of Crouch's clutches and was now gripping onto his shoulders as though her life depended on it, the only barrier separating him from this other werewolf, this Lupin, this monster who had taken his partner from him, and Ollie blinked, startled.

Dazed and not quite fully coherent, the young Obscurus glanced down, for that was where her voice had originated from, and he was surprised to see how violently her shoulders were shaking as if an earthquake rocked her tiny frame.

Ollie felt as if a stone had struck him. _Hard_. Tonks was crying. No. Not even _that_ , it was more than crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that came from a person drained of all hope. That's when he heard a sound that almost stopped his heart. Now, her red-rimmed eyes stared back at him, with watery streaks falling down her pale face. Lifting a violently shaking hand that he, he smoothed down a stray wisp of her hair and wiped one of the tears with a flick of his finger, which were now blotchy and mottled. Her whole face was now washed with a dull red, including the very end of her cute, slender little perfect nose.

Crouch barked another order towards Ollie, though Brennan barely heard it as he felt his wand slip from his hand, as if by rote memory, by the grace of Merlin Himself, why it happened he didn't give a damn. His partner was suffering, in pain. Because of him, and all Ollie could think of was how to stop it hurting her even more than he already had. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, closing off the gap of space between them.

He swore he heard the Wolf let out a snarl, though he paid it no mind. One of his hands rested in the back of her hair, while his chin rested on top of her head.

"T?" His voice was cracking. It trembled, wavering, as the fog slowly lifted as Crouch's Imperius Curse commands faded from his mind, and Ollie seemed unable to convince his mind that she was real. He was speaking to her as if he had never seen Tonks before! No. That wasn't quite right. More than that, he was shocked to find the young Auror in such a state, practically clinging to him as if she thought he would die again, and there was a large part of him that simply wished that he would die.

It would be easier, just to kill himself and save her the pain of losing him all over it. Were it better that he was a ghost, that he'd have died the first time?

But at the mere waver of his soft tones, cracked, broken, and barely held together at the seams was poor Ollie, this broken bastard, this shell of a man, the young witch drew her head back slightly and took a faltering step back toward Lupin. Her gaze drifted downward, and a look of dawning comprehension began to ignite in her gray eyes, which were flashing dangerously, rivaling that of steel.

Ollie glanced, face flushed and eyes red-rimmed

"It's _me_ ," she whispered, her almond-shaped eyes widening in horror. "I…" she stammered, her voice trailing off, though her eye contact never wavered.

Her eyes locked with Ollie's, and they had a private conversation of their own. She was right, goddamned her, and this was yet another thing he hated her for. There was very little known of how an Obscurus, though one thing academic studies throughout the years by renowned researcher Newt Scamander and his wife, Tina, had proved throughout the years, it was that the worst of their wrath and rage could be calmed by a person that the host trusted.

That person, for him, was Tonks.

" _Come_." He murmured, pleading with Tonks, whispering it into the shell of her ear, and he cringed at how rough and coarse his voice sounded. " _Need_ … _you_ …" After almost three agonizing years spent in a vow of silence, willing to tell his captors nothing, not a damn thing of her, his voice was much more subdued. "T… _please_ …"

He was begging her now, and he knew she could never resist him in times past when he begged. It had worked back then, maybe now…

Tonks couldn't find her voice. Couldn't speak as she clamped a hand over her mouth and choked back a sob as she realized the weighted gravity of what ollie was asking of her. To come with _him_. Just her. He could not explain it, but the overwhelming rage and anger, antagonizing hurt that caused his magic to explode and erupt from him in its chaotic destructiveness vanished whenever around her.

It was why he had gone to the graveyard yesterday. To prevent an outburst, though he immensely regretted the words he had spoken to her, taunting her like that, it was the only way to find out if Tonks had mourned for him, his 'death.'

Tonks's lips parted open to speak, but Crouch shot her a ghoulish grin that she could have sworn that as his gaze found hers and rendered her immobile, that he was…smiling. The bastard. He was enjoying this, watching her suffer like this.

"Alice." Crouch's voice had hardened, clipped, and hard. " _Come_. End this unnecessary violence, and no one needs to get hurt." He raised his empty hands above his head and made the sign of the Hail Mary over his heart. "Cross my heart, hope to _die_ ," he mocked, shooting her a dazzlingly white, charming smile.

Tonks's gaze flitted between Ollie and Crouch; her tear tracts now long dried and squared her shoulders as she stood up straighter as Crouch approached the pair of them. Her brows furrowed as Ollie was not looking at Crouch or her, but was fixing Mad-Eye Moody with an intense, icy concentrated stare that was unfamiliar, almost cold, and it was frightening to see her former partner's familiar features cold and devoid of any warmth as if they had been stolen from Ollie.

Tonks raised her head and jutted out her chin defiantly. " _If_ I go with you, will you promise to let Remus and the others go? Do _not_ harm them, set them _free_." Lupin's head jerked up so fast that Ollie had to sidestep out of the way to avoid tripping as the man started wildly thrashing in Greyback's clutches. His light brown eyes were ablaze a raw, untamed emotion that she couldn't identify and his expression on his ashen face was one of rage and a look of utter, shocked disbelief.

" _What are you doing, Dora?!_ " Lupin bellowed, hardly daring to believe this.

This _had_ to be some kind of a cruel trick. A nightmare, a horrible nightmare.

Tonks lifted her gaze, ignoring Remus's outburst. "Swear it. If I...if I go with you, that you will _not_ harm them."

Crouch stopped and dipped his head, spreading his arms wide before him in a gesture of mock humility.

"By Merlin's Light, I _swear_ to let them go. Won't we, Greyback?" he joked, glancing towards Fenrir, whose face remained impassive. "I made you a _deal_ , did I not, Alice? I only expect you to keep your word. You _promised_ me. Don't you remember, sweet little dove?" he growled.

Tonks swallowed nervously and licked her lips to moisten.

_Oh, god. He's insane. There's no getting out of this. But…if it's the only way to save Remus, then…so be it_.

A thick, uncomfortable, tense silence passed where no one spoke. Remus watched with mounting horror dawning on his expression as Tonks glanced over at him, her eyes wide and eerily glassy. She squeezed her eyes shut and emanated a tense exhale through her nose before turning back to Crouch.

"You have my _word_. But…" She hesitated and swallowed again, blinking back tears. "Will you…you will at least let me say goodbye?" she begged, biting her lip.

Crouch looked bored, as though he wanted nothing more than to get this little farce over with, though he shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand as he turned away from her. "I'll allow it, sweetheart, but don't take all damned night."

As he walked away from her and Ollie and Remus, Crouch barked off a few commands, and suddenly, Lupin felt relieved of Greyback's claw at his throat, and the other werewolves, except for Greyback, went to stand guard next to Crouch, allowing Tonks a moment alone with Remus. She dropped to her knees in front of him, her pallid face inches from him, her nose touching his.

" _What the hell are you doing_?" shouted Remus. "Don't _do_ this, Dora…" he moaned, blinking back briny tears. "There's…there's another way, I—I _promise_."

Tonks blinked back briny tears and swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat. "I don't want you to worry, Rem. E—everything will be _fine_. You'll see."

"Dora, no, no, no, don't do this," Remus begged, fighting to control his voice, though it was becoming harder for him to do so as he watched Dora sniff once and shook her head as she reached up a shaking hand and brushed his bangs back from his eyes.

"I—I can't do that, Rem. If I don't, you'll be killed, and I _cannot_ let that happen, sweetheart. You saved my life. I owe you a debt. This is...the only way, love."

The mask of serenity and calm she had adapted began to crumble as her face twisted and contorted with grief, tears spilling out of her eyes and she bit down on her bottom lip to repress a half-choked sob.

She reached out a shaking hand and waved her wand once, where a simple silver chain appeared, hovering in mid-air, and she pressed something small into his palm with shaking hands, curling his fingers instinctively over the ring she'd been given.

Words failed Lupin as he glanced down in his left hand and in his hand was his mother's ring. Confronted by Dora's frightened gray eyes and the restraints of rope that Greyback had conjured to prevent him and Sirius from escaping, Lupin was taken back to another time not long ago, where he'd watched in horror as someone else he'd cared for had chosen death over the alternative.

_Find her. Save her_ , James and Lily's voices piped up in unison in his mind. "No, please…don't do this, Tonks, please _don't_ ," he moaned. But his pleas of desperation were falling on deaf ears as Tonks bit down hard on her bottom lip as the sob escaped, and she reached for his shoulders.

"Rem, I—I just want you to know…" she offered him a soft smile, though it was twisted with immense pain he never thought he would see on her face, it was genuine. "You made me so _happy_. I don't ever want you to forget that. Or me…"

She leaned forward and cradled his head in her hands and forced Lupin to look at her, basking in the heat he gave off, resting her forehead against his. If this was to be the last time that she would look upon Remus's face and feel how his lips moved in sync with hers in a kiss, then Tonks wanted to make this count. Tonks leaned in to whisper it into the shell of his ear.

" _Come find me. And keep me_." She pulled back slightly, and she and Remus stared at each other in an odd way, as if it were a silent argument, and in its own way, she supposed it was. Their glances battled one another until tears arose, and they both found themselves crying.

She did not give Remus a chance to argue with her as she leaned forward and kissed him. Soft and slow, he tasted like November, like hot chocolate on stormy evenings or crisp autumnal October air. It sent a shiver down her back, his warms gentle, firm, and before she could add more pressure to their lips and deepen the kiss, Tonks felt a pair of rough hands grab her by the shoulders.

"I love you, Rem," she called out in a pitiful, mewling whimper, fresh tears gathering in her eyes, struggling as Crouch maintained a firm grip on her waist.

"All right, that's _enough_. You're making me sick. I've had it. We're _leaving_ , Alice. You've said your goodbyes. I consider myself a _patient_ man, a _merciful_ man, but don't push my boundaries," Crouch snarled. He hauled her away and up from Remus, dragging her towards the other Death Eaters. Her hands, her lips, and the incredible heat she gave off left Lupin, along with his final shred of self-control.

" **DORA**!" The sound of a rope snapping shot through the ruined wreckage of Bill and Fleur's tent, and Remus might have felt a burning, sharp pain in his wrists as he snapped his bindings loose without any magic, clenching his eyes shut and allowing the Mad Beast within the confines to take control, growing and roaring his displeasure. Had it not been for the Wolf's adrenaline coursing, surging as fire through his veins, changing him.

The other Death Eaters cried out in surprise and lunged for Remus and Sirius, but a well-timed duck and a powerful Stunning Spell, Lupin sent both of Greyback's associates toppling over each other and onto the ground below, where their bodies gave a feeble jerk and a twitch and they did not get up again.

Lupin ran as fast as he could towards Tonks, where one of Greyback's associates was attempting to subdue his fiancée. Crouch shouted something inaudible, though Remus completely missed it as he heard nothing but a ringing. Though just as her hand outstretched, the pads of her fingertips ghosting along with his own as Lupin desperately reached for her, Ollie darted forward and grabbed Tonks by her waist and Disapparated with a loud, resonating _crack_!

_No….no…no… **NO**! _Lupin throttled his urge to roar like an enraged dragon as Crouch pulled at his hair and bellowed like a provoked bull. He marched over towards Fenrir Greyback and, despite the immense height difference between the two men, pointed his wand square at Greyback's broad, vast chest, at his heart.

" **BASTARD**!" he snarled. "You let them escape again! Are you so _stupid_ you can't even handle one stupid woman and Obscurus?!" he ranted and raved. "I won't entertain any excuses from either of you!" he raged, shoving one of the other Death Eaters, who'd come up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Get out there and find them both! **NOW**! **LEAVE**! **GO**!" he yelled.

The Death Eaters did not need to be told twice and Disapparated without a word, some of them shooting Crouch ashamed, apologetic looks, others looked relieved. Crouch, with his brown eyes glistening with unshed moisture and a look of rage on his features, strode towards Remus and Sirius, both of whom sent Stunning Spells his way, though the man deflected it as if the jinxes were merely an annoying fly that he swatted out of his way.

" _You_!" he snarled viciously, baring his teeth. " _Wolf_. I've waited a long time for this. What you've done to Alice, you have every bit of this coming to you. You _deserve_ this. Every. Bit. I've been looking _forward_ to this. You've no idea of this, _dog_!" With a cry of rage on the man's thin lips as he licked his lips to moisten them, Barty Crouch Jr. raised his wand and struck out at the nearest target he could aim at.

At Remus, who had no time to react, much less raise his wand and attempt to defend himself, and he felt the beating muscle that resided within his chest nearly cease in its rhythmic course. Though before Lupin could close his eyes and prepare to embrace Death like an old friend, ignoring and blocking out Sirius's shouts, his eyes flung open as something whizzed past his earlobe, very nearly taking his ear with it, and Lupin watched with a dawning look of horror and outrage, as Fenrir Greyback aimed a spell square at Remus's chest, though it was not any kind of spell he recognized.

He felt something warm and sticky near his chest, and he collapsed to the ground, the strength rapidly leaving his legs. He swore he heard Sirius shouting.

Blackness filled the edges of Remus's wretched, wolfish sight, and the heel of Greyback's black leather boot dug deeper on his shoulder as Lupin struggled beneath the werewolf, and he flinched as Fenrir spat at him, and the loud, resounding crack! told him that Barty Crouch Jr. had once again evaded capture.

He would have roared in anger at Crouch's disappearance, at what Tonks had done, but he lacked the ability and strength to speak. Lupin coughed feebly between breaths as a warm fluid rose in his throat, choking back the only word he wanted to ask of Fenrir Greyback.

_Why_? " _Why_ …" Remus managed to whisper, something of a miracle between bloody, gritted teeth, eyes clenched tightly shut as a white-hot flare of pain jolted up his vertebrae. The confusion must have been evident on his pale face, which was now so pallid, he was sure he looked like a corpse.

His cry was a brilliant sound, guttural chokes mixed with an agonized roar, and Lupin felt a throb of horrible pain strike at his temple, and he collapsed, convulsing and trembling like a rabid animal as the thick blood, crimson, sticky, and mess, flowed from the gaping hole in his chest, and the cascade of his life force gushed out in a puddle beneath where he lay.

The only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat, and his breaths came in ragged, shallow gasps. Seconds passed as he laid on the ground, now drenched in his own blood, and Remus swore he heard Sirius and Lyall shouting something.

Someone, probably his father, as Lyall's face knelt in front of him, was desperate and pleading, urging his only son to stay with him, murmuring soft nothings into his ears. The ebb and flow of his rapidly fading consciousness threatened to swallow him whole, deeper into the echoing darkness of the night.

This red-soaked dawn, this red wedding, that was sure to serve as his grave. But what in the seven hells had he done to warrant _this_?! The image of Greyback's monstrous face loomed over him, the cold listlessness in his eyes, scarlet liquid drenching Greyback's face, garish red against such pale.

Fenrir turned away as Remus's vicious snarling and hurling insults as the dog who'd ruined his life became quieter, the sweet tang of blood-tingling in his flared nostrils, and he tasted sweet iron on his tongue. The image of Greyback loomed over him.

Then his friends. Sirius. James, Lily. And Tonks. Sweet, succulent Dora. So, what in the seven hells had he ever done besides remaining a rueful werewolf, an accursed wretch in the eyes of the rest of wizarding society, done to earn this?

The pain he felt in his chest no longer lingered, and the shouting yells of Lyall, Sirius, and Greyback's voices became fainter and more muted as Remus's eyes remained closed. Merlin was good to him at last… And before the darkness completely engulfed him wholly and his last breath left his lungs for the last time, a vision of loveliness danced in his mind, setting his tortured soul to an eerie sense of sweet, blissful serenity, and Lupin felt…at _peace_. Lupin could only see Tonks.

Her glistening gray eyes like the sea after a storm, and dark vibrant pink hair, and her sweet smile.

The way Tonks's lips lifted upward. The way her one dimple crinkled. The way her teeth are perfectly aligned.

The warm glow her happiness gave of. Her smile was a ray of sunshine, and he wanted nothing more to look upon his fiancée's beautiful features as he slowly passed into the sweet abyss of darkness and away from the pain. Her face was the only one he focused on. Not that of Sirius's, not his father's, not Greyback's, or Molly's.

Just her.

His Dora.

* * *

**A/N: All I can say is...please don't hate me! XD**


	53. Will He See Me?

**CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE**

The early dawn was cold. Thin greying clouds that promised rain stretched across the endless sky and the frost that coated the dirt and brown, dying grass as October crept along at its petty pace was almost even worse, promising winter.

Callous weather, cruelly unfair, and the wolves in Greyback's encampment had started to grow weary and agitated.

If the meat they hunted in the Forest of Dean wasn't tough, they were lacking and chewy. Their fingers were almost bluish-black, and their lips were cracked and bleeding, tinged blue with the cold.

The camp that Greyback's clan lived beneath the hills overlooking the Wolves Wood, as they called it, and so appropriately named, given it was where they hunted, grateful for any provisions it offered their kind—rabbits and foxes for their bottomless pits they dared to call stomachs.

Along the line of tattered and worn tents perched above the frosted soil, a dark red ball went sailing and a small child's laughter tumbled along right with it, never straying too far behind.

The kid moved like her knees were just hinges, wobbling to and from before almost tripping over the hem of her tattered and worn dress, and as she scrambled in an attempt to right herself, she clapped like it was all part of the plan and rolled to her stomach to get up again. She was French and cute as hell.

She ran after the ball with enthusiasm, which felt as though it lightened the drab. The hem of her brown dress and black ripped cloak scraped against the mud.

As other wolves in their camp went about their duties, no one noticed the red ball enough to step aside to make way for it as it tumbled, and the girl watched in dismay as instead, it bounced against one of Master's comrade's boots, which sent it scurrying inside a drafty looking tent that looked as though one good puff of wind would blow it over in the coming thunderstorm.

The child saw her precious prize disappear instead of the tent and the girl, not much older than five, stood at the entrance of the tent flap with a nervous look of apprehension, fidgeting with her pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm.

No candles were lighted inside and none of the other wolves had their wands drawn to provide light inside the tent, so there was no one to locate her toy ball.

The little girl looked to the side, left and right, in the hopes of asking a grown-up for help but all the other werewolves, their backs were turned towards her and voices indistinct and murmuring something about 'guests' behind her back.

Her wolfish ears perked up at the mention of 'guests,' and had she a true wolf's tail, she was sure it would have wagged in delight and intrigue. Guests?

What _guests_? Master had never brought 'guests' back to the camp before, not unless it was to _eat_ them.

The child shuddered and scrunched her nose in disgust as she inhaled a sharp breath of cold fall air that pierced her lungs.

_Daddy says I am a little warrior. And She-Wolves don't fear the darkness_ , and it was this sole thought that gave her comfort as she stepped into the abyss.

At first, Ayla, (that was her name, Ayla) thought the darkness of inside the tent must have deceived her wolfish sight, or else her eyes were confused and dazzled by the pitch-blackness, wondering what on earth Master had set this tent up for if you couldn't even see when you were walking in it.

The child let out a tiny squeak as she took a half step forward and tripped over something that felt like a chair and stubbed her pinky toe in the process, and as she walked on, hobbling now on one foot, clutching her injured toe in the process, her gaze alighted on the shape of the bright red ball as her vision was now fully adjusted to the darkness, and the toy was resting in what she made out on top of a wooden bed.

As she approached, a towering shadow engulfed her tiny form and horror chilled her insides, rendering the blood that pumped through her veins like ice.

A white hand appeared from the dark, its fingers spread wide like starfish as it took the ball in a shaking, light grip and offered it to her, no words exchanged.

The shadowy figure moved forward into the light, this He-Stranger who smelled of blood and man-flesh like he'd tried to live among men not like _them_.

The creature, not much older than her father, looked at her like a wolf would inspect its prey, at her yellowed eyes, tattered and worn brown dress, and light ash brown hair cut short in a shaggy pixie, at her cute little button nose, worn and tattered boots.

The child, Ayla, at five, was not necessarily a pretty little rose, and the creature blinked owlishly at the girl as she shakily stepped forward and took the ball as the man withdrew deeper into the mattress and the tent's corner.

Her dark brows furrowed into a frown as the child heard the He-Stranger's coughs, his grunts of pain, and shivering breaths as she heard him violently shake.

Ayla was unmoved, and the disturbance did not stir her at all, until a sharp barking command erupted through the tent's entrance, shattering the silence.

"Ayla!" The stocky build of one of Master's comrades and one of Daddy's friends entered, darkening the space even further and his strong, hairy hand caught the girl round the shoulder and snatched the red ball out of her hands. "What in the devil's name are you doing here? You're _alone_ and you came out of my sight. Your father would beat you if you were a boy, you know, little Ayla. Go on back outside now. You don't need to be in here, sweet princess…"

The little wolf Ayla obliged half-hearted, daring to peek one last glance over her shoulder as the guard led the child-werewolf back out into the cold autumn.

"B—but I haven't said thank you!" she protested, running her tongue the wall of her teeth along the top row and winced as she felt her incredibly sharp incisors.

The guard turned a deaf ear to the five-year-old's protest to her dismay.

"Go on. Be sure to stay where I can see you. I will tell of your thanks. Don't make me say it again." The man urged, resisting his urge to growl in frustration at the thought of such a sweet and gentle soul sharing the same space as Master Greyback's newest captive. It was his turn to watch over the wretched creature.

At the shrunken shell of a man nursing wounds the rest of the clan he was unsure to survive, at least not without any of their aid, though Alpha had expressly forbidden it until he and this He-Stranger had shared in a dialogue.

The guard glanced at the pair of manacles locked onto his pale wrists, his knuckles cracked and bleeding at the edges when they'd first brought him here.

He'd snarled and growled as savagely as the rest of the wolves when they'd revived him, screaming and hollering at the top of his lungs, demanding an audience with the clan's Alpha, and for a moment, Wes thought for _sure_ this new wolf was one of their own, he bore the scars, the shadow of the Wolf across his features, his heightened senses were as Wes's, but he smelt _wrong_. Acted wrong. Talked wrong.

He bore the unmistakable signs of trying to live amongst the Humans, and this immediately made the others incredibly wary and distrustful.

_They need not chain him like this. We're in the middle of the Wolves Wood, he can't escape. What the hell do we need chains for_? Wes thought though Alpha insisted on it, and the man's wand kept away in his possession for safekeeping, in case he tried anything.

Wes felt his nostrils flared as he smelled the stench of drying blood on the He-Stranger, and his wolfish ears perked up at the Stranger's raspy breaths as he coughed, and Wes, in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence, let out a sigh and pinched at the front of his temples with his large thumb and forefinger.

"You'll have to forgive her. She's come a long way without any sort of companion. We don't have many children in our encampments. She's one of the first…"

_With a cold-hearted Alpha and a black shadowy demon_ , is what Wes wanted to say, and he felt his lips curl upward into an animalistic snarl as he thought of the Bad Man, the Dark Wizard. Of Crouch.

"Surely, she isn't just a little girl," came the Man's voice, something between a hushed whisper and a murmur, but far too faint and incredibly weak all the same. If winter were a voice, Wes thought, it would be this He-Stranger's. Sad. "She's only _five_ years old. Is she a…" His voice cracked and trailed off, and Wes flinched as he heard the shirking of chains as the Man gestured with his hands.

" _No_." He felt his pupils dilate as he got the gist of what Alpha's newest prisoner was asking after. "Her mother's human." His voice was cold, and taut. He refused to discuss their own in the presence of a Stranger.

There was a beat. A pause. And then— "And the father? What is her father?" the Man asked.

"A werewolf," Wes answered curtly, the edges of his voice clipped and hardened and he swore he heard the Wolf within him let out a warning growl from the back of his throat as visions of his wife Norah danced in his mind.

Wes heard the prisoner give out an audible gasp of surprise, barely audible, and the rattling of his chains.

It seemed to take an eternity for the Stranger to find his voice, and when he did speak, it seemed much rougher, more subdued.

"Mmm. But you have not answered my question, _Wolf_ ," the Stranger snarled. "When can I see him?"

The question escaped the Stranger's voice as a low growl and Wes squinted his yellow, wolfish eyes at the drop of hurt and hatred lacing throughout their latest captive's tone.

Surely, this Man had deeper wounds that went beneath the surface of whatever he was suffering from at the present.

The werewolf heard the Man's chains rattle again as the creature stepped forward into the light, and Wes felt himself give a start and let out a sharp hiss as he got his first good, true look at the He-Stranger which had captured Alpha's interest so much as to bring him back to their encampments, along with two others and keep them hostage, both human, though he insisted _this_ one be kept in a separate tent.

Clearly, Alpha perceived this one to be a much bigger threat to keep him isolated as such, and Wes let a snarl escape his lips as he caught sight of the man's tall form and light brown hair flecked with bits of gray at the temples.

He _knew_ this man. He'd heard of whispers of this one from other members in their clan. Or rather, knew of the man's father.

Of Lyall Lupin. The _bastard_ who dared to speak out against Alpha and held prejudiced views of their kind, and his mind, like father, like son, and the apple never fell far from the tree, as the human expression in the wizarding world went. Wasn't that the saying?

Is _that_ how it went? But Wes had no time to ponder what Alpha had found interesting enough in a dying werewolf shunned from their society, though it had made its way to Wes's own curiosity as well when the man spoke again.

"When will he see me?" the He-Stranger growled angrily, the shadow of the Wolf within him dancing across his handsome but lined face as he leaned forward from his seat on the edge of the hard mattress's thin and worn frame.

The voice had risen, dark, firm, and on the last vestiges of its patience.

Wes's brows furrowed into a thick frown. "Soon. Whenever he wills it."

"Then he's too slow!" he bellowed, slamming his fist down on the railing. He was panting heavily now, and Wes hoped he'd not need to use force against him, not in his current physical condition. "Tell him to see me. **NOW**!"

The chains rattled as he lunged, a cry of rage on his lips, though given the chains were bolted to the wall and he had no wand, he posed no threat to Wes, and therefore, the werewolf was unfazed by the Lupin man's snarling and savage growling.

"The faster he sees you, the faster is your execution, have you not thought of that?" Wes demanded in retort, quirking a brow towards Lyall's son's direction.

Silence brooded before their captive let out a relieved sigh. "Better, then."

But Wes did not remain convinced. He knelt in this darkness and leaned forward himself to better look into the man's light brown eyes, darkening and burning bright with anger and a raw intensity that he wasn't sure what to make of.

"Is it?" he challenged, biting the inside wall of his cheek. "And just who the hell are _you_ , that you would welcome death at the hands of Alpha than postpone it?" The chains gave a rattle, signaling to Wes that the other werewolf had stretched from the far corners of the tent and came forward and stepped further into what little dim light was wafting in from the opened tent flap. Close enough for Wes to make out the details of the Stranger's face, every line, every feature.

His hardened, handsome face fit the icy fire of rage and antagonizing hurt in his voice. "A man discarded by your own kind. Shunned too from the rest of the wizarding world. A man wanted dead at the hands of someone else because I have something that he _wants_ ," he growled, and Wes felt his hackles raise, and a low snarl escaping his lips as his lips curled upwards and he raised his wand, preparing to strike, though he relented as the man dipped into his shirt pocket.

Around his neck on a simple silver chain rested a beautiful elegant yellow gold ring, though something about this simple piece of jewelry was… _different_.

It was… _glowing_. Wes blinked owlishly at the little ring in shock, his lips parted open slightly. Wes had never quite seen anything like it, and then he realized what it was. Someone, probably whoever the ring had belonged to, had put a Tracking Spell on it. Someone clearly wanted this Wolf to find them. It was truly ingenious, something he never would have thought to do in his life. Wes found his curiosity piqued, and the question escaped his lips before he could stop it.

"What is it that this man wants?"

The man's darkened brown eyes narrowed until they were mere slits, and he did not answer.

"If your Alpha is to kill me and I am to die at his hand, then let it be now. But if he would delay my execution, then tell your master," here, he spat the word as though it were poison that had settled upon his tongue, "to grant a dying man's wish."

Wes frowned. Who in the hell _was_ this man? "And that is…?" he clarified.

He watched as the man turned to face him, and there was no trace of tears, not in his eyes or in track marks on his reddening face. The He-Stranger's eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, and hard. At that moment, he was already far away.

His eyes held a deadness, a horrible stillness. He had judged Wes already and, in his eyes, the wolf only saw cool hatred in the He-Stranger's icy glower.

His eyes were a knife in Wes's ribs, the sharp point digging deeper. Where there had been love was an emptiness, but not in any vulnerable sense. Uncomfortable with the void, he had filled it with an emotion he was more at ease with - raw anger.

The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing like he was fighting something back and losing.

When he finally found his voice, it was rough, coarse, and trembling as he struggled to restrain the Mad Beast within him, something that Wes was all too familiar with, and he spat the words as though they were poison and spat them through clenched and gritted teeth.

"To see Barty Crouch Jr.'s own head on a _spike_ if I have that ability," and Wes shivered at the coldness laced throughout his quiet, reserved tone.

"Your name?" Wes prodded, gruffly though not necessarily unkindly. "What's your name?"

"I am Remus Lupin, son of Lyall and Hope Lupin, half-blood and a werewolf, betrothed of Auror Nymphadora Tonks, and I want _my_ face to be the last thing on this earth that Crouch sees before I send him down to the seventh _hell_ myself."

* * *

**A/N: There's Remus, there you are. :) You guys didn't REALLY think I'd kill off my favorite HP character, did you? I might enjoy writing dark material, but I'm not THAT cruel.**

**Will Remus survive his upcoming encounter with Fenrir Greyback? Coming soon! . :)**


	54. A Deal with the Devil

**CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR **

Sirius was trying so damned bloody hard not to stare at his own nose in the broken shard of mirror that rested in front of his lap on the ground in none other than Fenrir Greyback's own tent, but he kept finding his eyes had diverted to it whether he liked it or not. One moment, they were obediently on his red-rimmed eyes and darkened circles underneath his eyes from spending an entire night suffering from lack of sleep and exhaustion.

And now, hours later and three beatings later—or was it four? — He could not quite recall what his ordinary nose had looked like even just last night at Bill and Fleur's wedding.

Padfoot couldn't recall how long his beating this morning had gone on for, only the final kick and the sound of the iron bar falling to the forest floor. His face wasn't too bad, just a cut above his eyebrow, the scarlet blood flowing into his eyes. Moony's father, Lyall, was bound by a length of rope in a chair alongside Sirius, their hands wrenched behind their back, their wands in their pockets, but they weren't going anywhere Greyback didn't want them to, that much was certain.

He could feel Lyall squirming behind him and craning his neck to look around. Sirius let out a tired sigh and turned his head sharply to the right, spitting out a mouthful of blood by his feet. Black couldn't quite help himself.

"This is usually about the part where we would _escape_?" Sirius suggested in a dog-like bark, to which he was rewarded by a barking shout of Lyall Lupin.

"This is the part where they _kill_ us! Oh, you _blind_ , bloody fool, Black! What the hell were you _thinking_? These wolves aren't like Remus, they're easily insulted, and you've offended them!" he bellowed, thrashing, and struggling furtively against his restraints, to no avail.

Sirius could commend Moony's father for at least showing spirit, though that spirit quelled and became still when the tent's entrance flap shuddered open as a cold morning breeze wafted through the opening entrance, and a broken, battered man that was in far off worse condition limped across the lifted red velvet curtains, darkened brown eyes searching the tent from corner to corner, and the man's face paled upon seeing Sirius and Lyall bound in their chairs in the far right corner of the tent. When Remus first came into view, his hands bound together in front of him by a pair of manacles, he didn't recognize his old friend at best.

He was too far away at first and his gait was all wrong. Against his ghostly skin, the purple welts on his left cheek stood out, and Sirius flinched, knowing they'd only deepen over the coming week. He didn't look as though he had any broken bones, though Moony was a bloody mess, nose smashed, and eyes almost shut tight with the rapid swelling. His chained arms were wrapped around his stomach like he was holding his intestines in and to be honest, Greyback's dogs had beat him so bad that he might as well be. Sirius bit the inside wall of his cheek as Lupin met his gaze.

His eyes got that wide look as Moony often did whenever he was surprised and upset by something as they walked from one injury to another.

Dusk had made its settlement across the Wolves Wood, near the Forest of Dean if the rumors and hushed whispers among Greyback's wolves were correct. In the middle of the enclosure, stood the leader of the pack, the Alpha.

Sirius's gaze flitted towards Greyback, who'd pulled up an empty chair and was straddling the damned thing backward, his right cheek resting in his hairy fist and he was looking quite bored, as though he'd rather be anywhere else.

The wolf, the one who they called Wes, Wes, his name was Wes, Sirius reminded himself. How the hell could he forget it? That one had only been too delighted to deliver a few blows to Sirius after he'd made a passing comment about how the whole encampment reeked of the stench of blood and wet dog.

Wes strode forward, the edges of his black cloak torn and tattered, splattered with mud and his yellowed eyes straight towards his Alpha, bowed his head as a show of submission and took a faltering step back. "Alpha. As asked."

Fenrir Greyback curled the edges of his thin, wormy lips upward and bared his unnaturally sharp incisors in a snarl as he inched his face towards Remus's cold, hardened, and misshapen self-due to the nature of his injuries.

This werewolf was devoid of warmth, and it was rumored none loved him. How _could_ they, when this leader, this Alpha of his back, attacked and bit children, just as he'd done to Remus when he was only five years old? How did you learn to love a beast such as him? The answer was quite simple. You _didn't_.

Greyback's nostrils flared in agitation as he leaned back and growled.

"Oh, look what you've brought me, Wes." His face was impassive, and he offered the most pallid of welcomes. "Another _dog_. He looks like crap, Wes," he commented, crinkling his nose in disgust. "We should have left him back there to bleed out, don't you think? A fitting end for a _coward_. A betrayer."

The Alpha fell silent and waited to see if the man would respond. Sirius watched in silence as Moony flinched, though his broken friend said nothing, and that alone in it of itself already proved Remus could think clearly through his haze of pain. They might—just _might_ —walk out of this alive.

The younger wolf, who didn't look that much younger than Remus or himself, Sirius thought, furrowed his dark brows in a frown and coughed once.

"Sir, you might recognize this one. It's Lupin's son," he growled with no small measure of dislike in his voice as he jerked his head towards Lyall and Sirius. "Though he is one of us, he bears the unmistakable of signs of having tried to…" But Greyback held up a large hand and promptly cut his guard off from speaking and let out a low warning growl, to which the wolf called Wes fell silent immediately, though if Sirius wasn't mistaken, the briefest flickers of anger darted through the dog's yellow eyes.

"I _know_ who he is. _What_ he is, boy. I offered your son a chance to join our ranks, Lyall, and yet he refused…your boy is too prideful, Mr. Lupin. Too dutiful to you humans. I _liked_ that part of your Remus, that he still feels unworthy of our kind, Lyall," he called out, his voice now seems as though it were feigning interest as the Alpha's yellow eyes flitted towards Lyall Lupin.

Lyall, for this part, remained unmoving, though Sirius felt him twitch.

Fenrir let out a mock sigh, as though sounding immensely disappointed and turned back towards Remus, who remained stock-still, standing in front of Greyback. Wes emanated a tense exhale through his nose and stepped back.

The disbelief was wrought on the guard's face and he did not look convinced. Though he dared not voice his true opinion in front of his Alpha.

Wes's yellow eyes flashed angrily, though just as quick as the drop of rage in the wolf's eyes had flitted through his gaze, it vanished, and he adopted a look of perfect impassiveness, one meant to mask his true feelings on this matter. "If you say so, Master." He parted his lips open slightly to speak and was rewarded when Greyback shoved a sealed letter into the palm of his calloused and cracked hands. Wes's thick brows knitted together in quandary and confusion.

"Send an owl at once. Send the word out. I want to talk to my… _guest_ ," Here, Fenrir swiveled his head lazily, almost methodically towards Remus, " _Alone_. The other two can stay," he barked coldly, his yellowed eyes lingering for a moment on Sirius and Lyall longer than either of them would have liked.

Wes withdrew with a curt nod of his head and an awkward little half-bow before turning on the heel of his black leather boot and storming out of the tent. Fenrir stifled the urge to growl in frustration and waited until the three of them were alone in the tent. He shook his head at the spot where his guard had stood only moments before and his cold, unwavering gaze settled on Sirius and Lyall's chairs. He let out a tired sigh, nostrils flaring and snapped his fingers.

Almost instantaneously, Sirius and Lyall both found themselves relieved of their rope restraints and their wands returned to them. The pair of men bolted from their chairs so fast in their haste to appear at Remus's side that they overturned them, their wands pointed directly at Greyback, who was unstirred.

"There's no need for that," he growled, and he snapped his fingers, which more resembled that of claws given how overly long the man's blackened, dirtied nails were. Greyback stifled a low rumbling bark that threatened escape from his burly chest as the werewolf made a show of pretending to preen at his nails, all the while studying the three of his captives as three chairs materialized out of thin air and Remus, Lyall, and Sirius felt themselves being violently shoved backward, their backs resting against the velvet material of the chairs. The wolf continued. He shot Remus a wolfish grin.

"I suppose the three of you might be wanting to know how you lot ended up in chains in my encampments, yes?"

Lupin remained silent, resolute. When Remus did not respond, Greyback growled and pointed a stubby, hair finger at Lupin.

"I _knew_ there was always something _strange_ of you, boy," he snarled, curling his gums upward and revealing yellowed, sharpened canines. "Who would have ever guessed it. The very own _son_ of Lyall Lupin,"

Here, his gaze slowly flitted towards Lyall, whose face had drained of color, beads of sweat gathering on his brow, though Remus's father knew better (more so than Sirius did) to provoke an outburst. "Here. With _me_ …lying on the ground just last night, taken for dead. If not for the fact that you and I share a common interest, then I would have left you there to bleed out myself…" He crinkled his nose in disgust. "You bear the unmistakable stench of having to live amongst humans.

Sirius bit down hard on his tongue as he felt Lupin's posture stiffen and heard the man's rattling sharp intake of breath as Moony gasped in surprise.

Though Remus remained still, his gaze unabashed and unwavering, a muscle in his jaw twitching. His neck and shoulders were still unable to curb his violent spells of shivering. The wound near his right side and squarely in his chest had begun to send white-hot flares of pain up and down his spine, curling the tips of his toes in his shoes, no matter how thick the bandages were that he'd been given.

His light brown hair stuck up in tufts, disheveled, and Sirius thought it resembled that of Harry's, dark rings below his light brown eyes, hollowed. Greyback snarled and leaned forward in his seat, raking one of his claws down the leg of his pants, his thinly cropped beard casting a light shadow across his broad face.

"Now I want to know…what about killing Barty Crouch is so important to you? Is it because he holds a vested interest in your precious little _mate_? Hmm? Is _that_ it? There are still a few mysteries surrounding you, boy, things that must be made clear to me before I decide to kill you. _Lupin_ ," he added dryly. "You're dying anyway, so why don't you tell me the truth, boy?" He gave a curt jerk of his head towards the glowing ring Moony wore around his neck, and Sirius furrowed his brows into a frown, following his sight.

_Tonks, you wise evil bitch, you_! Sirius cursed inwardly in his head, though the term was not necessarily meant as an insult, one of vile wickedness, but an immense sigh of relief and a surge of impressive admiration at his cousin's ingenious, brilliant scheme. _Bloody brilliant_!

His cousin had cast an incredibly complex but effective Tracking Spell on the ring Moony had given her last night sometime during the wedding before Crouch had shown up and decided to crash the party, and it gave off a soft glow. Tracking Spells were quite effective at locating someone who particularly didn't want to be found, as long as the item had come into skin-to-skin contact and possessed the DNA of whoever it was that you happened to be looking for.

It was a hell of a long shot, but it might be their only shot at finding her, and for Moony's sake, he hoped he'd find his cousin alive and unharmed.

Otherwise, there might not be anything _left_ of Crouch to arrest.

Sirius visibly flinched, the fingers of his wand hand curling tightly into a fist over his wand as Remus, after a thick, uncomfortable, found his own voice.

When Moony spoke, it rendered Sirius's blood to ice in his veins, how cold and listless his best friend sounded. "What do you do with a bone after all the meat is gone, Greyback?" Lupin challenged icily. "You feed it to the dogs."

Sirius closed his eyes and barely was able to stifle his moan of agony. Oh, bloody _hell_. This was _not_ good. Sirius blanched and ground his teeth in anger. Remus was purposefully putting himself in danger by not minding himself. Sirius felt his temper surge in his veins and let out a short bark-like yell.

He raised his wand before Moony and his father had time to react and pointed it squarely at Greyback's chest, and curled his lips upward, bearing his gums. "I should _kill_ you right here and now for what you've done to Moony. Give me a _reason_ why I shouldn't _rip you apart_ limb from limb and paint the ground crimson with your own blood. It's only fitting for you, dog," he snarled, adrenaline surging through his veins as immense hatred coursed through his bloodstream, igniting it hotter than any dragon flame. "I _beg_ you, wolf…give me one good reason why I shouldn't!" Sirius hollered, his anger hot as dragon fire, though his wand hand shook, trembling like mad. " **TELL ME**!"

"Because then you would be no better than the Death Eaters, Sirius!" he shouted, turning his attention towards their captor, exhaling slowly. "Greyback, don't be a _fool_!" Lupin shouted, losing the last of what little temperament was left in his system, balling his chained hands into fists. "I—"

"He can't help it, it's habit by now!" Sirius retorted, never once taking his gaze off of Greyback. "What's to stop this one from killing us all right now?"

" _Sirius_ , _be_ _quiet_!" Lupin bellowed, his chains rattling as Remus slapped his knee in frustration, a temporary release of his wolfish temper and baring his teeth.

" **SILENCE**!" Greyback bellowed, curling his thick, hairy hand into a fist, and slamming it down on the armrest of his red velvet chair, hard enough to crack and splinter the wood beneath the fabric's material. The noise of the force of his blow seemed to reverberate off all corners of the enclosed tent as it echoed.

His icy glower felt like a thousand arrows in Sirius's chest. Greyback threw back his head and let out a short, bark-like laugh that was cruel, devoid of warmth.

"Did you really think that I did not _know_ , Lyall, Remus? You described me once as a monster, a heartless _beast_. If that is what you think of me, then so be it, I am one, and the rest of my clan are damned as well, then, it would seem," he snarled, revealing yellowing gums as he let out a growl.

He swiveled his head almost lazily towards Remus and snorted, nostrils flaring. "I've known of your precious little human _mate_ now for months, boy," he hissed through clenched teeth. He paused and exhaled a tense, shaking breath and raked his dirtied fingernails through his thick tuft of black jet hair. "I like to consider myself a kind leader towards my people. A _patient_ man. Merciful. A pity that you failed to kill Crouch last night, Lupin. But you're lucky, indeed."

Greyback swiveled his head towards his left, and Sirius followed his gaze.

The leaner, younger, and shorter wolf, Wes, had re-entered his Alpha's tent and had moved to flank Greyback's left, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Wes. If you had your own son _bound_ and _chained_ by an enemy, how handsome would you name a price for his own head on a silver platter?"

The other wolf's brows furrowed in confusion, and his lips parted open slightly to answer his master, though laughter erupted through the simple tent, and all of them, Greyback, Wes, Lyall, Sirius, turned to regard Remus, whose pale face was full of a twisted, macabre sense of glee in a fit of laughter and coughing.

"You would what, bring me, hostage, to scare Crouch into submitting?" Remus almost snorted and lifted his head sanguinely to meet Greyback's piercing yellow eyes, narrowed as he glared at Remus, his eyes mere pinpricks. Lupin met and matched Greyback's glower with an equally cold stare. "You would lose your claim to this piece of land and your entire encampment if you dare to go up and Crouch and the rest of the Dark Lord's followers, and then you and your followers would have no territory."

And with those words, Lupin spat on the ground out a mouthful of blood at Greyback's feet, unmindful and not giving a damn if it would be his own head rolling after. If Fenrir was disgusted by the lack of proper edict, he knew how to hide his cringing well, and Sirius swore under his breath and both he and Lyall bolted to their feet as Greyback lunged from his chair, a vicious snarl escaping his lips, Lupin doing the same until the tip of Greyback's snout was practically touching Remus's nose.

"You—"

"Bastard?" challenged Lupin. "Yes, I **AM**!" The broken man balled his white-boned knuckles into a fist and slammed his hand down onto the small wooden table by the chair in which he sat. He stood tall, towering at his full height of 6'3, though going head-to-head with Fenrir Greyback like this, he was dwarfed by comparison as the Wolf was easily almost seven feet tall.

" **REMUS**! _What the hell are you saying?!_ " shouted Sirius, not bothering to mind his language anymore, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing, the words coming from Moony. "Hey, hey, cut it out! Watch what you say, Moony! He'll kill us all!"

Usually, _he_ was the one who didn't mind his tongue, though if he continued to provoke the werewolf-like this, it was going to be another red-soaked dawn, one of blood and their own guts spilling out onto the forest floor beneath their shoes. But Remus wasn't finished.

"Surely, you must have _some_ sense of _justice_!" Lupin protested violently.

_That_ did it. Greyback's large head whiplashed so sharply upwards that Moony had to move his head back to avoid connecting with it. " _Enough_ , boy, I've **HAD IT**!" Greyback bellowed, and the man's large, sausage-like fingers curled into claws and wrapped around the pale column of Lupin's throat.

Sirius grunted in frustration and snatched Lyall's wand out of Moony's father's hand, noticing how badly the poor old man was trembling and pointed his best friend's wand at the other wolf, Wes, whose wand was trained on Sirius, and the other pointed squarely at Greyback, whose broad back was now turned towards him, the man's burly hand still squeezing tightly around Moony's throat.

" _Damn_ _it_ ," Sirius swore through clenched, grinding teeth. "Let's all just… _calm_ _down_ , shall we? We don't want to re-enact a scene from _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ here, do we?" he growled, struggling to control the tremors in his voice. Sirius was watching Wes, Remus, _and_ Greyback without turning his head, his heart hammering inside the confines of his chest, but he forced his expression to remain neutral with no hint of hesitation or any fear.

The only way for him and Moony to get the hell out of here was for Greyback and this other dog, for Wes, to assume he appeared nonchalant, and for his eyes not to betray him, and just maybe, _maybe_ , by Merlin's good graces, they would live.

"Be quiet, Sirius! This doesn't concern you! _Let me talk_!" Lupin barked, and Sirius could tell by the intonations of the man's hoarse voice that he no longer cared if Greyback murdered him.

Sirius froze. Remus had not been seen as the ravenous, savage Wolf, the Mad Beast for a long time, with his teeth bared, breath fuming, nostrils flaring.

Wes could have raised his wand and hacked off one of Moony's arms had Greyback not raised the hand currently not wrapped around Remus's throat to stop him. It unnerved him. Greyback was more silent, deadly, despite his tensing body.

It sickened Remus, the way that only Greyback could look him square in the eye. Everyone froze when Fenrir Greyback lowered his voice.

Greyback growled as he dug a claw into Lupin's throat. " _Lupin_. Look at me. _Justice_. I can't think of another word more loved by the people. It does have a nice ring to it. However, without ever exercising your own strengths as a Wolf, you seek the death of Crouch at the hands of my own kin. Well. The justice you refer to smells pretty rotten to me. The stench of a bloodbath. Wouldn't you agree?" he snarled, baring his teeth and smirking as Lupin sharply turned his head away and clenched his eyes shut as his claw dug deeper in his throat. "Oh, don't _give_ me that look, boy. After all, I'm not upset with you. Of all the werewolves I know, I just never thought I'd hear those words coming from you. I'm… _amused_ , kid. That's all this is," he snarled dangerously.

" _All_ _right_!" barked Sirius, still keeping both wands trained on Greyback and Wes. "You've _made_ your point, _dog_ , now just let Moony _go_! My fingers are _twitching_!" He practically growled like a savage dog with the effort to restrain himself, and as if to prove his point, his fingers twitched, and a hot shower of fiery sparks accidentally erupted from the tip of his wand and fell to his boots.

Greyback ignored Sirius's outburst as though he'd not been interrupted. He swiveled his head back around to regard Lupin. "In the grand scheme, our lives are insignificant. Light as air. Much like a candy wrapper, don't you think?"

Sirius seethed as a muscle in his jaw and eyelid twitched horribly. "I'm _really_ not in the mood to talk right now. Just let him go!" Sirius bellowed, practically pleading his request through gritted teeth. " _Shut_ _up_! I know, I _know_ what you're telling Moony, okay? So please…just shut up _now_! I—I'm _warning_ you," he growled, grinding his teeth in restraint, "I've just about reached my limit…"

"Greyback," Remus began calmly, his face a perfect mask of neutrality despite the fact that another wolf was practically digging his claws into his neck. "Your victory here is assured. You have me as a captive, after all this time, and you no longer have anything to lose, so isn't that enough for you?! _Alpha_ …"

At this, Lupin's throat dried, giving too much of himself as he shirked away from Greyback's tightening hand around the column of his throat, and suddenly, he resembled the scared five-year-old boy from all those years ago.

" _Remus_!" shouted Lyall, finally breaking his silence, sounding outraged as his son no longer seemed to mind if his temper got them all killed, his face mottled and crimson, a vein in his neck throbbing and prominent.

"No, it _isn't_ enough," Greyback snarled, sounding thoroughly bored. "there are two things to remember when you're begging for your life, boy. One is to try to entertain the person holding the claw to your throat, and the other is to give that person a convincing reason why he shouldn't kill you…"

At his words, his lips curled up into a truly twisted smirk that made Sirius wish he were anywhere else but here and he repressed a thick shudder of fear.

"But _you_ haven't managed to do either _one_ of those things. So, let's _hear_ it!" Fenrir bellowed, his hand squeezing a fraction tighter around Lupin's neck. "What obligation do you have to remain my captive anyways? Hmm? _Talk_."

"Because I'm the _Wolf_ that lived up to my reputation. I live among _humans_ ," Lupin taunted, a vicious sneer of his own forming on his handsome face, and Greyback was unmoved and unflinching as the shadow of the Wolf darted across the younger man's features. "I go against _everything_ you stand for, and I'm sure with enough convincing, your clan could be turned. I've seen your camps, the state of poverty our kind lives in. You truly think they wouldn't jump at the opportunity to live a better life for themselves?"

"Master, I would gladly take off this dog's _tongue_ ," growled Wes, his own shortened fingers itching as they twitched around the handle of his wand.

Greyback resisted the urge to roll his eyes and let out a rumbling snarl deep from the confines of his burly chest.

"And what good what that serves as a favor to me, Wes?" Fenrir snarled, glowing at Remus, himself wanting nothing more than to rip Lyall Lupin's only son to shreds limb from limb, slowly, but reason and logic had allowed the taller, more intimidating werewolf to keep his cool. "Just think of it. If we could turn the son of Lyall Lupin to our cause…this…this young man who participated in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries without spilling a single drop of blood? And now, he would willingly weaken our clan and our forces just by spreading his slanderous _lies_."

The thick, uncomfortable tension sparked even further as Greyback towered over Remus, glaring at him. Though in the werewolf's bitter tones was just a tinge, a _flicker_ of admiration, and Sirius clenched his eyes shut, praying it would be enough to quell the dog's rage. "Don't you know how lucky we are to have been saved from that scheme? That awfully… _brilliant_ scheme, Wes…"

The other wolf could only blink owlishly at his Master. "Sir? I—I don't understand, Alpha," Wes confessed, looking more than a little bit confused.

Greyback let out a growl, and when he spoke to his comrade, there was more than a little gravel in the wolf's grating tones. "Wes, you _blind_ , bloody _fool_ , you. This bastard here has better wit and strength in battle than our entire clan gathered. Wes, it would take you _years_ to surpass the mental aptitude of this man, not to mention his dueling skills. You're a _fool_ to underestimate him."

Lupin's brows creased and came together in surprise and he frowned. Listening to the squabble of these two wolves while Dora was out of his sight, far away from his senses, hurt, or possibly already dead, or _worse_ , only made him that much sicker.

It did not escape Remus's attention, however, how Wes's face hardened at his Alpha's statement, and Wes let out a low growl and snarled.

Though the other werewolf made no comment as he turned on the heel of his boots and fled the tent, leaving Fenrir Greyback in both shock and fury.

Fenrir emanated a tense exhale from his flaring nostrils and sighed, breathing deeply in and out.

"I could never be like that kid." His jaw tightened in anger and he ground his teeth in annoyance. "Wes is a righteous man. A light in the darkness. I love that man as he is my own brother, and yet more often than not, the purity and goodness of his heart annoys me. And I can never be like him." Greyback let out a threatening growl and his teeth ground as he commanded. " _Yield_ to me and I should let you and your… _friends_ live, boy."

When Lupin sniffed after allowing the briefest of laughs to escape his lips, Fenrir growled. "Some men are born righteous. While others like yourself and me," here, he raised his still-bound hands, chains of his manacles clinking against the links his finger curled over Greyback's arm, trying to pry the stronger man's hand off the column of his throat. "Others like us are damned to hell."

Greyback snorted. "Destiny is a coward's excuse. Of which you are not one, boy. There's no denying that." There was a beat. A pause as he quirked a thick brow Lupin's way. "Ah. There it is. That _look_. You're getting to be quite good at this, you know. If looks could carve out my own lungs and intestines, you'd kill me with dagger eyes. Don't' forget, boy, you're at _my_ mercy, and yet, I perceive venom in those eyes of yours. What is it that you _want_?" he questioned, glowering at Remus.

Lupin pursed his lips into a thin line and shifted his weight, still clawing at Greyback's hand-wound tightly around his throat, squeezing just hard enough to enforce his intended message but not enough to asphyxiate him to death. "Your bluntness in keeping me a prisoner won't seduce Crouch to submit to your demands, Greyback. Whatever he wants of me, he won't ransom for me, _wolf_."

This gave Greyback pause and a muscle behind Fenrir's eye twitched, and Lupin swallowed nervously as his jaw twitched. "Why?" Fenrir growled meanly.

Remus paused, and the way the broken man shrugged his shoulders said it all. "Like I said earlier. What do you do with a bone when the meat's gone?"

Fenrir, in spite of himself, found his curiosity was getting the better of him. "And you would mean to watch Crouch die? For…taking _her_?" he snarled.

His yellow eyes narrowed until they were mere wolfish pinpricks as his gaze drifted down and settled on the glowing yellow ring around the man's neck.

Sirius drew in a sharp intake of breath as Remus managed a small nod. "I'll tear him apart limb from limb with my own _teeth_ if it pleases you. If it will convince you to let me go. Let me _find_ her. And then I'd die with another title. The Mad _Beast_ ," Lupin snarled viciously.

Sirius felt a chill travel down his spine. Moony might have spoken the words, but it was _not_ his voice, his tone. In the place of his usually kind and quiet, reserved tone, was the voice of someone new, someone different. His voice was hardened, flat, emotionless.

It was as if a wretched icy cold chill had swept across the entire length of the tent as Greyback took a sharp breath and promptly relinquished his hand from Lupin's throat and his arm fell to his side, and Remus noticed the strange fleeting queasiness that took over the other werewolf's skin and set it prickling.

There was something about the words he'd just uttered that was setting Greyback, of all monsters, at ease. Lupin bit the wall of his mouth and waited.

After what felt like an eternity in silence, Greyback spoke up. "I hate to admit it, boy, but I wish I had men with your brains, Lupin. You are not stupid. Whatever reasons Crouch has for not taking you last night, he'll probably mean to do it later. Stupid man…do you think that he believes you to be dead, then?"

At that, Remus could not provide an apt answer, for he did not know. "I'm here, aren't I?" And it was what the Alpha asked of Lupin that caused Remus's head to jerk violently upright and lift his eyes to meet Fenrir's gaze.

"Perhaps…" Now Greyback's tone sounded contemplative as he reached up a sharp claw and scratched at the three-day stubble lining his neat beard. "You might still be of use to me yet, boy. If you mean to see Barty Crouch die for what he _took_ from you, then you may walk down this path by telling me everything you know of the man's hideout. I know you've been there before. Tell me everything. How to lift the enchantments on the castle's walls, if he has other Death Eaters at the gates, the length of his damned dungeons below…"

Fenrir Greyback swiveled his head slightly to the right to regard Remus, whose eyes were wide open and Greyback was pleased to see he had his full attention. "Help me take down Crouch and I could grant you your wish. To see your pretty little _mate_ again. That is….if you and your…friends..."

Here, his gaze drifted briefly towards Sirius and Lyall, Sirius looking as though he was about to be pushed over the brink of his self-restraint as sparks continued flying from his wand, "If you lot continue your device against me, but turn it against Crouch. He brutalizes my own people, and I cannot allow my clan to suffer any more on _his_ account. If not, I would not take it against you, boy, but either way, I could sink my fangs into your neck and rip you apart limb for limb for treason. Your call."

Lupin frowned and ran a hand over the column of his throat, visibly wincing as the pads of his fingertips ghosted along with the red markings Greyback's broad fingers had left, the only evidence of his attack. "What promise could I possibly give you? The wounds that _you_ gave me won't even allow me to lift my own wand!" he protested hotly, growling in agitation, and baring his teeth.

Greyback licked his lips and ran his languid tongue over the top wall of his razor-sharp incisors. "I had you saved, didn't I? It's because of me that Crouch did not kill you last night. You only survived because of me, boy."

Fenrir crossed his thick arms over his chest and glowered at Remus, and when Lupin did not respond, he continued.

"Pledge to me your will, Lupin. Fight for our cause and I can assure you, your wounds are hardened scars, nothing more than a bad memory in an hour. And… you'll be wanting _this_ if you have any hope of finding _her_. My scouts found him not but an hour ago wandering the forest like a babbling idiot, hollering at the top of his lungs."

He snapped his fingers. There was the sound of something heavy being dragged just outside the tent flap, and Wes re-emerged, and there was the clinking of chains, and Sirius's face drained of color as the boy from last night was brought in, his wrists bound together by a pair of manacles in a similar fashion to Lupin's, one of the Brennan boy's eyes was blackened, purple welts scattered across his face like a disease. It did not take an intellectual genius like Dumbledore present for Sirius to know that it was hurting Ollie just for the boy to draw in a breath, and he wondered if, by the way, he faltered and stumbled forward as Wes gave a violent jerk of his chains if his ribs weren't cracked in some manner, his bones broken.

Lupin felt a familiar hot spark of anger that coursed through his veins as he looked upon the face of Dora's former partner, feeling the chill that had been plaguing him. He didn't understand if it was fear or excitement that churned in the pit of his twisting stomach, but he knew for certain that he wanted this, so badly that it ached—the sweet-bitter beauty of vengeance against Barty Crouch.

For a second time in his life, the very Wolf who had bitten him at the age of five years old and made his life a literal living hell was asking him to join his cause, for his cooperation, even temporary, and Remus found himself nodding his head, ignoring Sirius and Lyall's shouts of protests with a fiery spark in his fatigued, red-rimmed eyes. Greyback merely grunted in satisfaction and turned on the heel of his boot, but before he passed by the curtain and ventured back out into the cool chill of the early October dawn, he paused and had Lupin on hold. "My kind has a saying here. That love is the death of duty. I believe it."

Remus felt his heart thrum erratically against his chest, and Lupin answered between locked teeth, his voice cold and barely above a whisper. "I've no love for Crouch, Greyback. I would sooner see his head on a _pike_ than show that man an ounce of mercy."

"Good." Greyback nodded, though he was unsmiling and unimpressed, and he seemed to take a sick sense of delight in watching as Lupin's face fell.

It seemed an eternity before the werewolf spoke again. "And of _her_?"

He would not give Fenrir Greyback the satisfaction of admitting his love for Dora. "Let me _find_ her."

It was the only answer that he could give, though he cringed at hearing the desperation in his voice, and Greyback offered a curt nod.

Lupin let out a low guttural growl the second he heard the tent flap shut behind Greyback's exit as the wolf's thundering footfalls became fainter, and Remus felt his eyes narrow in disgust and hatred at the young adult Obscurus who was now kneeling on his knees and looked at Remus with such terror that his eyes practically threatened to escape out of their lids, glistening with fear.

A deep, yet low growl, courtesy of the Wolf within him left his throat as he stalked towards Ollie Brennan, who immediately shrank away from Remus's now intimidating and towering form. Lupin reached out a hand and violently yanked the trembling man to his feet, seizing fistfuls of the man's black woolen robe and shaking it, leaning in so the man's nose was practically touching his.

" _Where_. _Is_. _She_." It was not a question and this boy was not about to deny him an answer. Lupin considered himself a patient man, but he was vastly approaching the point of no return, and not even Sirius and Dad could stop this.

"S—safe…" he stammered. "A—at M—Master's. H—house-elf looking after her. N—need _help_. U—Umbridge is c—coming for her this—t—tonight." Ollie Brennan's voice was coarse, rough, and his voice faint, like a whisper.

Remus blinked owlishly, feeling quite certain that he had misheard this man.

" _What_?!" he snarled, his voice raising an octave, and his wand had drifted of its own accord and he felt the tip of his wand press squarely in the man's throat. "Let me…let me just process this!" he snarled viciously. "What do you mean? You—you were her friend and you betrayed her! And you just left her with Crouch in the company of a _house-elf_?! What have you _done_? You—you've as good as killed her by leaving her there! **WHERE IS SHE**?" he roared, the Mad Beast within him growling in frustration as the last of his temper imploded.

He wanted Dora and this miserable shell of a man was going to help him find her or so help him he would kill him himself a second time, and there would be no resurrections this time, this man had _harmed_ Dora, as good as _killed_ her, and he had promised her when he had proposed that he'd not let any harm come to her, and he needed to protect her, just as she had done for him, Dora was perhaps the only woman in his life besides Molly who didn't look at him as though he were some kind of monster, and now…this. Lupin let go of his kindness, timidness, his gentleness. It would do him no good with this one, and—

" _Remus_."

Lupin glanced up sharply, ready to warn whoever had spoken that he was not about to be kind to anyone who would deter him from finding his fiancée when he discovered it was none other than his own father who'd called him.

" _What_?" Remus barked angrily, letting out an animalistic snarl of his own that rivaled that of Greyback's, his tone dark, and his light brown eyes darkening and sparking with a fiery rage. He was _not_ in a patient mood and so his father had better say his piece quickly, or Merlin _help_ him, he would sink his own fangs into his neck right here and now, his own eternal soul be damned, former partner of Dora's or not.

It would be a glorious slaughter, and for the pain that Ollie Brennan had inflicted on Dora, allowing her to believe he was dead all those years, and now…this. Lupin growled and turned his head sharply back around to Ollie.

He hated that he felt a sick sense of immense satisfaction as he thrust his face closer into Ollie's, his ironclad grip on the fistful of the boy's cloak tightening, seeing Ollie Brennan attempt to shrink into himself and let out a mewling whimper of fear as he no doubt saw the shadow of the Wolf within him dart across Remus's face.

"You _will_ lead us to her, or I'll _rip you apart_. _Slowly_. No magic… And you don't even think of lying to me. I detect when you _lie_ ," he snarled, whisper-hissing it through clenched teeth, and Remus felt his hand tighten even further around the fabric of Ollie Brennan's thick woolen black cloak.

" _Son_." Lupin swiveled his head to regard his father, and his heart sank to his stomach. Lyall seemed to have aged ten years in just the last eight hours. The lines around his eyes went deeper and his thick tuft of wild hair was in a wild state of disarray. His lonely green eyes widened, and he sniffed, thin, bony hands wiping at his temples before finally managing to find his voice and resolve.

"Son, you need to know something…of your fiancée, Remus," and Lyall let out a startled yelp as this time, Remus did not restrain himself and curled his hand into a fist as lashed out at the wooden support beam of one of the tents.

Sirius and Lyall flinched, though neither said a word as Lupin still maintained a curled fist around Ollie Brennan's shackled wrists, rage on his face.

"One more _word_ and the next would be this boy's _teeth_ scattering on the ground if he doesn't start talking," Remus seethed, his face paling in anger as he allowed the Wolf within him to take total and utter control to interrogate Ollie.

"No, no, don't harm the boy, son!" Lyall's jaw hung open in shock and the squeak of his choking voice persisted somehow, despite Remus's anger. "Please…Brennan, this—this boy, might be our only link to finding your fiancée. Please. Nymphadora, she's…"

A few more hysterical words exchanged as Lyall delved briefly into the conversation he'd had a few nights ago with Snape, and then Remus's heart plummeted to the pit of his churning, twisting stomach.

The wretched tears that burned their way through his sunken in cheeks, the blood in his veins boiling and raging, surging and staggering at an equal pace, and he swore he felt his heart give a murmur as it skipped as his mind struggled to process his father's words.

There was a new reason to fight and live for, after all.


	55. To Make the Best of Your Circumstances

**CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE**

Tonks felt herself drift into consciousness. And then back out. The unfamiliar world around her was a blur, and random images seemed to float aimlessly in the pool of her thoughts, as though they were being viciously blown about by a hurricane. A tap of her shoulder momentarily brought the young witch back to the outside world, but after a second, she was completely lost. She could swear she could feel somebody—was it Crouch? – trying to look at her, dead in the eye, but she couldn't keep focus. The whole world simply felt low resolution, like a bad quality photograph.

Confusion blossomed in her heart as to where she was, why Ollie had brought her back here, to Crouch's estate, though he'd promised her that his Master meant her no harm and that as long as she minded Crouch and gave the man no just cause to hurt her, then she could survive on her own long enough for him to go find Sirius and the others and bring back help and get her out of here, and that sooner or later, she'd need to wake up.

To stare at the unfortunate bleakness of her new reality in the face. But for now, she rested her heavy head against a surprisingly soft pillow, wanting nothing more than to retreat into the wallowing darkness.

Though there was a horrible tightening on the column of her throat as it hollowed, and Tonks let out a sigh, feeling her face welcome a struggle. Slowly, it tightened, and it felt as though she couldn't breathe. When her lungs itched and gave a twitch, heaving to cough, she reluctantly pried open her eyes and stared at dark pinpricks that were regarding her in the dimly lit room of…wherever 'here' was for Tonks.

The disgusting horror loomed above her as Crouch eyeballed her. The last thing she remembered of last night was the horrible destruction Ollie had unintentionally brought upon Bill and Fleur's wedding, and her former partner grabbing her by the waist and Disapparating with her here.

And the sight that she could not tear her gaze away from now was currently causing her pupils to dilate, even in the darkness like this. His hand hovered slightly over the delicate pale skin of the column of her throat, his slightly callused fingers wound around it like poison ivy creeping up a pillar at its petty face, though the pads of his fingers were light, though it did nothing to ease the queasiness in her stomach, the swooping sensation, or the shudder of revulsion and fear down her back.

No lights were on in the room and she slowly felt herself try to sit up, the room swathed in darkness and shadow, and Tonks quickly realized it was futile as Barty Crouch Jr.'s darkened brown eyes burned bright like a midnight torch, flashing indignantly with anger, and Tonks could clearly see in the man's orbs the strange sense of loathing that escalated, but…but...

But there was something _else_ there: something that she could not quite identify, though she had seen the look in Remus's eyes now plenty of times, something that Tonks felt herself shiver for. A frustrated… _desire_.

For _her_. She gulped as she felt Crouch's left hand push the weight down on the pillow next to her ear, the left still wound around her throat. Tonks felt something hard press against her thighs and she frowned, quickly realizing it was the man's knees as they forced her thighs apart.

She bit down hard on her tongue hard enough to bleed and a chill traveled down her spine, and her fingers curled instinctively over her waist.

Tonks realized she was still dressed in the same dress she'd worn to Bill and Fleur's wedding last night, though now it smelled of fire and ash.

Her dress and her hands futilely shoving at his chest were the only barriers against Crouch. "Ngh—get _off_ of me!" she screamed, and she flinched at how hoarse and weak her voice sounded. "Get. Away," she snarled. She looked upon Barty Crouch Jr. without a hint of disgust.

His fingers wound around her throat forced even deeper, and Tonks parted her lips open to trying to draw in air. "You—you can't be _serious_ …"

Still, Crouch's fingers made no move off her neck. "There's no escaping this place. You are _mine_ , Alice," he said simply, his deep baritone voice echoing in her eardrums.

Tonks favored silence as an apt response, forcing her body to relax and emanating a tense exhale through her nose and closing her eyes, fully prepared to welcome Death like an old friend if that's what he wanted.

But it did not come. His fingers loosened their ironclad grip around her throat, and Tonks felt a tense, tired release sending a breath of air to her much deprived lungs and she sat up in the bed, turning her head to one side as she coughed, one her hands wrapped around her pale throat.

Slowly, Tonks sat up straighter and took in the unfamiliar surroundings. Shadows danced in the dimly lit light, what little of it there was streaming from a light torch fire as it flickered. Cinders glowed against the hearth of a roaring fireplace where a bear pelt rug lay in front of it.

There was a slice of what looked like a piece of lemon cake and a tin decanter of dark red wine. She glanced down at the bed and her insides coiled and she let out a muffled yelp of surprise as a house-elf was perched on the edge of her bed, a female, judging by her thick brown hair cut short in a straight little bob, a hand over her heart as it raced at the surprise.

Crouch noticed where she was looking and he frowned, roughly shoving the female house-elf off the edge of the bed and giving the tiny creature a swift kick towards the door.

"That's Winky," he explained, his brows knitted together in a disapproving glower as he heard the creature whimper. "She has been assigned to you. She is yours. She will get you whatever you want or need, you need only ask her, and it is yours, Alice. I should want the future wife and mother of our children to be quite comfortable here, wouldn't you say?" he commented, his languid voice as smooth as silk that sent a shudder down Tonks's spine as she blinked once.

Tonks dipped her head in acknowledgment, taking a seat in the chair across from him, keeping her head bowed and her gaze averted from him, not wanting at all to look her savior in the eyes, knowing sooner or later that she would have to. "Why did you save me, Barty?" Lies, lies, her conscience tormented. He's trapped you here and you know this. Monster.

Oh, she knew all too well what Crouch was. But if there was a slim chance playing along with his delusions of grandeur and pretending to be Alice would keep her alive that much longer until Ollie came for her with reinforcements, then she would indulge in it, and right now, the man needed to think of himself as her savior, as her own personal god. She shuddered and bit the inside wall of her cheek, waiting in silence.

Crouch frowned. "I already told you my reasons behind my actions yesterday, though you were still asleep, so I guess I have to repeat myself. I cannot allow your bloodline to become further tainted by allowing you to spend the remainder of your days with a filthy, disgusting half-breed. You could do so much better. You have me now, isn't that more than enough for you?" he spat, crossing one leg over the other and pouring himself a goblet of wine, not caring the uncomfortable glances Winky was shooting Tonks. "Winky will pour you some of our finest wine if you should like," Barty announced coldly. "And then she will return to the kitchens, won't you, elf?" Barty growled, no semblance of warmth in his voice.

Tonks swallowed past the lump in her throat at Barty's words. She caught Winky's gaze and one of her eyes gave a twitch, though if she wasn't mistaken, and about these things she usually wasn't, the briefest flickers of hope darted through the little house-elf's eyes, and she felt herself inhale sharply, wondering if she could trust the tiny creature.

The female house-elf was trying silently to communicate with her eyes, somehow, that she was going to be fine, but then something Barty had said caught her attention. _Wait_. _Yesterday_. That meant she had slept for an entire evening when she had passed out, and she had no idea where she was, and one glance over at the young lord's servant, the house-elf called Winky was enough. The little elf was terrified. She hoped her eyes did not betray her nervousness or fear.

Tonks sighed, the tiniest of gasps escaping her as she allowed the elf to pour her a glass of wine. though she knew better than to drink it.

 _He's probably poisoned it. Drugged it. Don't drink it_ , she could hear Moody's voice ringing in her ears, and suddenly, she wished he were here.

"Thank you, Winky," she whispered, lowering her voice so that only the young house-elf could hear her. "I promise…"

 _Promise what?_ The voices inside her head taunted. _To help her escape her life of servitude from a horrible master?_

Suddenly, Tonks felt quite guilty, not really certain what she had hoped to gain by attempting to try to speak to the house-elf in private. Was it to reach Winky? To ask her questions? To demand she help her escape if there was even a shred of kindness in her tiny little body?

Tonks herself did not know the answer, nor did she have time to ponder it as the young house-elf called Winky mumbled something incoherent under her breath in a high-pitched, breathy little squeak and scampered away before Tonks had a chance to say anything else.

The clearing of Barty's throat as he demanded the young witch's attention jolted Tonks out of her musings of what exactly had happened to the house-elf during her time here with Crouch and back towards him, as he demanded it. His cold gaze was fixated upon her, completely unreadable.

Seeing him face-to-face like this, in daylight, though whatever study they were in was rather dimly lit, left yet another impression on Tonks. He seemed a much more solid figure than before. All except his dark brown eyes devoid of warmth. Those seemed never to change, and Tonks doubted they would. Tonks let out a yelp as the sound of a clanging behind her echoed throughout the room. Winky had dropped the wine flagon on the floor, spilling it onto the stone floor.

Barty didn't bother to stifle the low warning growl that escaped from his throat. His expression turned murderous as he rose from his chair and strode towards Winky, seizing fistfuls of the elf's filthy tea cozy, shaking it.

"You must be actively seeking new ways to test my patience, Winky," Barty growled, the tip of his nose practically touching poor Winky's little black snout. "Clean that up, and be quick about it, or I'll cut off another finger." His deep voice was painfully bitter as he towered over Winky.

"Y—yes, M—Master," the house elf-stammered in a nervous squeak.

"Don't! It was an _accident_ ," retorted Tonks hotly, rising from the bed and moving to stand protectively in front of the house-elf, holding an arm out in front of Winky as though she thought that might prevent the man from lashing out in anger. "Do not blame Winky, Barty, for _you_ are the one who makes her so nervous she can barely hold the flagon steady," she snapped, her gray eyes flashing indignantly with anger. "Your house-elf does not deserve the cruelty you put her through, nor what you say. If anyone should apologize for what has transpired here, it is _you_."

Tonks dipped her head, allowing her dark brown bangs to fall in front of her eyes and acting as a sort of barrier between herself and his gaze as Barty turned his wrathful gaze towards her, wanting nothing more than to put a quick end to this conversation. How she itched to return it to the pink, though considering the dire circumstances she found herself in if he wanted to believe she was Alice Longbottom nee Prewitt, then so be it.

 _If it keeps you alive, do whatever you can_. She could swear she could hear Ollie talking to her, and she emanated a tense and shaking breath.

Barty Crouch, however, was having none of it. Ignoring Tonks as if he found her forced pleasantries a bore, he moved away from his place and relinquished his hold upon Winky, though not before shoving the tiny creature backward so violently that she tripped.

"Clean that up and get out." His voice was clipped and hard, the last vestiges of his patience tested.

"Y-yes, M-Master," Winky whispered hoarsely, getting on her knees, as she hastened to clean up the spilled red wine off the floor, which normally would have sent Barty's blood ablaze as new thoughts of cruelty to impart would have flickered through his mind now only sent waves of revulsion to his mind and Barty was forced to look away as he looked at Tonks.

"I am…grateful that you are awake. You've been asleep an entire day, had been going on two, before you finally decided to wake up," Barty announced, smirking at her. "I was beginning to worry after you, Alice."

Tonks blinked owlishly at the man; her mouth slightly agape in shock. Registering the dumbfounded expression on the young witch's radiant, beautiful features, Barty reacted by smirking in an almost intimate manner, as if he were enjoying some private joke with himself.

He lifted the rim of his cup to his lips and drank heavily, all the while never once taking his glance off Tonks, carefully studying her facial expressions over the rim of his goblet, scrutinizing her reactions.

Barty's lack of response irked Tonks, and she began to feel a little nervous. Why had Ollie brought her here, to suffer in Crouch's company, so what on earth did he want with her now? Was he just toying with her, to coax more feelings of guilt to the forefront of her mind, to make her feel grateful that he had, what, somehow 'saved her life,' according to him?

Noting his continued silence as he poured himself a fresh goblet of wine and drinking, Tonks began to feel agitated. If Barty wanted something of her, why did he not just come outright and demand it?

Was he still pursuing her, was that it? Though Tonks had thought she'd made her feelings towards him quite clear and plain to him.

"Is there something that you wish of me, Barty?" asked Tonks, lifting her chin slightly to meet his gaze, unable to play along with the insufferable man's antics any longer. "Why am I here with you?"

The harsh bark of Barty's voice rendered her frozen, rooted to her chair, and unable to move, though she wanted nothing more than to bolt for the door at his response. "Because I wish for you to be here. It…pleases me to look at you, Alice. You will make a good company, in time, and a good wife. I have brought you here in pursuit of that urge which until now has remained silent, but I know you are lying to yourself about your desires." He curled his fingers into claws and raked them over the fabric of his armchair and bared his teeth. So _that_ was what he wanted of her, then.

Tonks bit her bottom lip in a slight pout, feeling the all-too familiar spark of hot anger welling like a fire-seed planted by a dragon in the pit of her stomach, as it had whenever she was around men who displeased her.

" Now, here you are…no second thoughts. It was your decision to come here, was it not? I did not force you," he breathed, and Tonks could hear the hitch in Barty's cold tone. At least now she knew where she was.

He had taken her back to the estate. But did Remus know what happened? Did anyone else know what happened, for that matter? She highly doubted it. Letting out a concentrated but slightly shaking breath, Tonks lifted her chin and leveled her gaze as she did her best not to quirk her brows in a sarcastic manner, which would not help her in this situation right now.

Barty must have appeared to enjoy this since he smirked. "What you did the other night, Al, was…inexcusable, yet, here we are."

His nonchalant gaze now turned towards Tonks as he set his cup down and with surprising speed like a panther that had eyed and stalked its prey, he bolted from his chair and crossed the room and leaned down slightly, closing off the gap of space between them. He was leaning in close enough for her to kiss him if she was of a mind to try such a thing.

To that, she could not seem to formulate a response.

"Why is it that you think…that I have not killed you yet?" he growled, his icy dark brown gaze turning intense as he stared deep into Tonks's gray eyes. She felt like she was being questioned and yet at the same time, Tonks was aware that Crouch, for reasons unknown to her, actually seemed to be _listening_ to her. Strange. She was led to believe in him that his only interest in women was to seduce them and bed them.

He remembered. Tonks did not know how she felt about him remembering her words in the corridor.

Still, she answered as steadily as she could. "You need me."

There was a pause before Barty continued. The intensity in his eyes seemed to soften, and it was replaced by something unreadable, something vague which Tonks could not discern, and she hated it.

" _Why_?" he breathed, and Tonks gulped as his blue eyes widened. "What is to stop me from disposing of you once you've…fulfilled your purpose?" Barty growled, and Tonks flinched but did not dare avert her gaze from the man holding her captive, not even when he lifted a finger and caressed her cheek, almost tenderly brushing back a wisp of her hair behind her ear. "Hmm?" he crooned, still continuing that infuriating behavior of trailing the pads of his fingers along her collarbones, which sent a surprising tingle of heat throughout her body, warming her.

"Milord, I…" She hissed as the pads of his fingers came to cup her chin.

He was mocking her. "Tell me." His tone was curt and hard.

Tonks swallowed nervously, hating that she had to lie through her teeth and pretend to go along with whatever Barty was planning, but if it was the only way to save her life, then by Merlin's beard, she would tell him whatever he wanted to hear if it meant that she might live to see another day.

"Because like it or not, Crouch, I am your key to this place, from what you've said in conversation. And should you wish to maintain your hold on it? You need me alive. And you need an heir of noble blood, a firstborn who might remove some of the… stains on your family name."

She gulped and bit her bottom lip in hesitation. A bold response, but she had managed to piece together the missing pieces the day in St. Mungo's when she'd visited the Longbottoms. If there was one thing her work as an Auror had done for her, it was that it had taught her that it could do a world of good to stay silent and listen...

A muscle in Barty's jaw twitched, and he looked…rather curious. "You have such a low opinion of yourself, Alice?" he asked.

"No." Her voice came out sharper than she would have liked, a tone of impatience lacing into her normally kind and shy tone. Why was he asking her all of these questions, or for that matter, speaking to her at all?

He should just take what he wanted of her right now. Perhaps there was a part of Tonks that had foolishly believed that after the first encounter, he would simply assault her, kill her and be done with her. She almost— _almost_ —would have preferred that. Anything but this, to remain his prisoner, locked up until he might have use of her. Now, something about Barty Crouch's presence was putting her on edge.

"You feel as though I am treating you unfairly here, don't you?" Barty spat, leaning down even further. Tonks shirked back into her own armchair as far as she could, until her back pressed against the edge of the chair, and the tip of Barty's slender nose touched hers. " _Don't_ you?" he repeated, his tone going dangerously soft and quiet.

Tonks would have preferred it if he would have shouted. "Not by your little house-elf. But you, Crouch—"

Barty growled, curling his hands into fists over Tonks's wrists, effectively pinning her to the chair. She was completely at his whims.

"Well, my darling, let me tell you a useful truth so that you do not set yourself up for disappointment. Life is pain. You want more, I can tell that much, but life is unfair. It's _people_ who are the monsters. People like my own father. Your precious _werewolf_."

Tonks blinked as Barty's mouth twisted into a sneer. His tone was bitter, though his speech cut like a dagger plunged straight in her heart.

He did not sound as though he enjoyed spewing such a venomous stream of dark thoughts to her. Tonks frowned as he looked away, down towards her lips.

Feeling a surge of panic course through her veins, Tonks began to speak rapidly in response, her eyes cast downward at his boots.

"I cannot offer you an adequate enough response, Barty, because our conversation has strayed too far," she began hastily. "The—the only reassurance I can offer to you is that my…reaction, will not happen again."

Barty sneered, baring his canines. His smile was wolfish, predatory. He leaned in further and Tonks was surprised when his lips pressed against hers. "There it is again. That look. You called me the other night a monster. If that is what you think of me, then so be it," he growled. "Oh, my darling…You are much mistaken if you should think that you have any hope of freedom in this place. You're _mine_ , Alice. No one else's." His powerful hands relinquished their grip on her wrists and landed on her waist, and his strong fingers came to grip painfully tight on her wrist. "You still must be _punished_ for your actions the other night, little dove," Barty growled, and his lips clamped down hard on hers, hard enough that she could taste the welling of blood on her bottom lip. "You escaped from me once, it won't happen a third time."

"What…?" Tonks let her mouth drop open in shock as Barty straightened his posture, as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"You'll see. I think you're going to be quite happy as my wife, Alice," grinned Barty, flashing her that disarmingly charming white smile that did nothing to mask the anger that lingered in his brown eyes. "You aren't going anywhere that I don't want you to, little Alice. You are mine to do with as I please. I think I like you, so I'll keep you. Just…close your eyes and pretend I'm _him_. Your precious _dog_ can't save you from me," Barty said and threw back his head and laughed, and it was…evil.

Tonks was well and truly trapped here in this place. Her heart sank as she watched Barty stride out of the room, hearing the locking of the deadbolt behind her, and Tonks knew he would not have been careless enough to leave a pin or anything with which she could pick the lock.

Tonks heard his pounding footsteps slowly disappear down the corridor, and she turned back to see that the door was closed, locked.

Making a beeline straight for the door, she tried to force it to open, her bare hands pushing against the rough surface of the door, which was cracked and weathered with age. It was all in vain. The door stood stubbornly in its place.

There was not even a viable window in this room, save for the one over by the fireplace's hearth, and if she broke that, Barty would hear, and then she would be dead, as the man would kill her without so much as hesitating. Her wand was nowhere in sight, she could only assume that Crouch or someone else had taken it in the chaos last night.

A shudder ran through Tonks. _Trapped_. "I'm trapped," she whispered to no one in particular. She was well and truly confined within the walls of this very room. Suddenly, she felt claustrophobic.

A metallic smell hung and lingered in the air, almost rendering it suffocating and it became difficult to breathe. It reminded her somewhat of the smell of dried blood, and for a moment, Tonks found herself wondering if she was the first person Barty had brought to this place, where his prisoners lived, or if she was the first. The room was pitch dark, and she had no choice but to huddle back into the same corner, wrap her arms around her knees, and pray that someone— _anyone_ —would find her before it was too late for her. She was going to die here if she could not think of a way to save herself. _Ollie, wherever you are, I hope you hear me. I'm running out of time_. Tonks begged silently, praying that somehow, wherever he was, the Legilimens and her friend, heard her, biting down on her bottom lip.

 _Hurry_.

* * *

Crouch squinted his eyes and practically pinched his nose in disgust as he, opposite Greyback, who stood patiently waiting, hands folded behind his back, waited for his response, inspected the corpse like a hound eyeing its prey before making the lunge to kill it. Greyback and his second-in-command, a younger wolf in his early thirties by the name of Wes, had brought in the filthy half-breed's corpse for inspection earlier this morning.

It was when Fenrir unceremoniously dumped the remains, what little was left of them, in front of Barty that his breath hitched and caught in his throat and a pang of surreal guilt overwhelmed him at the pain he had (or was) about to inflict on his sweet Alice. He knew all too well what he was, his hardened soul could rival even that of the Dark Lord's as he would dare to slay a man who had technically done him no wrong.

The split of his personality that wondered if there was a chance Alice would not forgive him, though the other half raged war within the confines of his mind and felt no remorse for involving Greyback and the rest of his cannibalistic clan into this. Crouch took a half step forward towards the corpse's remains, and his face hardened, and a muscle in his eye gave a feeble little twitch.

Barty Crouch Jr. took in the details of what remained of the Lupin man's corpse and how utterly gruesome it had become. "Merlin's beard…"

The body was almost devoid of skin and pitted by burrowing insects. Barty turned away as his stomach heaved and gave a painful little lurch, nostrils filled with the stench of rotting meat. Without any eyelids, where the man's eyes used to be were now nothing more than blood-drenched hollowed eye sockets, while the lip-less mouth hung open, his nose, what was left of it, in shreds, now resembling old Alastor Moody's scarred and missing nose. Death had frozen the wolf's face into a rigid snarl, a final, eternal lamentation to the heavens.

"He deserved it," Greyback said casually, giving Crouch a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and he sighed.

Crouch found himself unable to pull his gaze away from what remained of the Lupin man's corpse. The open kneecap below a sharp, white-boned jutting femur, large chunks of flesh missing from the torso.

Shreds of pieces of the man's suit lay discarded around the body, soaked in dried, crimson blood, the coppery scent of which wafted towards and lingered in Crouch's nostrils. Three or four ribs peeked out from the man's black suit jacket, caked in blood, and the Lupin man's face….by god. Just the face alone was enough for Crouch to almost retch the breakfast he had from this morning.

What remained of Remus Lupin's head was half a crown of light brown hair flecked with bits of gray, and the rest, from the wolf's scalp to his face—had been ripped apart from the depleted and blood-soaked skull. Crouch felt a shudder of revulsion travel down his spine. In place of where the man's eyes used to be were bloody hollows. The poor sod's brain was practically crushed, spilling out in bits.

Crouch had seen during his tenure as a high-ranking Death Eater in the Dark Lord's ranks, several corpses in their line of work, sprawled with maggots and the bodies' remains picked apart by the ravens and the crows, but nothing quite like this that had ever succeeded in making his stomach churn and bile coat at the back of his throat like it was doing right now.

The cold chill of the early October morning air had preserved the Lupin man's corpse grisly state, and as such, prevented the lush of its stench. Nevertheless, Crouch found he could not quite look upon it again and found himself turning his head sharply away and folded his arms across his chest, shrinking into his black leather overcoat as much as possible for warmth. Barty Crouch Jr. felt the immense urge to divert his attention for a while and turned towards Wes, the wolf's personal guard, and second-in-command if someone should ever happen to the Alpha in battle. "Bring the wretched little house-elf with you and go and fetch Alice Prewitt."

The younger werewolf, if he was startled by Crouch's demands, was adept at hiding it, and favored silence as an apt response after parting his lips open slightly to protest the idea of having a sweet young woman like Alice be subject to witnessing such a tragedy with her own two eyes, but after being on the receiving end of a particularly challenging and withering look from his Alpha that had Fenrir the ability, would have turned the puppy into stone, Wes offered a curt dipping of his head and turned his heels to obey, his boots scraping against the freshly-fallen autumnal leaves.

Fenrir Greyback stood mutely beside him and Crouch could not help but feel an inexplicable pinch of anger between to swell in the confines of his chest. "When I asked you to 'take care of it,' I did not mean…" Here, he wildly gesticulated with his arms towards the maimed corpse. What was left of it? " _This_ ," he growled, grinding his teeth, locking his jaw in anger. "I can only presume there were better ways for him to die than _this_ , dog."

The werewolf's face remained perfectly impassive, keeping his hairy hands clasped behind his back. "Mmm." Was all the dog said, as the creature chewed on the inside wall of his mouth. "Perhaps. But better to look like an accident than murder. That way the Ministry won't detect, sir."

Crouch heaved a heavy sigh and pinched at his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "What in the seven bloody hells _happened_ , Fenrir?"

"Hungry wolves, sir." Greyback's answer escaped his thin, wormy lips as a low warning growl, and Crouch could swear he felt his blood chill.

"Y—you mean… your own _people_ did this?" Barty Crouch Jr. felt himself blink owlishly at the taller, older, and the much more imposing man standing idle next to him as the pair of men eyed the corpse. What a strangely poetic way to die.

A werewolf who had shunned what he was, disregarded all things wolfish and had attempted to make a life for himself by living amongst humans, other witches and wizards and even Muggles, was ripped apart piece-by-piece by his own kind, and now, here Remus Lupin lay looking less like a human than ever before.

And then it hit him like a chunk of ice. "You _ate_ him?!"

"Provisions in the Forest of Dean are becoming scarce as winter approaches. What food we do hunt in the forest we have to ration out, and ever since that pink wearing bitch," Fenrir growled, referring to Umbridge, who was due to arrive to check on Alice in an hour or so, "put the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act into place, it's impossible for me and my kin to maintain decent, steady jobs and earn a livable income to survive. So, _yes_. To answer your question, Crouch," Greyback snarled, shifting slightly at the waist and it didn't escape the werewolf's attention how Crouch's face drained of color and the human took a slight step back. "We did what we had to do to survive. My people have done _worse_ than this, believe me, I could tell you stories that would curl that luscious head of hair of yours," he snarled, pointing a claw towards Remus Lupin's body.

Crouch felt his stomach give a painful twist. He had asked Greyback and his companions to dispose of Lupin for him, but never in a million years could he have ever imagined it would come to this. It could have been just as simple as casting the Killing Curse or slitting the man's throat.

A dagger in his gut. Something. Anything but this. This…oh, this was undoubtedly one of the worst ways to go. A violent, bloody, gruesome way. What was left of sweet Alice's former wretched plaything was not a corpse. No. This was a leftover _meal_. Slim pickings of bones for his dogs.

Remus Lupin had been every bit of a half-blooded bastard and an infectious disease, yes, for taking his Alice away from him, of that there was no doubt in Barty's mind, and his life was just as miserable, but at least what little was left of his body was intact.

The man had been a handsome enough wizard, he supposed, with a gait of good proportions. A mind of a genius if he could have applied himself and had not been bogged down by the confines of his lycanthropy and under restrictions from Madame Undersecretary Umbridge's Anti-Werewolf Legislation bill. Crouch could not help but to briefly wonder if the man could have been turned, converted to join Greyback's ranks if he would have made a fine addition.

Ah, but Merlin. The time for such inappropriate thoughts was now long gone and did not matter anymore. With what he was now, Crouch figured he had saved the Devil Himself less work in having to deal with it.

There was no possible way to punish Remus Lupin further, was there?

A fitting end for a wretched curse on society who had almost damaged his sweet Alice beyond the point of no return, and for that, he'd saved her.

Still, there was a small prickling of doubt at the back of Crouch's mind. He had to be sure. "How do I know for sure it's Lupin, Greyback?"

Barty Crouch Jr. heard the werewolf give off a low snarl of annoyance and fumble against the layers of the man's black suit he'd worn just the other night at that wedding he and his men had wedding crashed, what was left of it, that is.

At last, his best hunter pulled out a discarded watch, and Crouch recognized it. The man had been fond of wearing it on his right wrist, and as Fenrir wordlessly pressed it into Crouch's outstretched palm, Barty felt his jaw tighten in anger, thinking this act of murder justified.

 _Lupin deserved it. Repeat it to yourself. The wolf deserved this_.

Now that the half-blood wolf was out of the picture, Crouch could concentrate his sole attention on pleasing Alice and ensuring his future bride was happy here, on rebuilding his dynasty anew and ensuring the pureblood Crouch family name and his progeny would live on for a thousand years. Greyback gave off a slight growl, startling Crouch out of his musings and he blinked and returned his attentions to the werewolf.

"Very good, Greyback," he complimented, and dug into the pocket of his black trench coat and thrust a small pouch of Galleons into the man's waiting and open palm. "Your payment. As promised." Their faces met, a cruel, thick uncomfortable silence seeping into the cool fall air as poison, before Greyback's thin lips curved upwards into a sadistic and sour smile.

"Of course." The wolf made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded strangely like a purr to Barty, and turned on the heel of his boot and walked away, hands in the pockets of his jacket as the other wolf, Wes, returned, and had to practically jog to catch up to his Alpha's long strides.

"Milord Crouch, the—the house-elf is on its way, as is Alice Prewitt," West called out his statement, having to pant slightly to catch up to Fenrir.

Barty Crouch Jr. felt himself nod, closing his eyes shut in quiet contemplation, almost not even hearing the loud _crack_! as the pair of werewolves Disapparated once they'd reached the edge of the castle's land's properties. He felt himself shift at the waist and slowly opened them.

There she was. His prize, his material of beauty, his bride. Sweet, succulent Alice Prewitt descending the stone stairwell that led out into the Crouch family's courtyard. This simple garden had been Mother's, once.

Her dark brown pixie cut was a stark contrast to her pale skin, and autumn leaves had started to fall from the boughs of the trees around her, but even in a sunburst of sadness and all-black clothing, she was beautiful.

Crouch felt his gaze linger perhaps longer than it ought to have on her breast. The simple long-sleeved black blouse and black skinny jeans she wore was a complement to her slender, petite finger, the V-neck line of her shirt almost plunging, and if he looked carefully enough, he could just see the line of her breast and he balled his hand into a fist and practically growled with the effort to restrain himself. Barty Crouch Jr. was content to watch Alice nervously approach him in silence, and he glanced downward and was more than a little amused to see his family's house-elf, Winky, clutching onto Alice's hand.

Well, her entire hand fit around Alice's pinky, and the house-elf dressed in sullied rags carefully helped her walk. Alice was still looking much too peaky for Crouch's liking, and sick. He would remedy that soon enough. Madame Undersecretary Umbridge would be arriving in an hour or so, and given the witch had a woman's intuition, perhaps she would be more successful in retrieving information out of the young witch and telling him what was ailing her.

Barty Crouch Jr. watched as Alice and Winky slowly approached. Crouch caught the house-elf's gaze and repressed a smirk as Winky flinched. Her bat-like, overly large ears drooped, and her nose gave a feeble little twitch and he watched as his family's house-elf regarded the corpse with a horrified look in her wide, almond-shaped, doe-like brown eyes.

Whenever she spoke, her voice was high-pitched and squeaky, even worse than that of the Madame Undersecretary's, though he'd never openly admitted that little fact to Dolores Umbridge. He was on thin ice with her as it was, and she was doubting him. Crouch furrowed his dark brown brows into a frown and was rewarded as a light pink blush speckled along the house-elf's face and Winky promptly looked away, saying nothing.

 _Good girl_ , he thought meanly and bit the inside wall of his cheek, and Crouch drifted his gaze up and met Alice's and their eyes locked.

He stared at the unspoken story of sadness in her light gray eyes. A young woman of twenty-four, and much too lovely to bear the face of a grief-stricken witch, she would have been a widow, though he was pleased to see the yellow gold ring she'd worn last night was now since discarded.

No, his Alice deserved so much more. She was much too lovely to be a widow.

But not for long.


	56. Prelude

**Part III**

**THE FORBIDDEN FOREST**

A salmon pink glow seemed to stretch across the forest's horizon, slicing between the pitches of dark blue and black sky.

Through red-rimmed eyes, Lupin staggered onward. He'd been awake all night and felt as though the sky was playing a sport of him, causing him to see things that weren't there.

He felt a sharp, wet stinging on his lower cheek from where a branch had accidentally caught him earlier, and when he touched it, droplets of beaded crimson marked on the pads of his fingertips. He'd cut himself.

Remus swore under his breath for what felt the hundredth time in the span of the last hour or so while he and Dora's former partner trudged through the far east-end of the forest. There was a small part of him that was grateful his father wasn't around to hear such language.

Lyall, along with Sirius, though Padfoot had _balked_ at the idea of not being allowed to accompany him, had rather reluctantly returned to Headquarters to send a message to Professor Dumbledore and Dora's parents, alerting both parties of what had happened and what the plan was.

The woods that bordered the Crouch's family estate that Ollie Brennan was leading him through was growing darker by the minute, and Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek as he watched Ollie mumble under his breath and produced a beautifully elegant hawk Patronus, of all designs. He'd never seen anything like it.

He watched as it soared off high above the forest canopy above their heads and sent a silent prayer as he closed his eyes to Merlin or anybody who would listen that it reached Dora, and she knew that he was coming.

As much to reassure himself that he would be fine, he glanced down for what had to be the tenth time at the glowing yellow gold ring on its silver chain clutched in his palm, and almost tenderly so, he brought the delicate little piece of jewelry to his lips and kissed it tenderly.

"Point me," he whispered, closing his eyes shut and sending a silent plea to Dora to be alive. _Hang on, Dora_ , he begged, hoping she could hear him. _Just hang on. I'm coming. You're going to be all right_ _. You'll see_.

The Tracking Spell Dora had put on his mother's wedding ring emitted a faint golden glow, and along the forest path, they followed a slight golden haze in the air that carried traces of both Crouch and her footprints.

Her final words to him continued to ring in his eardrums.

 _Come_ _find_ _me. And keep me_.

Lupin faltered a little at those words, almost stumbling over a welly hidden, gnarled tree root. If he had it his way, once he found her, he'd never let her go, knowing that she was expecting a child. His child.

At that revelation, his stomach churned.

The bitter October air as night fell was absolutely hostile as it crept its way through his thin layers of clothing, borrowed from Greyback's second-in-command, Wes, that coated his body, his only defense against such a chill.

Dressed in heavy thick brown sweater and trousers, it was going to have to do against the cold, and he did not regret relinquishing the only formal suit that Greyback had insisted he hand over, though Remus would be the first to admit that watching the transformation of one of Greyback's kin, a wolf that had died in the night from a complaint of the heart, into a copy of himself via means of Polyjuice Potion, was _not_ admittedly an experience he wished to ever witness again. Once was more than enough in his lifetime.

Though Greyback had met them at the edge of the wood and had relayed the simple message that Crouch believed it.

 _Good. Gives us the element of surprise. He won't see us coming_ , he thought, and Lupin repressed another shudder as the wind picked up yet again, so harsh and crisp that even through his thick wool sweater, it hurt.

Merlin, but this was _worse_ than the seven hells, and Remus knew he lived in his own personal hell every month during his transformation cycle.

Lupin calmed his vicious snarls, the result of his indignation at being denied the opportunity to pay back Crouch in kind for what he was putting Dora through, the visions of whatever that might be in his mind only getting worse as the seconds dragged, turning into minutes, though Greyback was adamant.

" _He would be mine to work on, boy_ ," Fenrir had said as he and Wes had lain in wait at the edge of the woods. " _Stick to our plan, and you and your pretty little She-Wolf can go back to your home unscathed_." He had balked and protested, though Greyback did not relent.

Remus clenched his jaw tightly shut and closed his eyes to release some of the tension. His mouth felt dry and his throat scratchy, and he'd developed the constant habit of swallowing nothing, but now, as he was forced to trudge through the edge of the damned woods, he could swear he could make out the towering parapets and turrets of Crouch's estate.

As his gaze drifted upward to the highest tower, there was the slime of something thick and the metallic taste of iron lingered on his palate and tongue.

Lupin stifled the almost animalistic growl that threatened escape from the confines of his chest and turned his head to the side, spitting out a mouthful of blood that had lingered, remnants of Greyback's 'message.'

All the while his body shivered underneath his borrowed brown woolen sweater that was just a tad too big for him, though there was a small part of him that relished the comfort. This now marked the third time in his life that he wished he would have just been _killed_ already, really.

The first time had followed James and Lily's death, then Sirius's innocence proven after well over twelve years in Azkaban Prison.

He had initially believed there was no greater pain than following his friends' deaths.

But this? Oh, _no_. This was ten times worse than that. It hurt as hell.

 _I'll kill Crouch myself if he's hurt Dora, what Greyback wants can go to hell right along with him. I'll kill him_ , the Mad Beast within him took over, and Remus knew a storm was coming and there was no stopping it. _Kill them all…rip…tear. They can't keep me away from her. I don't care what happens to me. My soul is already damned. A Wolf like me has no place in heaven when I die. I would gladly take Crouch's own life and rip his throat out with my own teeth and claws if it means Tonks is safe._

The swirling vortex of dark visions of Crouch dying a bloody, violent death, each one worse than the last, came as thunder striking in his mind.

Almost as if on cue, Lily's voice piped up in the back of his mind, immediately chastising the poor man for even daring to contemplate it at all. _Don't think things like that, Rem. You're going to be married, Remus!_

James, as usual, was all too quick to chime in with his two cents. _Tonks is going to be fine, Moony. She's strong. Smart. Not many would have thought to turn your mum's wedding ring into a tracker, hmm? You dare think of walking out on your fiancée and unborn kid now when you're so close, and I swear with Merlin as my own witness, I'll come down there and haunt you until you come to your senses. You'll find her_.

Lupin stifled his growl at the back of his throat. "If something happens to her, then I—I'd never forgive myself," he snarled, swatting away what felt like a mosquito that was lingering near his face, earning a quirked brow from the kid, Ollie, who'd gone up ahead slightly to scout out the perimeter, as much as the length of chains of his manacles would allow, with Lupin tightly holding the ends, though the younger man made no comment that, coming from his perspective as Remus tried to imagine how this looked, all Dora's former partner knew of his friend's fiancé was that he talked to himself.

 _Then you have to find a way to save her, Rem_ , Lily said soothingly.

Remus merely nodded in response, not bothering to offer up a verbal answer. He couldn't. Lupin let out a groan and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of light brown hair, pale face devious and utterly distraught with sleepiness and exhaustion, though it felt as though a surge of adrenaline was coursing through his bloodstream and igniting it like wildfire.

The thickening blush of stubble had begun to grow along his jawline. Lupin felt his jaw clench tightly shut and lock up, tighter than rigor mortis, and his teeth dug on the wall of his mouth and he rang his tongue along the top wall of his teeth.

And there, his hand that clutched onto a tree branch as he had paused for a second to draw in a frigid breath of cold autumnal air formed into a white-boned fist and he smashed it against the limb, using just a little of the Wolf's overwhelming strength within him, and he ripped the bough clean off, startling Dora's partner.

Remus almost swallowed his tongue as he quelled the strong desire to roar like an enraged Hungarian Horntail dragon, a few hot, briny tears escaping his eyes. He felt a sob threatening to escape, but he fought it down. He would _die_ before he would _ever_ hear himself sob like this.

Constant years of a hard life as a fully-fledged werewolf had hardened his heart somewhat, though his fiancée was the one who needed him to be strong now, though he wanted nothing more than to just break down.

But he couldn't. He could not rescue Dora if he allowed himself to become emotionally compromised, so he hid his pains behind his mask of surety and pressed forward, though it did nothing to quell the fear he felt.

Remus felt utterly lost as he allowed Ollie Brennan to lead him through the woods, and occasionally, he caught the kid growling to himself, talking to himself, oftentimes in too low a tone for Lupin to make any of it out.

The last exchange had been a particular heart-wrenching one, one that had required Remus to calm him down by any means necessary.

An hour later, Ollie was trying again to read Tonks's thoughts and was suffering, and an anguished yell startled Lupin, causing him to jump.

"It is…wrong, it's **WRONG**! A lifetime of discipline washed away, and in its place… **BEDLAM**!" Ollie bellowed angrily, clawing at his skull with bloodied fingernails.

Ollie's entire body had begun to shake, his hands felt clammy, and sweat from walking so much and practically working himself up into a nervous stupor in a vain attempt to control his temper had sweat dripping down his scarred temples. In short, the man was broken, not thinking clearly or of sound mind, and utterly exhausted.

The broken man turned away from Remus, not able to face the older man's deeply concerned and worried expression. He couldn't bear this!

Why did everything he do result in pain and misery for poor Ollie?! He failed to protect Tonks from Crouch, he failed to win her affections, he worried his family with his 'death', if they ever even cared for him at all.

He'd made it this far without Tonks by his side, but how much longer could he control the Darkness within him that threatened to implode?

Ollie's head fell against the bark of a particularly twisted old oak tree, not giving a damn anymore that another bruise was likely to form as a result.

He welcomed the pain! It relieved some of the pain and heartbreak that had wound its icy tendrils around his throat like poison ivy creeping up a pillar of stone and threatened to squeeze the very life force out of him.

At this point, he wondered if he should just kill himself and slit his wrists, save Tonks from seeing the empty shell of a man. End this all.

Save Tonks the pain of losing him all over again, for he'd _betrayed_ her. Ollie growled and moaned, raising his head, and let it fall again with a sickening thud, and he felt blood well on his forehead and into his eyes.

More pain, a dull aching throb this time, at least, he could barely feel the heartache in his chest, that damned stubborn corded muscle that he wished he could just plunge his own hand into his chest and rip it out.

Again, the broken man raised his head in preparation to bash his own skull and brain matter all over the tree and take his own life, but before he could, a pair of strong arms quickly drew him away from the tree, their arms around his middle and he was dragged away violently from his suicide attempt.

" _Stop_ _this_ , _Brennan_!" Remus growled through gritted teeth, holding on tightly to the younger man around his middle in case he tried to escape. "Don't do this to yourself! What happened to Dora is _not_ your fault, you hear me? The blame lies with Crouch! With _him_ , not with you! _Not_ you!"

The boy looked as though his world had come crashing down around him. He clenched his eyes tightly shut, the skilled Legillimens that he was as he attempted to shut out all the voice and focus solely on hearing Tonks.

It did not escape Lupin's attention that the familiar black mists had started to leak from the younger man's tightly clenched fists, and he felt the familiar prick of terror stab at his heart. If they didn't find Dora, and fast, there's no telling what destruction the Obscurus would rain down on the place.

"So _weak_ …there is nothing left, but missing _bones_ , dead friends. _Tired_. So _tired_ ," Ollie sighed, talking to someone, though who it was, Remus didn't know, as his cobalt eyes glossing over with unshed moisture. "I—I want to feel… _everything_. But that is not our way. Not the way of an Auror. Of a Brennan. I am…Slytherin…we must feel _nothing_ ," he hissed, letting out a snake-like whisper that made Remus think of Snape. "Tonks…did you know…how much I…care…I—I wanted to show you…such… _tenderness_. Voices…whispers in the dark…taunts…can you hear them? I—I can't stop them, make it _stop_ ," he groaned, his eyes glossing over with glistening tears. "Stop them…"

Remus felt his blood boil in his veins, but he fought back the urge to strike out at the younger man in anger, knowing he was already far away.

"Don't even _try_ to stop them. It will _pass_ ," Lupin reassured calmly, a muscle in his jaw twitching and he jerked on Brennan's chains to yank him forward. "Just another hour or so until we find Dora, and then we'll find a way to get you help. You're doing fine, just hold on a little while longer. Be _strong_ ," he snapped coldly, feeling a surge of anger in his veins. "Help me find Dora, Ollie. _Help_ me. _Please_ …" he begged, hating hearing the desperation and the way his voice cracked and faltered, as did his resolve as he looked at Ollie.

Ollie nodded mutely, a sheen of perspiration glistening on his browbone as he closed his eyes and attempted to listen to Dora's thoughts.

He watched as Brennan's mouth twitched in something that could have been a smile, though to Remus it looked more like a pained grimace.

Ollie ground his teeth in anger and let out a horrible, agonized yell. " _No_! This—this weakness _disgusts_ me! I _hate_ it!" he snarled through gritted teeth, though he refused to look at Remus, keeping his eyes shut.

He breathed slow, clenching, and un-clenching his fists at his sides, emanating tense exhales through his flaring nostrils and cocked his head to the side as he strained to focus and home in his Occlumency skills for her.

Lupin bit the inside wall of his cheek and growled in frustration, lashing out and shooting out an arm and grabbing onto the Brennan man's sleeve of his robe, closing off the gap of space, seizing fistfuls of the boy's chains and shook them as he pulled, ignoring the muffled yelps of pain.

He didn't care anymore. The amount of hurt Brennan had caused Dora over the years in thinking that he was dead at her hands was insurmountable, and he did not know if he could find it within himself to forgive him. Ollie has never attempted to contact her to let her know he was alive, so the boy deserved every bit of the Wolf within him, threatening escape.

" _Focus_!" he shouted, feeling the Wolf within him snarl and foam at the mouth. "The longer we stay out here, the worse it is for her!"

The younger man was practically sniffling into his sleeve, the tip of his nose red-rimmed, and Remus growled in anticipation.

"She—in a t—tower," he stammered. "I can—I can get her. Take her somewhere, but where…?" Ollie paused, his brows knitting together as he scrunched his face in concentration. "She—she's having thoughts of the Black Lake? The Forbidden Forest?"

Just the utterance of the last two words was enough for Lupin to release the breath that Remus didn't even know he had been holding.

With the sigh released, he felt his shoulders slump as they relaxed. He felt a light pink blush speckle along his cheeks that caused Ollie to give Remus a questioning look, though thank Merlin the man didn't ask Remus to elaborate. He merely nodded and promptly turned his head away.

"Good. I—I want her _safe_ , as far away from Crouch as you can get her. Let _me_ deal with Crouch, and I'll meet you in the Forbidden Forest by the Black Lake. I promise. Get her to safety," Lupin heard himself snarl in the Wolf's voice as the edges of his tone became clipped and hardened.

He gave a curt nod, silently signaling his approval as Ollie Brennan opened his eyes, and he glanced down at the man's cracked and raw, bleeding wrists from the metal of the manacles binding his wrists together. He'd hated having to drag along the boy like this, but he did not trust him to remain calm.

His stomach twisted and turned violently in circles until Remus thought he was going to be physically sick.

This man, he had to constantly remind himself, was an adult Obscurus, perhaps the only one alive in existence, that he knew of, at least, and they had no idea how to separate the entity from its host without killing him and putting his life in peril.

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and shoved aside thoughts of Dora's former partner, feeling a rapidly swelling surge of anger course through his veins, starting in his chest and working its way to the tips of his fingers as he felt the fingers of his wand hand give a twitch.

There was a small portion of the rational side of his mind that blamed Ollie for this.

He could have chosen to take her anywhere to safety. To her parents, to Headquarters, to Paris, to Norway, it didn't matter, he would find her.

And because of _him_ , Tonks may be dead right now because he'd thought to bring her straight to Crouch's estate, and the ambiguity of not knowing if his sweet fiancée was alive, dead, or _worse_ , was almost torturous.

Furthermore, why was Ollie Brennan the one chosen to come with him to extract Tonks and not Sirius or Mad-Eye?

Why her _partner_?

 _Former partner, Moony_ , James reminded, and Remus flinched. Prongs must have somehow sensed the darkening jealousy of his thoughts.

He had not the faintest idea why Greyback had saddled him with Ollie, though he had not the time to question it.

Time was _not_ on their side, and Greyback had said he would give a signal, a shower of red sparks when he and the other male wolves of his clan would lay siege to the castle.

And in the middle of the chaos, Lupin would go in undetected once he'd gotten confirmation Ollie had taken Tonks to the Forbidden Forest, undoubtedly the last place that Crouch would ever think to look for her, and that would leave him free to deal with Crouch Jr. On his own terms.

Lupin ruminated over thoughts of his fiancée, hoping she was safe, and how it hurt like hell that she was pregnant, and he was not by her side.

He wanted her face to be the first thing she sees when he awoke, given the lateness of the hour and how he hoped that she was still asleep.

But what if he arrived inside once Greyback's forces had breached the castle's walls and she was injured, or if something happened to the baby growing inside her?

What then? He would have failed Tonks, and a fine husband he'd make. He could not even protect her and their child now.

 _What if something happens to your baby and she loses it? And you aren't there? A truly fine husband you'll be, you monstrous dog, you vicious bastard_.

The snakelike voice chimed up unhelpfully from the dark recesses of his own mind, sounding too much like Snape for his comfort.

These self-deprecating thoughts spiraled in his bloodstream and spread like a drop of fever. Adrenaline flooded his system as he silently allowed the younger, handsome former would-be Auror to lead him through the woods. The boy was in the middle of attempting to make conversation, though the effort proved to be in vain and wrong when Ollie asked after Dora.

"She's really something, isn't she? Your… _fiancée_ ," Ollie spat venomously, and Lupin could practically see the anger dripping from his words.

The younger man didn't bother to glance back over his shoulder, and he really ought to have, for Crouch's plaything and the reluctant servant would have otherwise seen the shadow of the Wolf dart across Remus's face and the look of outrage as his normally kind light brown eyes darkened rapidly.

"It's truly a pity that she's being forced to marry _you_ , _wretch_ , and because of you, _my_ partner is going to be shunned from normal society, and somehow, you think that's _okay_?!" he shouted, letting his emotions get the better of him now. "Dora could have done so much better as a promising young witch, but no, she's chosen a half-blood werewolf as her _partner_ ," he sighed, almost sounding disappointed and immensely jealous, practically seething with rage, and shaking with a horrible hurt. " _I_ am her partner! Not _you_! Do you think she'll be all right? Or do you think she'll be _dead_ by the time you arrive?" Ollie snapped, no warmth at all in his condescending tone.

At the handsome younger man's words which had goaded him even further past the last vestiges of his temper, which were already adrift in the sheltered harbor of his patience, Remus felt the familiar hot-spark of anger, hotter than any fire dragon could flame from its belly with, ignite and spark in his veins, and in three rapid steps, Lupin had closed off the gap of space between himself and Greyback's prisoner and let out a vicious snarl of frustration.

His hand curled around the pale column of the man's throat and he squeezed, just tightly enough to begin to restrict air to the man's passageways, but not enough (regretfully, secretly, in Remus's mind) to kill him.

" _One_. _More_. _Sound_ ," he warned threateningly, whisper hissing it roughly into the shell of the man's ear as he leaned forward. "I'm _warning_ you, Ollie. And I'll snap your neck, Brennan," Lupin snarled, hating hearing the crack and dip in his otherwise cold and listless tone, and he flinched inwardly, though he shook off the feeling.

He could tell Ollie Brennan was practically biting off his tongue to prevent the rise of bile on his throat as the sinister tone of Remus's normally kind and tenor-like soft tones had shifted, practically tossed his stomach in cramps.

Ollie's eyebrow twitched and he could not conceal the sheen of terror that formed on his browbone as beads of sweat.

"I—I meant no offense, mon—" But the handsome dark-haired former partner of Dora's caught himself as he had been about to foolishly utter the word _'monster'_ in the accursed creature's presence.

Remus felt ventilated at most, as the sweat glistened on his browbone and his temples that evaporated the second Ollie turned his back on him, and balled his hands into fists and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of wild light brown hair, not caring that it stuck up in tufts every which way.

He _saw_ how Ollie Brennan eyed Dora the other night at the wedding. She had even confided in him prior to their engagement how sometimes, when they were at school, Ollie made her feel relatively uneasy, his piercing stare always feeling to her as though it burned a hole in the back of her head, his inquisitive, sharp blue eyes following her backside.

Ollie Brennan had… _intentions_ , towards _his_ fiancée, _his_ partner, and Remus felt his mind flare like wildfire, and he swallowed nervously, feeling like his throat was on fire and he was suddenly parched. But it wasn't water that he necessarily wanted. Oh, _no_.

What he longed for, alongside the urge to be by his fiancee's side, was sweet, blissful retribution towards Ollie's uncouth behavior towards his Dora.

Ollie Brennan did not just think highly of Remus's wife, the agitated wizard and werewolf couldn't help but hypothesize, oh, _no_. The dashing would-be Auror and Death Eater who lacked manners and proper edict wanted Dora all for himself and was not shy about vocalizing his desires for the better part of their so-far half-hour trek in the woods.

Remus shook his head and practically snarled in frustration in an effort to quell the beast within the confines of his chest, beginning to roar, to elude him of his frenzied, manic thoughts, courtesy of the monster, that sin that was Rage, that had a tendency to rear its ugly head whenever another man looked in Dora's direction.

" _You mock my partner, Brennan_ ," Lupin growled roughly, and his gloved hand came up to curl tightly around the pale column of the young man's throat. "That ends right here, right now. I _see_ how you look at her. _Death Eater_ ," he snarled, baring his teeth and letting out another animalistic growl, "Let this be your one and _only_ warning. You escaped my hand with just a moment of your precious time lost, but if you come _near_ Dora again, if you so much as _look_ at Dora in a manner that displeases me, then only Merlin Himself will be able to save you from me, and you won't look to _me_ to be so forgiving…"

Even Remus flinched as he realized his voice was rougher, coarser than it usually was, and his words towards Barty Crouch Jr.'s second-in-command had escaped unchecked from his lips as a pitiless growl.

"Leave my partner _alone_ , Ollie. Or you'll _die_. Will I be forced to beat you?" he snarled angrily, irately.

And without giving Brennan a chance to respond or explain away the slip in his judgment, as he had not been thinking clearly when he'd uttered his words, he shoved the young man backward hard against the trunk of the tree and strode forward, silently seething, a muscle in his jaw twitching and in his eye as well.

Remus did not care as he heard a muscle in the back of Brennan's skull crack, though he stifled his heavy sigh of disappointment as he heard the soldier's footfalls practically scurrying to catch up and match Remus's lengthy strides.

With a yelp of surprise, Ollie fell to the ground as the taller man stumbled over what was either a twisted, gnarled tree root or more likely, his own boot in this case.

The roots in this damned forest that led to Crouch's estate seemed to have a mind of their own, but Ollie's legs felt like lead, and this marked the second or third time since entering the woods with this vicious bastard of a creature, this 'almost-made' that dared to call itself a man now that it was _engaged_ to a celestial-like angel that, in Brennan's mind, he did not deserve.

Ollie shot a dark, withering glower as he felt the werewolf's strong-arm curl into a fist around his forearm and somewhat roughly force himself to his feet.

"Thanks," he growled begrudgingly and heard Remus roll his eyes. He prided himself on his sense of direction, and this had been the main point of his and Remus's limited conversation in these woods thus far, though right now, the man did not seem confident in his abilities, and was very adamant about vocalizing his frustrations like he was doing right now. Ollie rolled his eyes and groaned.

"Good _God_!" Remus snarled angrily as he seized tufts of his light brown hair and paced, agitated. "You've taken us _completely_ in the wrong direction! I _told_ you we should have followed the edge of the woods back that way! You didn't listen to me, and now I'm lost, and if my fiancee _dies_ and I'm not there by her side, I swear to Merlin, Brennan, I'll _kill_ you myself. I don't _care_ if you're Dora's friend or not," Remus bared his teeth and let out a low growl that sounded almost animalistic that Ollie Brennan promptly ignored and strode right past the vicious bastard, though not before making it a point to violently brush his shoulder against Remus's.

Ollie stifled his urge to roar in frustration at the other werewolf's insistence that _he_ be the one to lead the monster into the woods, away from _her_. He had agreed, somewhat eagerly, to Greyback's demands, valuing to keep his throat intact in one piece.

Ollie had remained confident up until this point that he'd be fine. But he wasn't. This damned forest made no bloody sense, and he was very much lost.

Though he did not dare admit that little nugget of truth out loud to him, lest he fancied his neck being snapped.

Just being lost by itself was aggravating enough, but this damned forest had done more than just get Ollie and the monster lost. It was confusing them, twisting the canopy around so they could not tell the light from the darkness, making them think they saw one thing or walked a certain direction when they had actually seen or done the exact opposite.

It felt… _Cursed_. Yes. Cursed. There was no other word the broken, limping man could think of.

The path at Remus's feet faded as it leads further into the darkness of the woods yet follow it, he knew he must for the sake of Dora.

Somewhere in there were the answers he as her husband so desperately needed, and so his feet begrudgingly and numbly followed the narrow strip of naked earth among the giants of root and leaf. He allowed his hands to touch their skin as he passed, feeling their gentle spirits soothe his.

For this was their world as they stretched toward the light they never saw yet sensed, and Remus knew he must do the same... open up his other senses... to sound, to the aroma and listen so very carefully to every instinct.

Nothing was more frustrating for Remus than finding out what he had believed to be a real experience was in fact, entirely fictional, a figment of their imaginations. He scowled, pursing his lips into a thin line, and let out another yell.

"Did we get turned around _again_?" Remus wondered with a frustrated growl as he reached out a strong gloved hand and gripped onto Ollie's shoulder. "I thought we'd already passed this twisted tree. That's _three_ times. We. Are. _Lost_! What have you done?!"

Ollie rolled his eyes and barely stifled a vicious holler of his own, stomping his foot in a moment of frustration, bringing the edge of his boot down on a branch and snapping it, seizing what little stubble was growing back on his hair from where Crouch had shaved his black locks off and tugging on it and let out a roar of agitation towards Remus's hostility.

"Get your head on straight. You can yell and scream at me if you think it would help, but it won't help _her_. Let's just concentrate on getting out of this damned wicked forest in one piece. _Alive_."

Ollie made a move to head out of the clearing, but Lupin felt his hand curl around the younger man's bicep, making Brennan halt in his movements and blink owlishly at him.

He couldn't help it but read between the lines at Ollie's comments about Dora and a wave of deep, burning anger warred violently in his chest.

Lupin bared his teeth and let out a low, warning, wolfish snarl. He needed to know the truth. And he needed to know it right now before anything else happened.

"Before we go any further," Remus warned threateningly, his tone clipped and sharp. "I want the _truth_ from you. Right now, Brennan."

Remus watched as Ollie's own pale features hardened and settled in a somber expression.

"I already know what you're thinking. And no, there's no need for this from you. You've nothing to fear from me, _wolf_." Ollie scowled.

Lupin continued to keep Dora's former partner under his piercing, wolfish sight, never letting on to the younger man that he would let this go.

"Somehow, I don't believe you," he snarled, revealing his sharpened canines, and he was savagely pleased to see Ollie visibly flinch away in fear.

Ollie groaned in frustration, hung his head for a split second, and then looked up, jutted his chin out slightly defiantly, and met the werewolf's harsh animalistic scrutiny head-on.

"There is nothing between us, _dog_. What Tonks and I have is purely friendship, nothing more, nothing less."

Lupin felt himself narrow his eyes further at Ollie Brennan in both disbelief and anger. In truth, he didn't believe a single word that was coming out of his fiancée's former partner's mouth. He needed the truth.

Dora had told him that there was nothing on her side of their relationship, but it was _him_ that concerned the distraught soon-to-be father.

What was Ollie's true intentions towards _his_ fiancée, the mother of their unborn child in about nine months? Was he going to cause problems for her? He couldn't let it. He let out a wolfish growl and shook the man slightly by seizing fistfuls of his shirt, leaning in so the tip of his nose was practically touching his.

"I want the truth, Brennan!" he growled threateningly, never once averting his gaze from Ollie's. "Are your intentions towards Dora noble or not? Or was that little stunt you pulled at the wedding the other night just another of one of your tricks meant to torment her? She _cries_ for you! Every. Single. Day. Her own _boggart_ is what remained of your cloak on the day you _died_ ," he spat poisonously, and Remus would have been lying to himself if he did not admit seeing the younger man's face drain of color and his lips part open in shock, blue eyes wide with unshed moisture, did not bring him at least a slight modicum of satisfaction. "She cares for you. And you've _betrayed_ her trust. You've been using her this whole time!"

Ollie looked absolutely appalled by Remus's choice of words, and before Lupin could fathom what was happening, suddenly, he was the one leaning in towards him.

"How _dare_ you stand there and claim that I have nothing but honest intentions towards Nymphadora? She's my _friend_!"

"And that is?!" Lupin was fully shouting now, and his ears perked up at the rustling of a twig somewhere in the distance. _Probably one of the other wolves_ , he thought, and quickly brushed the troubling thought away. "What kind of friend to her are you, that you would let her believe you were dead for _years_ , Ollie?"

His breathing was heavy, and he was fully panting now, his emotions in his mind and heart raging war from fear to pure onslaught, a hatred for this man, and a slight terror that he was going to become a father to a baby.

He could only pray to Merlin above that their child wouldn't be born like him. Lupin did not think he could take the mental anguish at knowing he'd inflicted his own lycanthropic condition onto an innocent child.

Ollie violently wrenched out of Lupin's grasp and shook his head, grinding his teeth in anger. "I would have _thought_ that was obvious, Lupin. Or have you really not the faintest idea of what goes on in her head?"

Oh, he was _taunting_ him now, rubbing it in Remus's face that he was a skilled Legillimens and he wasn't. Lupin heard herself growl.

"What are you talking about?" Remus whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, the volume of his tone dropping to an almost inaudible level, though confusion and anger still lingered, plain as day, in his hardened snarls.

Dora's former partner folded his arms across his chest and glowered at the towering werewolf in an equally angry fashion.

"This isn't right! It's not my place! The answer to your question is in there!" Ollie shouted, extending an arm, and pointed towards Crouch's family's castle with a shaking finger, what was left of it, that is. "The one you need to be discussing this with is _her_ , _wolf_ ," he spat disgustedly. "Not _me_ , Lupin!"

Lupin growled in anger as the man turned away, and barely fought back the Wolf's deepening urge to launch himself at the man and rip his throat out.

He had liked to think that he could hope he could work out his differences with his man, but his heart still wrenched as visions of Dora's tear-stained face the night she'd revealed her boggart to him filled his mind and then seeing the despair and disbelief etched on her face at the wedding.

Resentment welled within him as he thought of the amount of time Ollie Brennan had gotten to spend with Dora. More time than _he_ had.

Had they ever kissed? Just that unanswered question alone was enough to send a blazing heat through his veins, and he could swear he heard the Mad Beast let out a howl of rage.

The jealousy spiraled through his system, hard as he tried to suppress it. Simply because he had met Dora later in his life did not mean he should wish any ill will towards Ollie Brennan. He had not _asked_ to be captured and held captive by Crouch and his men for years.

And Remus knew he could not ignore Ollie forever. He was currently his only hope of getting into that estate and finding out if she was still alive.

Lupin merely grunted again and turned away, raking his fingers through his light brown hair.

"I think you need to hear what I have to say," Remus growled, speaking up, and he watched as Ollie almost tripped. "It's important."

 _I think I won't_ , the skilled Legilimens and broken man thought resentfully, bitterly, though he watched as the taller man, this wolf that had won Dora's heart, carded his fingers through his hair and looked nervous.

"You know we, Dora and I, are marrying. And…she's pregnant." His voice cracked on the last word.

Ollie let out a hiss and felt something within the confines of his chest tighten and clench. He had promised himself he would not interfere in her life, now that Tonks had moved on, as inevitably as it would, but then, never in a million years would he have guessed his best friend would do this to herself.

 _And whose fault is_ _that_?! Ollie wanted to shout, running his hand over the stubble on his scalp. Marry a _werewolf_ , sire a _cub_ with this man, ostracize herself.

Would this man really be so cruel as to deny him the one pleasure his wretched, miserable excuse for a life currently held?

He wouldn't take Dora away from him, would he? Would Lupin _really_ demand of Ollie to stay away from his wife from now on?

He _couldn't_. She—she was the only thing that calmed down his 'episodes,' of manic, uncontrollable violence!

And what the hell was he supposed to do now? Should he speak up and ruin this for Tonks, when he'd accepted that she loved another man?

No. He couldn't do that to her. Couldn't be selfish. He'd agree. For her. _Just her_.

"I—I _know_ ," he growled, though the venom dripped from his tone as he spat the confession more than spoke it at Remus Lupin.

 _Here it comes_ , Ollie thought bitterly. The demand. To stay away. And he would do nothing to stop it. He would allow only his only friend to be removed from his life, and when all this was over, he would slit his wrists and throat.

"I just…want to ask your feelings on this." By the face the werewolf made, scrunching his nose in disgust and continuing the habit of raking his fingers through his hair, it was clear to Ollie he wasn't enjoying the turn their conversation had taken and wanted nothing more than to end it.

But this was admittedly not something Ollie had ever expected of Tonks's new partner.

Why the hell should Lupin care what poor Ollie thought? " _What_?" Ollie blinked owlishly at the taller man, at a total loss.

"Me and…Tonks, Brennan," Lupin growled in frustration and blew out a shaking, tired breath as he spoke his fiancée's name, and almost as if on cue, the golden wedding ring he clutched tenderly in the palm of his hand gave off a sudden burst of soft yellow light at the mention of her name. "I know that you two are… _friends_. That you care for her deeply. I just want to be sure that there are no…" Lupin's voice trailed off as he paused, searching for the right words. "… _Difficult_ feelings between us. Tonks cares for you more than you know, and I don't want to put my future wife and mother of our child through the trials of a feuding friend and a feuding husband if I can help. The stress isn't good for Tonks, Ollie."

A million thoughts raced through the broken man's mind at this last statement. He could give many answers, his troubled brain thought.

This dog was marrying the only woman he had ever loved, and for a split second, Ollie did not think he could live with that.

She was…she was _pregnant_. With a baby that was doomed to be a wolf, like its father, he was sure of it, yes, he was sure.

He wanted to deny the werewolf the privilege of a happy, normal life. A simple marriage, a simple love. This _dog_ did not deserve simplicity. His whole life compared to poor Ollie's had been simple, no matter how much the wolf tried to claim otherwise.

Jealousy tore through Ollie Brennan's heart, ripping what little was left of it to shreds. He would not despise the Wolf if he married Dora.

He already despised him simply because he had the one thing Ollie had always wanted. Her and Ollie would be forever denied the touch of the only woman he had ever loved, and he was a danger to himself and others, and there was no way once their precious little _wolf_ _cub_ was born, given his violent, unpredictable status as an adult Obscurus.

He could kill her. Kill them all and he wouldn't be able to control it or stop himself. And…

Ollie Brennan felt his thought splutter to a complete halt, and he froze, biting the inside wall of his cheek. How could he be so _selfish_?

He could not put his partner, the woman who he _loved_ —through this! But he could put the accursed wretch of a werewolf through it.

Ollie paused and chose his words slowly, speaking as a man who had just only learned how, and he supposed, after an almost three-year vow of silence in Crouch's captivity, he was.

"I want Tonks…" _God_ , _yes_ , this was true, and he could see the briefest flickers of anger hardening in the other man's light brown eyes, and the werewolf's mouth pursed into a thin line. "…to be happy." And this, this was truer still. "Even if…it's not me."

The broken, limping Obscurus breathed a sigh of relief as Lupin's darkening brown eyes widened, and then something in the man's expression seemed to shift and give way and he softened, and Ollie looked away.

"You—you mean this?" Lupin asked quietly, sounding much more reserved and subdued than before. He was beginning to sound like himself again, Ollie thought, and as much as this heartbreak killed him, he could not stand in the way of Dora's happiness.

"I…" he stammered, fidgeting with his fingers in a vain attempt to keep him warm. "I know that you'll give Tonks everything she wants." Here, Ollie swallowed past the lump forming in her throat, though not without great difficulty, and he spoke as if the very words that tumbled out of his mouth were causing him a great amount of pain. "A—and I'll try my hardest to…to treat you as a …" He gulped. "As a _friend_ , Lupin."

Remus blinked, feeling the worst of his anger dissipate almost immediately, and he breathed an audible sigh of relief as the swirling mist emanating from the younger man's clenched fist and near his head disappeared.

"Thank you," he answered softly and held out his hand for Ollie to take. For a minute, the two men stood there, hands clasped tightly in a handshake of mutual understanding, and something resembling the ghost of a smile crossed both their pale, tired faces. "My friend," he said.

Dora's former partner felt his lips drop open in shock and a noise caught his attention, and he swiveled his head sharply to the left and stared.

He completely missed the look of awe the werewolf was giving him. Ollie either completely missed it out of obliviousness or ignored it and darted forward to the edge of the woods when they came to a clearing.

"There. That's our ticket in. I—I think, I hope it is anyways," Ollie's rough, coarse voice shook slightly as he ducked behind a tree limb. He raised a shaking hand and pointed to the southwest corner of Crouch's estate. Lupin exhaled a tense sigh and followed his gaze to see what it was that he was looking at.

"So, it's a fortress, then," he murmured, stifling the urge to roar in frustration. He scrunched his nose in disgust. "Dora's in _there_? The place looks like a festering _disease_ trap. I've got to get her out, she could get _sick_! And our…"

He caught himself, almost having mentioned Tonks's pregnancy and their baby, to Ollie but thought better of it. There was no telling what would happen with the Obscurus if his temper were further provoked, so he favored silence and returned his gaze to Crouch's estate.

The castle lay like an old man of the hill, the moonlight shone on his craggy, tumbledown face. Moss clung in the shade of the ancient walls like a straggly beard. The once-proud turrets had crumbled in places giving the impression of a disheveled party hat.

If this fort of stone, built on blood and bone, could talk, you'd beg for deafness. Though Lupin could not hear the whispers of the ages, tales of lives lost, and deaths of agony no-one should ever feel, they remain cloistered in the castle dungeons and echo around staircases of twisted rock. So much to say and no ears willing to hear, no soul willing to feel the torment that lies within, except for _her_.

Somewhere within those cold stone slabs of the wall was his Dora.

Ollie let out a tired sigh and furrowed his brows as he caught Remus eyeing him incredulously out of the corner of his eyes, and he raked his fingernails down the bough of the tree in anguish.

"If only I knew the best way to get in," Ollie growled in agitation, and there was a beat, a pause, and it took him a moment to realize Remus was glowering at him, and he turned his head sharply to the left to regard the tall werewolf. " _What_?" he snapped, raking his fingernails down the rough bark of a tree, not noticing they were bleeding until Lupin reached out a hand swatted his hand away from it. "Why—why are you _staring_ at me like that? _What_?" he growled angrily.

Remus growled in irritation, courtesy of the Wolf within him, and glowered at Ollie Brennan in irritation. "I would have _thought_ a loyal follower of Lord Voldemort's would have _some_ knowledge of the passageways in Crouch's estate," he snarled meanly, his voice hardened.

Ollie rolled his eyes in exasperation and folded his arms across his chest, or as well as he could, considering his hands were still bound by the pair of manacles that Greyback's people had magically tethered him to.

"He _would_ if he hadn't been under the influence of the Imperius Curse the whole time," Ollie barked back hotly in retort, temper swelling. "I can't remember where I left her!"

The younger man practically wailed it and clawed at his own wrists in despair and hurt.

"Oh, for f…." Remus growled and bit the inside wall of his cheek, seizing tufts of his hair in agitation as he turned away from the boy to prevent himself from lashing out at him in anger.

The Wolf was growling his displeasure, and he fought back the urge to kill this boy on the spot. Lupin raked his shaking, slightly sweating fingers through his light brown locks, fingers entangled and sticky in his hair as he did so out of a nervous habit.

Dora is _pregnant_ , and just that thought caused a coil in his gut to twist and his stomach to give a painful little lurch of fear at his news.

He was going to become a _father_.

It was supposed to be exciting news. Men, Muggles, and wizards alike, should normally be in tears at the prospect of sons or daughters, but instead, Lupin had found that not to be.

Remus felt nothing but fear and dread when his father had told him the news. Tonks is _pregnant_ and he was not even there to offer protection. Would their baby...be like _him_? He didn't even know where she really _was_! Crouch could be holding her in his estate as a prisoner or Dora could have already escaped somehow.

Lupin sincerely hoped it was the latter. The only consolation that he could assuage himself was that Nymphadora was carrying _his_ child and not Sirius's, for, as _stupid_ as this thought sounded, even now as he thought of it in his mind, he had every indication during the early days of their partnership that Dora had fallen for Sirius. Severus had said so, according to Lyall, based on the moon's count.

 _He better be right_ , Lupin thought angrily, _or Hogwarts might find themselves short a Potions Master if he was wrong_.

"I need to get in there," Ollie growled. "Get Tonks to safety. C—confront M—Master on my _own_ ," he mumbled, eyes fixated on the castle.

Had the entire world gone up in flames?! Remus stared at the younger man, wanting nothing more than to believe he'd heard wrong.

But the younger, broken man was as grim as a graveyard at night and there was no hint of jovial or joking in the man's glistening blue eyes.

"Absolutely not. No. Not without me, you're not," Lupin commanded, to which Ollie merely proceeded to look at him. "I'm coming with you. I need to see her. I need to see that Crouch hasn't harmed her or…"

 _Our baby_ , he thought, but he couldn't bring himself to finish his thought as a lump in his throat formed. Dora's former partner seemed to sense what Remus was thinking and frowned, his brows knitting together in quandary.

Ollie folded his arms across his chest. "If _you_ go in there, Crouch is going to kill you and he won't blink an eye once you're dead. Your fiancé is _pregnant_ ," Ollie pointed out bluntly and fixed Remus with a pointed stare. "You would truly leave your wife and baby childless if you go up against M—Master?" he stammered, his face paling at the mere mention of Crouch's name. " _No_." He shook his head vehemently. "Let _me_ go. _I'll_ get Tonks out. She—she can Disapparate to the B-Black Lake. D—Dumbledore already knows to expect you two, s—so he's lifted the pr—protective enchantments a—allowing you to Disapparate and Apparate on Hogwarts grounds. You will meet her there. Get Tonks someplace safe."

Lupin felt himself almost transform into stone as shame rained down on him. As much as he didn't want to admit it to himself, he was right.

Ollie turned towards Remus, who shook his head to convey he thought the boy's idea foolish. Lupin tried to talk the man out of this.

"Let me come with," he tried again. "We'll get her out. No matter what. It's too dangerous for you to go up against Crouch alone. He's—"

Ollie shook his head again, his face crumpling. " _I know what he is_!" bellowed Ollie, balling his hands into fists. "I will _not_ stand out here in safety while my best friend is in _there_ ," he pointed with a shaking finger towards Crouch's castle, "being _raped_ or _tortured_ or even _worse_. I…she…she's my only _friend_. She saved your life, I can't let her die, _werewolf_. I—I would gladly give my life for hers if it comes to that."

Lupin let out a tired sigh and soothingly patted the younger man on the back as the broken Obscurus let out frustrated sobs.

All the planning, all the risk that had been done to claw himself quite literally out of certain death at the hands of Fenrir Greyback would be wasted if they didn't save her.

"It's going to be all right. How do we do it, then? Any ideas?" Lupin asked soothingly.

He could feel Ollie shudder as the younger man reluctantly relinquished his grip on the fistfuls of Lupin's borrowed brown woolen sweater and straightened his posture.

Ollie shook his head. "Only one. Curse me."

Lupin heard himself splutter and every bone, every muscle in his body tensed and protested. "What?! _No_! You're _mad_ ," he griped angrily, stepping off away.

" _No_!" Ollie screeched, clawing at his head in anguish, and Lupin swore inside his mind, clenching his jaw shut in anger and annoyance.

There wasn't a Death Eater or a crow in these woods for miles that probably didn't hear his anguished yell.

"You _have_ to, Mr. Lupin, you _have_ to!" he pleaded, tugging on Remus's arm. "You hit me with the Imperius Curse, command me to go in there and get Tonks to safety. I—I'd tell M—Master C—Crouch that we…that I was commanded by Greyback to return to you a—after he found me, and that I'm her servant…H—he wants her well-taken care a—and looked after. He _does_."

Dora's former partner trailed off as his voice cracked in uncertainty, as though Ollie Brennan himself were having trouble processing his own words at this wildly spun tale of make-believe to get him past the doors.

"I will not do it," Remus growled through gritted teeth. " _No_!"

"Y—you _swore_ ," Ollie countered, a fiery passion beginning to ignite in his cold, glistening blue eyes. "I—if you're marrying Dora, then you s—swear an oath on your wedding day to protect her and your child, no matter the cost. Y—you aren't even _married_ yet, and y—you want to live long enough to get married and see your son or daughter be born, yes?"

But still, Lupin shook his head. He would not use an Unforgivable Curse on an innocent man, unconvinced and condescending of this foolish idea.

It was positively _insane_ , but then he had to remind himself that the boy wasn't all together himself, after years of abuse and physical torture.

He still could not look the young Obscurus in his cold blue eyes, though Ollie continued to try to get Remus to see his side of their plan.

"You _swear_ on your unborn baby that you'll do whatever it takes to protect y—your wife," he stammered, a light pink blush of anger speckling along his cheeks as he glowered at Remus, who looked aghast at his words. "You give your _word_ to me that you'll do this. It's the _only_ way. Don't do this for me. I know this is a one-way ticket for me. It's _always_ been the way. There _is_ no saving what I am," he growled, tugging on the sleeve of his black robe. "I don't think I know of any case in history where an Obscurus was separated successfully from the host and survived. I'm ready to die. _Save_ _her_."

Lupin continued to awkwardly gape at Dora's former partner, doing his absolute best to see his side of the plan, but there were too many variables. Crouch wasn't _stupid_. He was going to eventually figure it out.

But the boy was too frantic and growing increasingly upset as the seconds dragged on, that he almost boiled poor Remus down. He sighed.

"You're sure? You feel ready?" Remus asked begrudgingly, clutching his wand, and pointing it squarely at the broken man's broad, square chest.

Ollie stared numbly in midair before offering a mute nod. "Only way." He coughed once to clear his throat and looked down. " _Do_. _It_."

Remus stifled a wolfish growl between clenched teeth and rooted jaw. He circled the boy once with his mind deep in contemplative meditation.

This plan to lay siege to Crouch's estate with Greyback and the rest of his clan, all for the sake of one woman and their unborn child was turning out to be even more grueling than Lupin could have anticipated.

Oh, if only Sirius and James and Lily were here with him. They would know as to whether or not it was wise, this little unorthodox idea of Ollie's. Sweat formed as droplets on his brow despite the stinging cold.

" _Fine_ ," he spat meanly, the word sour and agitated on his cracked lips. "You get in there, get past Crouch, and get Tonks out. No matter what it takes. Make sure she gets to the Forbidden Forest. Let the wolves take care of Crouch," he growled, and he felt another stinging sensation start on the bridge of his nose at the thought of letting Barty Crouch Jr. slip through his fingers. He deserved to die as painful a death as Lupin could offer him.

Though, he supposed Ollie had a point, as loathe as he was to admit it.

Remus knew he could not keep putting himself in harm's way like this.

He was going to become a _father_. He had to be there for Dora. For their baby. "Fine," he said again, feeling the shift within himself give way.

With a slightly shaking hand, he steadied his wand and pointed it at the man's chest, watching as Ollie's wet face lighted in an understanding.

"Get her out. Tell her to wait for me by the Black Lake. _Kill_. _Him_." Lupin clenched his jaw shut as he practically growled the commands of his Imperius Curse. He let out a tense exhale and sighed. "Merlin forgive me."

Ollie suppressed a breath and held it, waiting for the curse's utterance.

Lupin raised his wand, digging the pointed tip into Ollie's chest.

" _Imperio_!"

The last thing Ollie remembered was seeing a vision of the man's face before the familiar flash of yellow light, and his eyes rolled up into his head.

He knew what he had to do.


	57. A Grim Announcement

**A/N: And now we get into the juicy parts of Part III, which would up being way longer than I anticipated, but that's what this longfic is for. Hope you enjoy it, and if you like it, please leave a review and let me know what works and what doesn't!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN **

Crouch dropped the tray on the small night table in Alice's bedroom and in the dead silence of the room it sounded like an exaggerated crashing.

" _Eat_ ," he commanded simply. "Winky informed me that you've been sick. That you've not eaten but you _need to eat_ , Alice. You'll feel better once you do, and I haven't gone out of my way to ensure you're comfortable here with me just to hear from Winky and Ollie," Here, he cast a glowering glance towards the broken Brennan man, who nervously cast his gaze down and actively averted Crouch's gaze, "that you've been starving yourself. _Eat_."

His command escaped his lips as a threatening growl. Alice was unmoved from the shadows, huddled into the furthermost corner of the room, her arms wrapped around her knees, chin resting on top of them. She did not respond to Barty at all. There was something in the darkness of her bedroom that was like a promise, Barty mused, like the world before dawn, the garish light of day. It was a room as a canvas rather than a finished work of art, and to Crouch, it was all that more exciting.

With each movement in the shadows, something new came to his hand, a tiny fragment more of the furniture took form, as did her figure. Almost as if they were waiting for Crouch to make them real. Barty stifled his growl of frustration as his gaze wandered the length of her figure.

Her feet were bare and scratched, her short dark chocolate pixie a disheveled mess from where she had seized on tufts of it in mass hysteria, her back bent as she faced away from him, her face turned towards the wall. Poor Alice looked like a corpse, Crouch thought, and he felt a stab of guilt prick at his heart. He had not intended _this_. Greyback and the other dogs were not supposed to kill the werewolf in such a brutal way.

Crouch had offered to bury the man's remains in another day or so, give the man a funeral out of the goodness of his own heart. She had accepted, though not without tears, and he was loathed to see she _cared_ for it. The only indication that betrayed that she was still alive to Barty Crouch Jr. was the slow rise and falling of her slender shoulders, the one thing that Crouch found his gaze drawn to as he examined his sweet Alice.

He let out a haggard sigh and raked his fingers through his dark hair as Crouch stared at the second tray that his house-elf Winky had brought up, next to the new one that he'd almost scattered as his temper swelled.

When the Dark Lord had summoned him by his side but an hour ago informing Barty that he wished to meet this girl of which had commanded the entirety of Crouch's attention away from his task at hand, Crouch had silently fumed.

Meetings with the Dark Lord and the rest of the Death Eaters were tedious and boring, and all Crouch could think of these days was feeling how Alice's lips moved in a kiss if she would fight him later tonight when he attempted to satiate himself at her image, and the two of them would consummate what was rightfully his, and Lord Voldemort once again was proving himself to be something of an _ass_ this time, to choose the day _after_ he had gotten Alice Prewitt to come with him of her own volition when she was still grieving for that wretched _werewolf_ and was not at her best.

It was cruel. Cruel and unfair. _Cruelly_ _unfair_ , he thought and growled in frustration.

These damned meetings were tedious tasks. Tedious, and boring, though he hoped that at least tonight, having Alice by his side, it would not be so boring.

"Eat and shower," he commanded. "Make yourself look presentable, darling. We've fetched…a distinguished guest to meet with you tonight. It is best that the Dark Lord sees you alive and unharmed." Crouch watched as the beautiful brunette gave a shuddering little twitch at the mention of Lord Voldemort's arrival, though again, she did not respond, her silent breathing and the steady rise and fall of her shoulders, he took this as added kindling to the fire that curdled his blood.

This strange infection of indifference that had somehow managed to worm its way into Alice's bloodstream like an infectious disease was everywhere in her body, and he could tell by her body language that she hated him. Reviled him as some sort of beast or monster. But it didn't matter. His fingers dug into his palms, a muscle in his jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth in anger. He would _take_ from her what he wanted.

Winky had reported to him that the girl had a tough night following the revelation that her precious _wolf_ was dead, and the poor thing had spent most of the night throwing up, barely able to keep down water, and had finally cried herself to sleep. The food: a chalice of ice-water, and a tray of a Full English breakfast, fried bacon, sausage, two fried eggs, baked beans in tomato sauce, fried tomatoes, and a slice of fried bread, lay untouched. It wasn't the _first_ tray that Alice had bluntly refused, according to Ollie, who Crouch had been surprised to find had returned to him under influence of the Imperius Curse, commanded to do so by Greyback.

Crouch, while still somewhat suspicious, had reluctantly allowed Alice to keep the man as her own personal attendant if it would please her to do so. She had requested Ollie specifically, and after much deliberation, he relented, wanting to keep her happy. She was his key to his father's inheritance and maintaining the Crouch family legacy, and just the thought of consummating their relationship tonight sent the familiar ache to his chest.

Oh, he supposed he ought to be guilty, Barty knew, but this was not the way.

No amount of guilt diffused the arousal that always sent power filling between his legs at the slightest whiff of sweet Alice's hair. But…there was also a certain sense of…pity, which he did not know why he felt this way. Was it out of a sense of guilt for what he'd done? Was that it?

Crouch bit the inside wall of his cheek and pinched at his temples with his thumb and forefinger, resisting the call of her aura. Not yet. No. He needed to wait.

"What is it that you want?" _Silence_. No response from Alice. "Food? A different drink, perhaps?" Nothing. "New dresses? Jewelry? Gold? Something of Shakespeare to read? Better accommodations?" Nothing, still, and Crouch growled in frustration. "Have it your way then, Alice. If you want nothing then, then perhaps I should move your own lodgings to my own bedroom and—"

But Crouch's last word was left hanging in the air as her sweet voice cut through him icily, now sounding angered.

"You can _die_ slowly and cut into a thousand _pieces_ for all I care," Alice snarled, and when Crouch turned towards the source of her voice, he was surprised to see she had shakily risen to her feet, using the wall as a support brace to steady herself, as her equilibrium still looked off from her sickness. "You _killed_ my fiancé," she growled.

This time, it was he who now found himself at a total loss for words. His mind felt like it was reeling as it raced into consideration. Crouch felt his head whiplash sharply upwards to see the Brennan boy standing in the doorway, and he felt a stab of annoyance prick at his heart and waved him away. " _Leave_."

He commanded curtly, and he breathed a small sigh of relief as the boy first shot a brief gaze to Alice, who offered a curt nod in response, and the young man dipped his head in submission and fled the room, and Crouch waited until his footsteps had faded away to respond.

There was, admittedly, a deeper layer of himself that wanted to fulfill whatever Alice wanted that would send her back on her feet again, that she would love him, as he loved her, and she would give him an heir.

"Repeat it to yourself until you believe it. He deserved it. He was a werewolf, darling. He would have only brought you down to his level, and as a pureblood with so much potential, you have so much more than that to offer the wizarding community. I did not intend for Greyback's men to kill him, but if you have a grievance with that, you take it up with _him_. Not me. _I_ was not the one who mauled him. You _will_ show yourself at dinner," Crouch spoke carefully, closing his eyes and trying to calm his temper. "And perhaps after dinner, I can take you to see _him_ , if you would like that. We can finally bury him and put what's left of his wretched body in the tombs, may his soul be at peace, and may he find the peace in death that he could not seem to find in life," he growled, though his blood surged at the thought of her being allowed in the crypts, however, they needed to burn the body. "Show yourself, sweetheart, and I will help you to bury him. I give you my word, Alice."

This might actually work. What better way for Alice to put the dog out of her mind by watching his remains burn to ashes? And what better way than to do that with her by his side bear witness? Barty Crouch Jr. watched as Alice's lips pursed into a thin line and her gray eyes flashed and became that of steel.

"Then I will go to him _alone_."

He chuckled with mocking undertones laced throughout his voice, a thing that came so naturally to him that he didn't even have to try anymore.

"You _really_ think I would let you do that, sweetheart? I'm not _stupid_. I know what happens if you go _alone_. You'd find some way to _escape_ or send a message to your precious Ministry informing them of your location," he crooned quietly, reaching up a hand to tuck a stray wisp of her dark brown pixie back into place.

Crouch let out a growl of frustration as Alice violently shirked away from his touch and pressed her back as far into the corner as she could go and looked at him with such venom in her eyes. He half expected the young woman would grow fangs, the snarling, savage She-Wolf that she was, and dig them into his neck right here and now, but that moment for him never came, for which he was relieved.

"Go to your dinner then, for I will not be joining you on this night, or any _other_ night, Crouch," Alice snapped meanly, folding her arms across her chest, and turning away from him, actively averting his gaze. "Please announce to your Death Eaters and Moldy Voldy that I've just _hanged_ myself and I should sooner rather slit my own wrists than _ever_ dine with you or attend a meeting with your precious _Dark_ _Lord_."

As if to emphasize her point, the young witch rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. Crouch felt his blood boil and he froze when he caught sight of the pink jagged horizontal lines along the delicate skin of her birdlike wrists. He heard himself intake a sharp breath of cold air that felt more like a hiss.

He himself was hardly aware that he reached out an almost tender hand as the pad of his thumb ghosted lightly over the streak of pink and against white. Barty Crouch Jr. fought the nervous swirls that braided in his weakened stomach, trying to speculate about something alternate, something that had no recollection on how those scars were birthed onto the pure, fresh white skin of her wrists. But he couldn't, Crouch could not undo the images that were embedded thickly in his troubled mind, at the sight that Alice was suffering so much that she had been willing to attempt to take his own life, and he hated her for it.

Now, he would have no choice but to station a guard outside her rooms at all times. He simply could not trust Alice to be left alone by herself. Seeing her like this _ached_.

"How dare you talk back to me like that?!" he shouted, his face reddening in anger. "Have you no idea of the sense of your position?"

When she seemed to favor silence as an apt response, he grew even angrier.

"How could you _do_ that to yourself?!" he growled, aghast at what she had done. Alice was perfect as she was, and she had…she had _defiled_ herself. Now she wasn't. She was scarred, imperfect, flawed. Her own pains had done this to her. Quicker than she thought possible, Crouch closed off the gap of space between them, which was admittedly less than three feet of space, and backhanded the young brunette across the cheek.

The slap was as loud as a clap and stung her face, as the razor-sharp edges of his ruby and emerald rings cut cleanly into her previously unblemished pale flesh as they made contact. The force of his hit snapped her neck back with the force of his blow, causing her head to reel sickeningly as it slammed into the wall behind her.

Alice did not cry out in pain or surprise, though she did raise a shaking hand to the right side of her face as something wet and moist had begun to well near the red marking just underneath her eye. He'd cut her.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, but the woman held them at bay. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry again.

Crouch's face contorted into a mask of pure rage, his dark brown eyes ablaze with a fire so dark, it almost turned the very whites of his eyes black.

Barty Crouch Jr. did his absolute best to restrain the waves of staggering cold that came at him from behind as he watched in awe and pure onslaught as Alice Prewitt, despite the blow she had been dealt, seemed to stand a little taller, more confident than before, a muscle in her jaw twitched as her gray eyes flashed indignantly, prepared to accept whatever punishment was about to come her way.

Were this any other witch, he would have taken her to the dungeons below his family's estate and flayed her alive until there was no skin left on her bones. He'd have strangled her or have her beaten naked until she begged for him to stop, which he wouldn't until she submitted to him completely and was at his mercy.

Crouch let out a frustrated, animalistic snarl and seized a fistful of her sweater and pulled her close, leaning in so the tip of her nose touched his.

"How _dare_ you besmirch the Dark Lord's name in such a disrespectful manner, Prewitt? Will I be forced to beat you? You disrespect his name again, and I'll snap your neck! Shut the hell up and listen. _Listen to me_ ," he emphasized darkly through gritted teeth. "I do not know how it was like for you while you were working at the Ministry, Alice. But here, you're in _my_ world now," he snarled. "You might have been able to get away with your silly little outbursts at your job with no punishment, but here, such slanderous, vicious remarks are viewed upon as _treason_. If the Dark Lord hears you speak of him in that regard, _he will kill you_."

Again, the young brunette witch favored silence as an apt response.

Something in his eyes sparked and softened as he looked at her. "I _cannot_ let you die, Alice. You do not know yet how much you mean to me." His Alice remained silent for a moment as she regarded Crouch impassively, and for a moment, he thought he might strike her again.

He gave out a frustrated sigh of exasperation and raked a finger through his thick tuft of unruly dark hair before relinquishing his grip on her wrist. "You _will_ join us in the hall for dinner. It's not a request, little dove. You _will_ show yourself, dressed and presentable, or I'll flay you."

Without even wiping the spit from her ashen face, Alice leaned in closer, perfectly composed, and uttered just three simple words. Just three.

" _I_. _Don't_. _Care_." She shoved against his chest, hard, though it did little good to move him. There was no heat in her voice, as if her heartbeat so steadily, even though she took a different viewpoint from Crouch's own.

Crouch felt his face as it mottled crimson, a vein in his neck straining as his fiery temper threatened to implode. His words were spat out with the ferocity and rapidity of jinxes being fired in a myriad of directions. His fuse simmered and fizzed like a firework in a chill autumn breeze, and then he exploded with unrestrained fury and seized the tray he'd brought up for her and flung it, watching as it sailed across the bedroom and hit the opposite wall. Chunks of food flew every which way, but he didn't give a damn. Alice remained as still and stoic as a cadaver and just as pallid, unblinking against his onslaught, keeping her arms folded across her chest.

"You'll _regret_ this offense, little dove, mark my words," Crouch glowered at her, his baritone voice lowered to an even darker tone. He narrowed his gaze at Alice, who still remained unmoved and eerily calm.

He seized her by the wrist and rested his forehead against Alice's shoulder, shoving her up against the wall and exhaled, still feeling somewhat overwhelmed at how she was able to transport him back to the Forbidden Forest during his time as a young lad at Hogwarts, how her hair smelled of eucalyptus and pine and willow wood. She smelled of fern, wild orchids. Of the Forest. She smelled of magic, and he took it all in selfishly.

Crouch's hands came to grip almost painfully tight on her waist. He had been attempting to tame himself, resist the call of the witch's aura, though it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to manage this feat.

Alice squeezed her eyes tightly shut and bit down on her bottom lip, sticking it out in a slight pout and he heard her whimper as she fought to repress a sob. Her heart thrummed erratically with fear, and it felt like music to Crouch's skin and made it crawl and prickle with gooseflesh in pleasure. "You're beautiful, Al. Can't you _see_ that?" he murmured, whispering it into the shell of her ear and nipped at the lobe gently.

"Th—thank you. Milord Crouch is too kind," Alice whispered, and he felt her posture stiffen as her leg accidentally brushed against his thigh.

Crouch's hold on her waist tightened, his fingers turning into claws, and he almost growled with the vast effort to restrain the fire in his legs.

But he could also recognize Alice's courage to stand still, despite witnessing the mauled, maimed corpse of her former lover, and the agreement to marry the bastard who had destroyed not one, but two of her partners. She was tougher than anyone thought or gave her credit for, he knew.

Crouch felt something ignite within himself and give way. "Do you believe in love, Alice?" he asked, not sure where this question was coming from, but he knew that her answer would help quell the ache in his loins.

"I…" she stammered, seemingly too stunned to respond. "Yes."

And it was with her answer, that the fire extinguished immediately, and he surrendered to her will, stepping back, and relinquishing his grip on her waist. He heard Alice breathe an audible sigh of relief as he staggered backward. Crouch wanted to see her budge, give a twitch, something to indicate that the young witch had heard and understood his words, but she didn't.

He strode toward the door in utter defeat, though before wrenching open the door, he risked one last glance at the young witch. "Alice." Her name on his tongue gave the young brunette pause and she froze, silently waiting for him to speak. He turned his head a fraction of an inch and lowered his gaze so that Alice could only see the side of his face, cold gaze cast downward. " _Don't_."

Just a single word, but it was enough to give her a start at the word, and she blinked owlishly at him. _Ollie said to me the same thing in the graveyard_.

"What?" The confusion was evident on her face as she gaped at him, her pink, luscious full lips parted open in shock. "I—I don't understand." She swallowed nervously and fidgeted with her knuckles.

"Don't believe in it," he growled. "You'll be better off, Alice."

She was stunned, and he hated her for this. "Why? It was all she asked, and Crouch could swear he could almost read Alice's mind, though he was no Legillimens like Ollie Brennan or Severus Snape were. Far from it.

Though there was a truth to what he had said. The word was a dark, cruel place because it was devoid of such a simple concept such as love. But Alice Prewitt had grown up in a house surrounded by it, whereas he had known nothing but abuse at Father's hand, a man who he'd looked up to and cherished above all else, wanting nothing more than to please him. It was real, though isolated, and it had always escaped his clutches.

And the simple fact of the matter was that he could not believe in it, as much as he cherished Alice and wanted her for himself, for her to love him, to show him what it meant. _I don't have it_. "Because I don't have it," Crouch growled, hating the crack and faltering dip in his voice. "It's stupid and it doesn't exist, Prewitt, no matter what you thought you had for your wretched wolf," he snarled.

Without even having to turn to regard sweet Alice, he could imagine the young brunette witch staring aghast at his words in disgust, and he knew that their conversation was done. He strode towards the door and his hand hovered over the knob, keeping his fingers on the latch of the door, and when the familiar ache touched him, he growled in frustration and wrenched the door open to find none other than the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic.

The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic gave a low hemming cough as she was surprised to find Crouch just outside of Miss Tonks' room, hands clasped neatly in front of them, unmoved and stock-still, as though he'd been expecting her arrival. Crouch slammed the door to Alice's room so hard that it rattled on its hinges. Bartemius Crouch's only son was regarding Dolores's arrival with no small amount of emotion akin to relief and minor amusement in his eyes, something which she considered an astonishing feat considering in the short time of knowing Crouch Jr., the man almost never smiled at all.

_How convenient. The She-Wolf has tamed this beast_. Umbridge gave her head a curt shake of her head to clear her mind of unhelpful thoughts, almost apathetic in a way, to the cool October breeze that wafted its way through the otherwise drafty and dimly lit hallways.

"She's all yours, Madame Undersecretary. May you have better luck in getting her to talk than I," he growled, moving to stand outside the doorway and strode off, leaving Umbridge to stand outside Alice's room in a slight daze, dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his black leather trench coat, wishing Winky was here so he could kick at her down the hallway and vent some of his frustrations on it.

Although Alice might have assumed otherwise, she was not alone in questioning her own actions as she had dared to speak the Dark Lord's name in blasphemous turns. He growled and stalked down the hall as he clenched and unclenched his hands as he tried to understand.

What in the seven hells had he been thinking?!

_To join me for dinner, the day after I showed you the damned wolf's corpse_.

Crouch growled in frustration as he flung open a set of doors that led out onto the castle's roof. Every single time he was around this strange, delectable creature, he seemed to lose every fiber of his being and nerve and acted out irrationally.

So much so, that he might as well be under the Imperius Curse, as he hardly seemed to be in control of his own actions when he was with Alice. He could not even begin to understand it, as he had no reason to become so rattled by her theatrics and outburst, but every time he saw her, he just…lost control.

It was nonsensical, the way that he was behaving. Once he stepped outside and allowed the cold autumnal breeze to tousle his hair, Crouch lifted a hand to his temples as they began to ache. Merlin be damned.

It wasn't necessarily that he was ashamed that he had spoken to Alice in such an authoritative manner, though he did regret daring to lay a hand against her when she had spoken out against the Dark Lord, by the time Barty had managed to come to his senses, he had begun to speak to her in the way that every husband ought to his wife.

But…given the fact that the Dark Lord was demanding Alice's presence at dinner this evening to get a good glimpse for himself out of pure curiosity and onslaught at the young witch who'd stolen his heart and stolen away all of Barty Crouch Jr.'s concentration, for Merlin only knows why, but Crouch knew he ought to have been more a _gentleman_ about this and approach the situation with kid gloves, really.

She was still grieving for that wretched dog and was _not_ thinking clearly. Given Alice Prewitt's prickly nature, what he remembered of her from her days as a student, Alice was hardly going to want to appear at his side if he had basically barked at her. Crouch snarled and carded his fingers through his hair. He deserved to dig up a hole in the woods behind his family's castle and bury himself in it for his own damned stupidity just now.

He had never suffered from such a problem quite like this before. This woman, this creature…his Alice.

She was unlike any other witch he'd ever encountered before. And that, while admirable in its own right, was not exactly in a good way. Crouch had only been in the young witch's presence now a small handful of times, and each time he was, he tended to forget who he was, even who she was.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, and made Barty feel on edge, as though nothing mattered but her.

_Just her_ , he thought and clenched his jaw. Alice made him feel… _Nervous_. No matter how much he regretted the course of action he had taken in allowing Greyback and the other cannibalistic _beasts_ to have their way with the Lupin man's corpse, seeing how it had sent poor Alice into a state of hysterics and she was now effectively starving herself, he could not undo and reverse what he had allowed to happen, though there was the small tinge of his personality ached at seeing his Alice like this.

It was too late. Crouch was, at the very least, grateful that his Alice looked upon him with no small measure of scorn in those haunting gray orbs of hers, as though he were the very Devil himself. In truth, he knew she was wrong to think of him in those terms. He cared for her.

He loved her, at least, he was trying, but he had simply been too stunned at the likeness between the two women, how much this new Alice resembled the old, to react logically.

Alice Prewitt was a young witch who was much too outspoken for her own good, and if she weren't careful, then she would be at the mercy and whims of the Dark Lord's temperament tonight, and that…he simply could not allow.

_Damn you, Alice_! _You'll surely die at the Dark Lord's hand tonight if you cannot control that tongue of yours that must be hung in the middle so it can wag at both ends_. Agitation felt like it struck Crouch like the plague. He sighed irritated. Somehow, she managed to get away with it.

Well. Not a _third_ time.

Crouch's corners of his mouth twitched. The two of them would get through this bloody council meeting of the Dark Lord's tonight if he had to enchant her mouth shut temporarily. He did not bother to fight back his smile. He knew how to play the little game Alice wanted to play. And how to win. With that, his spirit calmed the violent war waging with his chest and heart, and he whistled.

As he strode down off the roof and back inside his father's castle, he was not aware of Ollie Brennan ducked behind a parapet, listening in to every word of Crouch's thoughts, a dark look in his cerulean blue orbs…

* * *

**Things aren't looking so great for poor Tonks? Will she be able to survive an hour in Umbridge's company and the upcoming dreaded meeting with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Coming soon! :)**


	58. I Must Not Tell Lies

**CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT**

Dolores took a moment to adjust her pink cardigan and smooth her dress of any wrinkles and shot what was supposed to be a charming smile Miss Tonks's way, and she cast a slightly wary look towards the little house-elf outside, and she too, shot the wretched little creature a smile, though it did not meet her eyes as she stepped inside.

Perhaps 'smile' wasn't necessarily the right word for it. The top white row of her teeth was showing, and there was a faint curve to her pink-painted lips, but there was no creasing below her eyes, no movement of her plump, rogue-tinted cheeks.

On anyone else, it would be a grimace, at best. On her pudgy face, however, it was a sign of glee, a euphoric bliss.

She heard the occasional hoot of what sounded like a barn owl, though she could not be certain, and the parchment between Dolores's stubby, stout fingers crumpled as she felt her pink-manicured fingers curl into a fist and she gave a curt tapping of her wand and the parchment vanished from her hands.

The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister had always thought of herself a clever and manipulative witch. She knew how to play the game.

To advance herself with the most powerful people who had connections at the Ministry of Magic and secretly smirking and giggling at their stupidities and foolishness.

However, this time, Fate, it would seem, if her latest correspondence from none other than Fenrir Greyback was to be believed, it would seem that she was not the _only_ one who wished to see Crouch's head on a spike. Though if she had it her way, he wouldn't.

 _Crouch would be mine to take down, dog_ , she thought, as she bit the inside wall of her cheek and ran her tongue along the top row of her teeth.

She was fully intent on apprehending him at the earliest opportunity, though the question was _how_ to do it?

These things must be done delicately, and there could be no indication, no trace left behind whatsoever of her involvement into Bartemius Crouch's son's schemes.

Tension met her upon opening the door to the Auror's bedroom here in the Crouch estate. She had thought she was in the wrong room, for as deranged as Crouch was, he truly did seem to care for 'Alice Prewitt,' and would have expected the young witch would be granted better accommodations, but inside the room was a queen bed with a four post setup and light see-through curtains, a bedside table with a candle holder and a simple trunk and chest of drawers.

There was also a small window, through which the sunlight streamed through, the sky looking like rain was coming soon.

For a brief moment, Dolores Jane Umbridge stood dazed at the bright young witch as she had stridden towards the window, her arms folded across her chest and she had seemed to sense her presence.

"Madame Undersecretary." Her voice was flat and numb, devoid of any emotion, and Dolores thought it strange coming from Nymphadora.

When she turned to regard Dolores, Umbridge was (yet again, as always) startled at how much she looked like Alice Longbottom when the young witch was younger in her mid-twenties.

But of course, Alice was dead, and the resemblance was uncanny, an unfortunate, sad coincidence.

"If you're here to arrest Barty Crouch Jr., then by all _means_ , please do so, for he has _murdered_ my partner and brought me here." Tonks offered a jerk of her head towards the window and pursed her lips in a thin line.

Umbridge strode towards where the younger woman stood and followed her line of sight and saw what Nymphadora Tonks was looking at.

Her inquisitive gaze followed Tonks's line of sight as her eyes settled on Crouch, though she pretended to comment on the white rose gardens.

"It really _is_ something, isn't it? The courtyard? His mother loved gardening, or so Bartemius at the Ministry when he was still alive was oft fond of reminding anyone who would listen. A pretty sight, indeed," Umbridge sighed wearily, causing Tonks to turn her head and regard the older, shorter, plumper witch in silence. "I am sorry to hear of Lupin. His death was a _tragedy_."

At the thought of Remus, Tonks felt her throat begin to constrict and tighten and she swallowed past the lump forming in her throat. Crouch, the vicious bastard, that evil _snake_ , he had _lied_ to her. _Broken_ his promise.

He had _promised_ her that Remus and the others wouldn't get hurt.

And now…he was dead. In her eyes, Crouch was a vile, vicious monster.

He could suffer, die slowly, cut into a _thousand_ pieces with his own blade, and only then would she find that a satisfying end for the man's life.

" _Are_ you?" Tonks asked, wincing visibly at how cold her voice sounded.

She was not quick to forget the way she had been treated in St. Mungo's.

"I told you the _truth_ , Madame Umbridge. That it was Crouch's son and you did _not_ believe me. You yelled at Remus, insulted the man, and now, because you refused to take my word, Lupin is _dead_."

Umbridge flinched. "You will have to forgive an aging witch, dear. Tensions were high that day. I reacted to your news poorly and lost my temper towards both you and your partner."

Tonks looked as though she did not fully believe her, but given how horribly ill she looked, Dolores knew she lacked strength to argue with the Secretary.

"Crouch is…insane," she whispered hoarsely, blinking back tears. "I…the—Lord Voldemort is coming here tonight, Madame Undersecretary. You _have_ to get me out of here, Dolores, _please_ ," she begged, biting her bottom lip.

Dolores felt herself give a start. She could not remember a time of when the young Auror had asked her for anything. "Your safety is assured, dearie, I can promise you that, but I need more time," she explained, registering the dawning look of horror on the young brunette's face. "Surely, you can see it from my position, dearie," she began in a falsely sweet, honeyed voice as she gave a short tap of her wand and conjured two chairs out of midair and bade her sit. "Would you care for something to drink, dear? You're looking peaky. You should sit before you pass out."

The Senior Undersecretary watched as Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and finally relented, sitting in the chair next to Umbridge, and folded her arms across her chest, one of her feet tapping restlessly.

"Madame Umbridge, with all due respect, I am _out_ of time. Lord Voldemort is said to come here tonight, to see _me_ , Madame Undersecretary. I _cannot_ allow Crouch or anyone to touch me ever again…" Just that thought alone was enough to send a chill of revulsion down her spine.

Tonks found it rather disconcerting that Umbridge wished to talk. She averted Dolores's piercing gaze that felt as fire at the back of her skull and instead returned her attention towards the orange and red leaves outside her window, feeling as the slight breeze kissed her hair and pinked her cheeks.

As she closed her eyes, she felt them begin to well up with tears. Ollie was right, earlier, when he'd stopped by to check on her, seeing how she was feeling after an entire night of being able to keep nothing down, and it still felt like her stomach swooped and churned, and she was getting used to tasting the constant bitter acidic bile coating the back of her throat.

Lupin would have wanted her to carry on. She had to be strong and survive so that she could see Remus again soon in the afterlife, for Tonks knew she would sooner _die_ and slit her own wrists, or her throat than ever allow Crouch to lay a single hand on her.

Umbridge moved to stand behind her and placed a pudgy hand on her left shoulder, near her collarbone, and Tonks recoiled instinctively, feeling as though her personal space had been violated, as well as the close proximity of the older witch.

Their shoulders were practically touching as Umbridge sat beside her, conjuring a teacup out of mid-air and making a show of pouring a little packet of sugar into it, lifting the pink floral cup to her lips and studying Tonks's numb, emotionless expression over the rim of the teacup carefully.

Umbridge noticed where Tonks's flat gaze had wandered, to the window, and she spoke, setting her teacup down.

"I would not consider that an option if I were you, Miss Tonks," she answered steadily. "There are _wolves_ in the forest, young lady, and not to mention, if I am not mistaken about these matters, did you not once attempt to take your own life and were…unsuccessful?" It was worth the giggle that almost escaped her lips just to see the horror on Miss Tonks's face. "You are, like it or _not_ , the next in line for the Head of the Auror Department, and it would truly be a tragedy for poor old Alastor and Mr. Shacklebolt and everyone in the Ministry to lose such a talented young witch if you were to attempt to commit suicide."

Dolores watched as Miss Tonks's face flushed and she looked away, a light pink blush speckling along her too-pale features.

" _Why_?" Nymphadora Tonks growled, and even Umbridge flinched at the harsh curtness of her tone. "There's _nothing_ left for me here," she cried, sniffling once or twice. "He's _gone_. The only man who ever loved me is _dead_."

Silence fell on the pair of witches, but Umbridge, who considered herself to be an excellent judge of character, could sense the tension and animosity the young Auror harbored for her, and, she guessed, for Crouch.

And Umbridge was quick to decide that she did not like it at all. She watched as Nymphadora Tonks's gray eyes glistened and brimmed with tears and there was reluctance at first, but soon, Tonks seemed to relax at the simple gesture of feeling Dolores's hand on her shoulder and sighed.

Dolores molded her cheeks into a simpering, sympathetic smile that Tonks, in her mental agitated state, would not be able to tell it was false, and soothingly patted her on top of her hair.

"You are safe for now, dearie. You are correct in assuming that I am here to apprehend Crouch on several counts of kidnapping, rape, torture, aiding and abetting the Dark Lord, but it is not that simple, I am afraid. His trial before the full Wizengamot Court would not hold up without evidence, and since he's taken a shine to you."

Well. Was this young woman _really_ going to make her say the rest of it? Her hand remained intact on Miss Tonks's shoulder a little longer, with her imagination rolling at the prospect of what their new minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, would do for her once he learned of Umbridge's sole involvement in helping apprehend a well-known, high-ranking Death Eater. And in truth, she begrudgingly admitted that she liked this girl.

"I…I'm afraid I don't understand," Tonks began hesitantly, playing with her fingertips to keep them warm, weaving her fingers in between her knuckles. "What _exactly_ is it that you're suggesting to me, Madame Undersecretary?"

Umbridge sighed, pinching at the bridge of her nose. "I am merely _suggesting_ , child, that you allow yourself to get close to Crouch. Find me the evidence that I need. Letters sent via owl post, any indication that he has been in contact with the Dark Lord pertaining to his plans to usurp our Minister. Help me to take him down, dear, and you'll not want for anything the rest of your life. You will be well taken care of, as will your family. A nice house, wealth beyond your imagination if you succeed in your endeavors, Miss Tonks. Minister Scrimgeour will reward you quite handsomely for your efforts. I don't think it will be a _difficult_ task for you, considering how taken he is with you, yes?" she simpered in a falsetto.

Miss Tonks, and Umbridge was uncertain if helping the young witch was an ulterior motive because she was now the newly-appointed Head of the Auror Department…or if it was a form of vengeance against her partner, Remus John Lupin, the filthy half-breed _dog_ who'd spoken out against her, and upon her arrival in the estate, Crouch's little house-elf had spoken in confidence to the Undersecretary of an ailment the creature believed the young witch to be suffering from.

Something that not even Bartemius was yet made aware of, though he would be by meeting's end.

Tonks furrowed her brows in contemplative thought, frowning.

"How did you know where to find me, Madame Undersecretary…?"

Something in the young Auror's tone shifted and she became angered.

"And how are you _here_? No one should know where I am, according to _him_. Is this another _lie_?! Or have you been aiding and abetting Crouch this whole time? Don't even think of lying to me, Madame Undersecretary, I know when someone is lying to me, and I don't need to be a skilled Legillimens like my former partner is to tell when someone isn't telling the truth! Tell me the _truth_ , I want answers from you! _Why_ are you _here_? _How_?" she accused hotly, feeling her pale face drain of color.

Umbridge looked towards Miss Tonks, hearing the weakened, hoarse voice that was hers, at the grief-stricken pale face with dried tear tracts and still held a youthful beauty despite the amount of anguish she suffered from.

"Nymphadora, you _must_ listen to me very carefully. Allow me to make things…quite _plain_ ," Umbridge breathed, choosing her words cautiously and she spoke slowly, as if speaking to a twelve-year-old child. "I know things have been most _difficult_ for you, and secrets were kept, but before you judge, allow me to clarify and explain myself to you, yes?"

Tonks did not respond, though she bit the inside wall of her cheek and nodded, gray eyes wide with apprehension and fear, and a curiosity.

Umbridge reached across the armrest of her chair and gripped onto the young witch's hand. Until the young woman offered a feeble nod of her head again did she continue speaking to Tonks.

"I have heard of what you did in order to protect Mr. Lupin. Sacrificing yourself in his place. It was a very brave thing you did, dear. I…heard of your mistreatments. I learned of your tragedies, the horrible, gruesome fate that befell that man." Here, she swallowed. "Our new Minister has insisted Mr. Lupin be the first of his kind to be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class," she confessed, fuming.

She scrunched her nose in disgust and shuddered, though internally, she was gleeful and had to work incredibly hard to repress her girlish giggle.

"I have indeed been corresponding with Mr. Crouch these last few weeks, but it is not what you think, dearie. Far from it. I have merely been keeping tabs on the man, waiting for the opportune moment to move in and have our Aurors make the arrest, and I could not do that without more information, and I know you've been waiting for a rescue for a few days, but given the fact that it was until recently news to me, I could not make a concrete plan to have someone come and fetch you. And _poor_ Lupin… I am afraid that I was not quick enough, and for that, I am afraid I must bear the blame for your current predicament, dear. But I will do all in my power to help you get out."

Umbridge felt herself pause as she heard the hitched and half-choked sob emanating from the younger witch's lips and she fought back a smirk.

"He was a strong wizard, and a kind man, despite our… _differences_ ," Umbridge began somewhat hesitantly, lacing her pink manicured fingers together. "Your Remus wanted to have me _arrested_ , but I admired the man well enough."

Dolores gave a pause as Miss Tonks's face crumpled at the mere mention of Lupin's name. The werewolf did hold importance for her. Even more true if what that accursed wretch of a house-elf, Winky, told her downstairs was true.

She had believed the _dog_ , Lupin, to be of low priority, but now, given what she knew, that was not the case at all.

Not if what the house-elf had confided was the truth…

Dolores watched as Miss Tonks's silent weeping was worse than a screaming tantrum or fully-fledged mass hysteria and sobbing. Her eyes welled up with the sadness her young years should simply not possess.

They showed her soul, what little was left of it, that was. The silence of her broken, mournful weeping was hauntingly eerie and sent a tremor down Umbridge's spine, like she had been forced to learn how to cry this way.

What would it take to mend a soul as damaged as hers? She didn't know. She didn't _want_ to.

"H—he saved me…" Tonks inhaled through a deep, shuddering breath once the last wretched tear fell down her cheek and she sniffed, reaching up a hand to wipe it away. "Remus did all that he could in his power to save him and I did _nothing_ to him but allow him to get _killed_." Her face twisted and contorted with grief as she turned away from Dolores.

Umbridge shut her eyes with a long, exaggerated sigh. "Oh, my poor dear," she murmured, lowering her voice, hearing the falsely sweet honey that practically dripped from her words. "I know that what I ask of you is no small feat, and I would not ask this of you were there no other way…I am… _sorry_ , so incredibly _sorry_ , my dear, that this has all fallen upon you. I should not even _ask_ this of you, and were there no other way, then…"

Tonks slowly swiveled her head and regarded Umbridge with a listlessness in her gray eyes that was not at all like the bright young witch.

 _It does not suit her_ , Dolores thought meanly, biting on her cheek.

Tonks slowly closed her eyes and breathed in and out shaking, slow breaths, seeming to take a minute to find her voice.

"He _murdered_ Remus in the worst possible way, Madame Undersecretary, though it was not by his hand, he still allies himself with Fenrir Greyback. _His_ men, _his_ plan, _his_ guilt," she growled through gritted teeth. "I would see him back in Azkaban no matter the cost, Madame Undersecretary. No matter what. Things happen, Dolores. No matter what the event, its effects cripple me just the same, Madame."

She sighed, resting her head against the headrest of her chair, beads of sweat on her brow and dark circles on her brow.

Umbridge nodded, a show of false sympathy and understanding etched on her pudgy features. "Pain truly has shaped you differently, my dear child. You've undergone true horrors no one else can scarcely even imagine, not your family, not even your fellow coworkers in the Auror Department."

She let out a sigh and lifted a hand and tucked a wisp of Miss Tonks's dark chocolate pixie back behind her ear where it belonged, to which she did not receive a response, much less a thank-you from the witch, which normally, she'd have seethed at, but given the nature of conversation, she chose to let it go.

"There is, however, one more matter that commands your utmost attention, dearie, and I am afraid that it is quite urgent, Miss Tonks. It pertains to your physical condition. I am sure you have been wondering why you have been suffering from relentless ailments of the stomach?"

A nod from her, and Umbridge coughed once to clear her throat and continue. Umbridge was briefly aware of the tiny little house-elf coming to stand in the doorway, nervously playing with its slender figures in agitation.

Tonks waited for the Senior Undersecretary to elaborate further. The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister regarded Miss Tonks in silence and cocked her head to the side as she surveyed the younger witch.

For a moment, she saw Nymphadora as she was. Pain in those gray orbs of hers, haunted, and unable to pull herself out of her vicious cycle of grief and despair.

The young witch would forever be in pain knowing that the father of her unborn accursed little whelp was dead at the hands of another of his own kind.

 _Serves him right_ , Umbridge thought wickedly. It was going to be up to the young witch to find that 'thing' which would give her a newfound resolve in wake of the werewolf's death, and like it or not, Dolores begrudgingly hated to admit, she needed her help.

Crouch could not be allowed to suspect her, and given how much the man's insatiable lust for blood seemed to be quenched whenever the man was around this young witch, his 'Alice,' as he called her, then it was going to have to fall to her to collect the evidence that Umbridge needed.

And it was then that a light seemed to ignite in Dolores's eyes as she came to the realization of what would give Miss Tonks a newfound resolve, the strength to carry out the final touches of Umbridge's brilliant scheme.

"You do know that you're carrying his _child_ , my dear, don't you? The reason for your ailments, why you can keep nothing down is that you're _pregnant_ with his _baby_ , dear."

The way Miss Tonks's breath hitched in her throat and her pale; ashen skin almost turned purple at the unexpected revelation answered her question.

That the young Auror, did not, in fact, up until this point, know that she was pregnant with an accursed half-blooded _filthy_ werewolf _cub_.

"I…my…no, _what_?" she whispered hoarsely, groping at her very-flat and in Umbridge's opinion, malnourished and too skinny abdomen. "Is it…did I…did I lose…?" she begged through tears, remembering how she'd bled, and all her episodes of throwing up she'd had thus far, hardly able to keep anything down, not even water over the last couple of nights, she thought briefly back to the meeting she'd had with Severus.

She bit her bottom lip in anguish and blinked owlishly at Dolores.

"There has been some bleeding," Umbridge announced, privately smiling to herself at the utter horror and shock that clung to Miss Tonks's face before playing the part of her savior and pulling her out of her demise. "But with the care of a doctor while you were unconscious last night, a private St. Mungo's Healer under contract with Crouch was able to cease it. This is a very critical time for you, my dear. You're in a special and yet critical condition. I must take great precautions to warn you against putting your body under any kind of taxation and stress, not to delve in anxiety."

Dolores fell silent for a minute and watched as Miss Tonks considered her words, and a single, lone tear traced down her pale cheek and fell on the floor.

She considered herself nothing more than a visionary with a dream. The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister did not care what witches and wizards thought of her as long as they obeyed the commands.

She acknowledged that she had… 'odd' methods, but they worked. Dolores knew better than most what life in their community should be like, and Dolores also knew that many things and creatures in this world were inferior to her. In her position, she viewed it as simply being merciful.

Dolores Jane Umbridge knew that if she did not save Miss Tonks with the wonders of eventual, certain death, of which she was sure to face at Crouch's hands, then she would die with the horror that was her new life.

Though admittedly, there was something of the young Auror's stillness that greatly unnerved Dolores. In her stillness, she scared her, almost. Perhaps it was the light from the sun making her skin appear so ghostly white and pale, or the lack of wind now letting every stray strand and wisp of her hair hang without any kind of movement at all, Umbridge could not quite say for certain.

Miss Tonks did not even blink upwards at Dolores, she just kept her gaze fixated out the window as if the nature whispered secrets in the shell of her ear, though what was being said, she didn't know.

Dolores gave a light hemming cough as she covered her mouth with her handkerchief before tucking the pink-laced thing back into her cardigan pocket.

"I cannot imagine the insurmountable pain you must be going through. Your…this _child_ …" Here, she wildly gesticulated with her pudgy, pink-manicured nails towards Miss Tonks's still very flat stomach, "could only be a reminder of the pain you endured at losing poor Lupin. I cannot convince you, dearie. It is _your_ body and therefore, this should be your decision. I will _not_ allow another human being to decide this for you, including myself. If you truly want this baby, then you must heed my words and listen," Umbridge began in a sweetly simpering voice, and it did not take an intellectual genius like Dumbledore for the older witch to take not of how the distraught young Auror who bore such a striking resemblance to Alice Longbottom nee' Prewitt when she was of that age, was practically hanging onto her every word with widened, fearful eyes.

"There is no greater strength and resolve in keeping your baby, and if you should make that decision, I _promise_ here and now in sworn confidence that this does not leave this room, that I would do everything within my power at the Ministry to save and protect the both of you from Crouch. I need only to hear a solid yes or no from you, and your sole cooperation in gathering the evidence that I have requested in order to get a warrant for Crouch Jr.'s arrest. Would you like that, Miss Tonks? Considering…"

Umbridge allowed herself a pause for effect. "What he _did_ to Mr. Lupin." She fell silent and was rewarded as Miss Tonks feverishly nodded.

There was no hesitation on Nymphadora's part as she nodded with red-rimmed irises and near the point of tears again, practically begging her.

"Y—yes," she stammered. "I—I'd like that more than you know, Madame Undersecretary. Just…tell me what I have to do," Tonks pleaded.

Umbridge hesitated for a fraction of a second, held back as her mind thought of a dozen possible responses to Miss Nymphadora Tonks's plea.

There was no denying the fact that the bright young Metamorphmagus was an ambitious young witch, much like Umbridge had been at her age, and if Umbridge were in Miss Tonks's shoes, she was sure, yes, she was sure, that she would have reacted to this unfortunate revelation that she was pregnant, with a _wolf cub_ , no less, like it was a curse or a plague upon her, anything that would put up barriers between her and her career at the Ministry of Magic. Not that she was complaining.

But with this new development that she had learned from none other than Crouch's own cretinous house-elf, Winky, that the young witch was expecting a _baby_ , the seed of a ruinous _filthy_ half-breed, Remus Lupin, growing inside her like a festering disease, was quite the scandal, indeed.

How would it reflect upon the Auror Department and the entire Ministry as a whole if she were to allow this witch's pregnancy to progress? _Horribly_. This Dolores knew.

Umbridge furrowed her brows into a frown. She knew Miss Tonks was going to be a rising superstar at the Ministry if she played her cards right, and this hand that she had just now been dealt, she was making the wrong decision.

The mischief lurked in her lips and in her eyes, though Nymphadora did not (thankfully!) seem to notice it growing in her eyes.

It was there to see on Umbridge's face, as plainly as the fall leaves in the forest behind Crouch's estate, that she did not think this was a good idea. Dolores reached up a hand and patted at her short brown curls and licked her pink, lipstick-coated lips to moisten them.

She stopped absentmindedly fiddling with her wand as she regarded young Tonks quietly. After so many years of proud servitude in the Ministry of Magic, her authoritative and 'caring' demeanor was quite automatic by this point.

Her smile was pasted over her face before Miss Tonks had a fraction of a second to lift her chin and furrow her eyebrows in confusion at Dolores's sudden silence, when only a moment ago, she'd been quite the conversationalist.

She allowed the muscles around her eyes fall a little bit to recreate smile-lines. Rubbing her hands together as she rose from her chair and gave her wand a curt rap, vanishing the chair which she'd just been occupied, she strode towards the door, though not before laying a surprisingly gentle hand on Nymphadora's right shoulder and squeezing it.

Umbridge had quite mastered her fake smile, right down to the wrinkles around her eyes. No one ever dared to question it or her, really.

Dolores Jane Umbridge at the entire world hiding behind her fake smile. It could literally be anything. Anything was possible.

Was she friend or foe? No one would ever know behind the smile that she wore like a mask. The smile seemed like it tore at Dolores's indecision over what to do about this unfortunate development that her best and brightest Auror in the entire department was pregnant with a wretched little werewolf cub.

The first of its kind, _if_ she survived this pregnancy, it would cause quite the scandal for the Ministry if she allowed this to progress any further.

"For the moment, I need you well-rested, dear. Do not worry your pretty little head over the matter of this 'meeting' tonight. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will not hurt you, I don't think, nor will Crouch even allow that to happen. He is…quite fond of you, dear," she sighed, grinning to herself as she watched as Nymphadora flinched at the mention of him.

"How can you be sure that he will not kill it or me?" she whispered hoarsely, her voice cracking and breaking, and already, now that she was armed with the knowledge that she was to be a mother to an accursed wretch, her hands drifted to her stomach. "What if he…what if he…"

But she couldn't bring herself to say it, and her voice trailed off.

"Because, dear," Umbridge sighed, reluctantly pinching at the bridge of her nose with her pudgy thumb and forefinger. "You have, like it or not, captured the Dark Lord's attentions and his curiosity has been piqued. From what little I know of Bartemius Crouch's only son and heir, his appetite and thirst for bloodlust is unquenchable, to the point where it interferes with the Dark Lord's plans, and it has become quite a problem."

"But I don't _understand_!" Tonks cried desperately, throwing her hands up in the air and getting up from her chair, striding towards the window and flinging it open even wider, allowing for fresh autumnal air to waft through her bedroom. "What does all this have to do with _me_? Of all the women, why _me_ , Secretary?"

When Dolores did not immediately respond, Tonks let out a moan of agitation, her tone wrought with fear and apprehension at the thought of coming face-to-face with the Dark Lord himself, and she watched her shudder, and Umbridge suspected that it was not from the cold fall breeze.

The younger witch rested her right cheek in her fist and glanced out the window, whilst her other hand grazed delicately over her stomach.

"This is your _chance_ , Miss Tonks. I beg you and implore you to see it for what it is," sighed Umbridge as she lingered near the doorway. "You've been running all your life. From thinking you caused your partner's death. Terrible things have happened to your family and you cry for what you have lost. You've been a bystander to tragedy the day you accidentally 'killed' Mr. Brennan," Dolores heard herself answer coldly, surprised to hear the harsh clipped, curtness of her normally sweet tone. "You cannot afford to be a bystander to tragedy anymore, my dear. Stop running from it. There is no justice in this world. Not unless you create it. You loved Mr. Lupin. I understand that. Avenge his death. Make it count for something, and you can do that by helping me take him _down_."

The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic was pleased when Auror Nymphadora Tonks nodded mutely in response, a pallid look on her pale features, and Umbridge wondered if the poor dear was about to get sick.

She had heard rumors of disgusting werewolf pregnancies among members of their own species were especially brutal, though this was admittedly the first case she had heard of where one had mated with a human.

Umbridge wondered if Miss Tonks would survive this ordeal. Dolores scrunched her nose and repressed the urge to make a face.

"Very good, dear. I don't think I need to tell you what to do. Any sort of evidence tying him to the Dark Lord's activities will suffice. Correspondence, post, any sort of physical evidence you could bring to the Wizengamot for a full trial. I am called for other concerns, one of which, sending word to your family and friends that you are still alive."

Miss Tonks nodded and offered a brief, shy smile, perhaps the first ever whilst in Umbridge's presence, and the first thing Dolores took note of was how warm she was, and when she smiled, albeit however brief it was before her face became crestfallen as it fell with worry, it was a ray of sunlight whilst her hands grazed almost protectively so over her stomach.

Umbridge shot the young witch a disarmingly sweet, honeyed smile and opened the door, gingerly shutting it tightly closed behind her and locking it. Crouch had confiscated the witch's wand, so there was no way she was getting out of the magically enchanted lock without some help.

She was not at all surprised to see Bartemius Crouch Jr. waiting for her at the top of the stairs, a strangely worried look on his handsome, but still nevertheless deranged, features, his slender arms folded across his chest.

Crouch, Dolores could not help but to notice, was currently eyeing her as if she were nothing more than dirt on the bottom of his black boot.

"How is Alice?" His first words to her. Not even so much as a 'Hello, Madame Undersecretary.' Umbridge bristled at the brush off and the man's abject rudeness towards her arrival here, though her face remained neutral.

She could feel the contempt in Crouch Jr.'s voice. The man was obviously aware of the two witches having a conversation of their own behind closed doors, and ever mindful of even feigned courtesies, Dolores gave a simpering, high-pitched little cough and allowed a giggle to escape.

"I hope that you have had your house-elf procure the herbs I recommended, otherwise you would find yourself father to a wolf cub that isn't _yours_. The girl is pregnant," Umbridge announced before Crouch's ravished mind could put the pieces together, and the look of abject horror on his face was well worth the blunt reveal of the girl's sicknesses of the stomach, and she smiled to herself as she clasped her hands behind her back as Crouch motioned with a curt wave of his arm to escort the aging Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic outside.

Umbridge watched as Crouch, standing next to her, sucked in a deep breath that resembled that of enduring pain. Dolores, out of sheer curiosity, found herself quirking a delicately arched eyebrow Crouch's way.

"Nothing to say, Barty?" she simpered, oozing false sympathy in that high pitched voice that caused Barty to think of nails down a chalkboard.

Suddenly, he wished he were in the room with Alice, wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and pour his anger into her, a different sense of hunger gnawing at the confines of his chest.

An aching lust. He wanted, no, needed to release tension or else he would implode.

"I'm surprised," Dolores chuckled lightly, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "You seem to be quiet. If I'm recollecting correctly, in times past, you always had a say on these matters. What would you like me to do for you in order to effectively remedy our…mutual little _problem_ , sir?"

Crouch blinked owlishly at Dolores, feeling his right eye twitch with ire. "I…" he stammered, struggling to formulate an apt response.

 _I'll kill it_ , _seven hells. I'll cut it out of her myself if I have to, that bastard. I wish he wasn't dead so I could kill him myself, flay him alive_ , he thought wildly, grinding his teeth in anger.

"I am yet to decide… And does she…does she…" Crouch stammered slowly, utterly aghast at how he could find himself devoid of words. "Dolores. What should I do about it?"

The poor man was near hysterics at this point, unshed moisture glistening in his darkened brown eyes, that for the briefest of moments, Umbridge almost— _almost_ —felt sorry for the poor, deprived, tall bastard.

"There has been some light bleeding, according to your house-elf," she explained. "She wants to keep it, but I advise _against_ that decision, sir."

Crouch nodded, though his dark brows furrowed in contemplative thought. "But if she wants—" he started to say, but Dolores cut him off.

"Miss Tonks is no longer of a sound mental state, Bartemius," Umbridge gibed, intent on making her point and did not react as she noticed the man's face flushing bright mottled crimson at the use of his latest plaything's real name. "She is making a rather gruesome and dreary judgement. Were I _you_ , I would instruct your house-elf to slip some of _this_ ," she added, waving her wand and producing a small corked glass vial containing a strange herb, the likes of which Crouch had never seen before, into her hand and she wordlessly pressed it into his open palm, "into her tea. Make sure to sweeten the taste as much as possible with sugar. Two to three lumps ought to do it. It's silphium, an abortifacient. If you do not wish to be the reluctant father of a wolf cub," Here, Umbridge spat the last two words as though they were a bitter poison that had settled on her tongue, "Then you will instruct Miss Tonks to consume _every_ drop. No need to tell her what it is. It's quite simple, dear. She drinks it, the drug induces cramps and it will cause the girl to miscarry the wolf cub growing inside her, and she'll never know it was _this_ that caused it. Filthy half-breed wretch babies die every single day, what's another one to add to our list, hmm, dear?" Umbridge prodded.

She watched as Barty Crouch Jr. nodded, a light igniting in his eyes as he began to understand. Though she was intent on arresting this Death Eater at her earliest opportunity, provided the young Auror followed through on the nature of Dolores's disguised demand as a request for help in gathering solid, concrete evidence, enough that would put this man away behind bars in Azkaban Prison for the remainder of his wretched, miserable days if she succeeded.

There was no denying, however, that Bartemius's only heir was a young man with an insatiable thirst for ambition and a lust for power, something that she could respect and admire. A new voice spoke up.

The St. Mungo's healer clad in brilliant lime green robes, a man in his mid-forties by the name of Greg Royce, who coughed once to clear his throat and strode forward, the material of his robes swishing as he walked.

"Pardon me, Madame Undersecretary," he began in a courteous voice, raking his hand through his tuft of slightly thinning light brown hair, "but the pair of you are causing yourself entirely too much trouble. Why, then, Madame Umbridge, did you instruct me to save the wretch last night when she started to bleed out while she slept soundly in her bed? Hmm? It would have been easier. And now, you would secretly, what, wash it off again under the guise of having the young Auror _heal_? _Well_?"

Healer Greg Royce sounded slightly appalled and disgusted with his own words as he reiterated Dolores Umbridge's plan back to them both.

"Preposterous, dearie," Umbridge retorted calmly, shifting slightly at the waist and regarded the privately employed St. Mungo's Healer with an unnaturally wide grin that spoke just how pleased Dolores was with herself.

She gestured for the St. Mungo's Healer to escort her out the door, while Crouch lingered behind in the shadows, though not before extending his hand and shaking Umbridge's in his own. "To our success."

 _To your arrest, sir_ , _and my success_ , Umbridge thought, though she dared not voice that particular statement, lest it give away her intentions.

"Indeed, Crouch." Dolores Jane Umbridge offered a curt nod of her head and stifled her high-pitched, girlish giggle as she linked her arm with the Healer's as Mr. Royce silently offered the aging witch his arm to escort her outside.

Once they were well within earshot of any other members of Crouch's staff, which was limited to only maybe four or five attendants, plus his accursed wretch of a little house-elf that he dared to call Winky, Dolores lowered her voice and further elaborated her reasonings to Royce.

She knew that he simply wanted to understand the method behind the madness, so she would elaborate until she was blue in the face if it would get this man to support her cause.

"I have talked her into assisting me into arresting Crouch. _I_ am the very woman who brought her here to this place. _I_ am the one who made all of the arrangements, and I am the only one who can save her from him. Do you see the young witch hating on me?" When the Healer vehemently shook his head, Umbridge felt her smile deepen and stretch even wider. "No. You do not. _I_ will be the young woman's savior, her key to a bright future. Oh, but my fine young fellow, think of what you and I could accomplish in this world. We do the strangest things don't we, to gain another's trust? Miss Nymphadora Tonks is a vital asset to our Ministry's success, and I would not see her throw her life and an enormous opportunity to truly make a name for herself in this world away by birthing a filthy, disgusting, half-breed werewolf cub with a man no longer _alive_."

"All in the name of what? Money?" challenged the Healer hotly. "Is money…your _god_?" he questioned, not sure if he wanted the answer.

Dolores snorted and resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and she curled her pinkly-painted manicured fingers tightly around the man's bicep.

"No, my good man. It's _power_. Something a lot more _useful_ than Merlin or the Muggles' God," she explained.

Umbridge heard herself give off a tense exhale as she sighed in slight tired frustration as she reached the edge of the castle's property line, where it was determined safe to Apparate.

"Now, dear. You _will_ do this for us. You have already been properly compensated for this, Healer Royce. Need I remind you of the ah…incriminating evidence _against_ you should you have a change of _heart_?" she squeaked, her eyes widening as she watched the man's reaction.

It was well worth the thick silence as she allowed her question to hang in the air, if only to witness the rapid descent of sweat that had beaded on the man's browbone and his face drained of color and he shook his head.

"No, Madame Undersecretary," he responded, perhaps a little too quickly. "You do not." He bowed his head as a sign of submission. "Your will and Master Crouch's will be done." As if to emphasize his point, he gave a brief shake of the vial of silphium. "I'll ensure she consumes it."

" _Every_. _Drop_. I want her drinking every drop of that tea, Mr. Royce," Umbridge commanded, the edges of her tone hardening slightly.

The corrupted St. Mungo's Healer gave another curt nod in response to her demand, and Umbridge, feeling satisfied with knowing where the man's loyalties lay, offered him a charming smile, and let out a tired sigh.

The Healer furrowed his brows in a frown, thinking how ill Umbridge looked, at her elongated shadow, how darkness pooled up underneath the aging witch's eyes and, in her plump, rosy cheeks, and Healer Royce came to the deduction that Dolores Jane Umbridge looked ill.

Still, Royce could not help voicing his doubts. "I sincerely doubt a single young woman, Auror or not, has the power to upend everything that you have worked for at the Ministry, Madame."

His words were stoic, though Mr. Royce felt they lacked conviction.

Umbridge, in response to the Healer's statement, smiled, the left corner of her mouth quirking upwards, giving her a truly grotesque appearance that caused Mr. Royce to visibly flinch, though she ignored it.

"Ah, now, my dear man…that is how it all begins. Remember. _Every_. _Drop_."

And without another word to the Healer, Umbridge turned on the heel of her pink magenta heel and Disapparated with a loud crack!

The Healer who had been assigned to care for 'Alice Prewitt' stood there at the edge of the castle's property for a moment, staring at the exact spot where the Senior Undersecretary to newly-appointed Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour following Fudge's defeat in the election campaign, wondering what kind of woman Master Crouch was in league with.

Sighing, he rolled his neck to crack it and turned back around, turning the small vial of silphium in his hands, making a mental note to keep an eye on this new arrival. On 'Alice Prewitt.'

For all the Secretary's talk of wanting to make their world a 'better and brighter place,' Royce decided that the possibility of a young witch birthing a possible lycanthropic baby did not unnerve him nearly as much as Umbridge's smile did.


	59. Of Resolutions and Surprises

**CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE**

Remus could recall the last time he had sat opposite the Headmaster in his office was the day he had officially tendered his resignation from his post as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, and now, he found himself in a somewhat similar situation, though at least this time, Sirius was by his side, though he could not quite shake the sense of déjà vu from his senses. Nor could he do anything in his power to quell the horrible feeling of dread that festered in the confines of his chest and sent a cold chill down his spine. Dumbledore, meanwhile, was remaining almost infuriatingly calm.

He could hardly stand it, the waiting, and how calm Albus was being in regards to hearing Ollie Brennan's latest message intended for Remus. The Headmaster was regarding Remus and Sirius calmly over the rims of his silver half-moon spectacles, his long, slightly withered fingers laced together as he rested against his chair.

Lupin remained rooted to his chair on the opposite side of the man's desk, and yet he could feel himself shaking. If he'd stayed up all night, it would have made no difference to his exhaustion, but he couldn't rest.

All the reasons _not_ to do this came flooding in. He felt the soft panic grow within his chest, with his mind feeling like it was reeling as it struggled to process the news of Ollie Brennan's hawk Patronus that had, only moments ago, come sailing through the window of Dumbledore's office with its message intended for Remus and Sirius, and anyone else who was willing to listen.

Alastor was back at Tonks' parents, doing what he could to calm them down with the panic-inducing news that their only daughter had been kidnapped by none other than Lord Voldemort's top lieutenant following the attack on Bill and Fleur's wedding.

His mind was constantly searching for any sign she was all right. Ollie's message from his Patronus as it had perched itself on Fawkes' stand right next to the magnificent red-breasted Phoenix, rang in his ears, long after the message had ended and dissipated into thin air, and it was gone.

Just like Dora. She was gone, and now suffering at the hands of _him_.

_The Dark Lord is coming_ , Brennan's voice had said, sounding grim and the poor boy's voice had shaken so bad during the message that it was barely audible over Lupin's shouts the second Dora's former partner had uttered the words.

_The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic wants to arrest Crouch. Needs Tonks's help to obtain evidence against his crimes. Thinks she can do it because of how well Crouch likes her. He does not suspect Umbridge. The Dark Lord will NOT harm her. She still believes you're dead, Remus. Tried to tell her earlier but haven't had a moment alone with her. Crouch is watching me. Need to be careful. Tonks will be quite safe. He is…curious of her and wants to meet the witch who Crouch has taken a liking to. Will escort her to Hogwarts at my earliest opportunity. Will keep her safe. Your baby is safe. Need to go…someone's coming…talk soon…will bring her to Hospital Wing in Hogwarts soon._

A muscle in Remus's eye twitched involuntarily at the corner, his mouth forming a rigid grimace. His muscles felt frozen in place but filled with such a tingling pressure that he wanted to run until his body was empty. Straight to Crouch's estate and get his fiancée out of there. Away from him.

But Merlin only _knew_ how much she was suffering right now!

He needed to…he needed to put as much distance between himself and Hogwarts as possible. He _needed_ to go to Tonks.

But all he could see right now was a haze of loose colors floating in front of his wolfish vision. Lupin needed the world around him to come back into view before he could Disapparate. He knew it was nothing more than adrenaline, but... Merlin, he had promised he'd be there to protect her, and he _wasn't_.

A chill ran through Sirius's spine as he heard Moony's anguished yell as he stood so fast from the chair he'd been occupying that it overturned.

In frustrated agitation, he kicked it aside and restlessly paced Professor Dumbledore's office, all the while the aging old man sat in heavy silence.

Sirius shuddered as a freezing cold wind would wake someone. His blood ran cold in his veins and a bead of sweat dripped down his face.

There was a horrible heart-wrenching scream from deep within that forced its way from Lupin's mouth as if his terrified soul had finally unleased the madness within, the Mad Beast, the Wolf, that dog, that demon.

All Remus felt was _anger_ , that he could not keep doing this to her. It would be easier not to be friends with anyone at all because then he didn't have to put his trust in them and get his heart broken again, it would be safer. Easier to choose not to stay. His fists clenched, jaw locking.

As the full realization, and the consequences of his earlier actions, finally sank in, the pit of his stomach stirred, and his pacing quickened.

From out of the depths of his very being, flowed all of Lupin's emotions which were waging war in the confines of his chest and mind, and as the groaning flew past his lips, it became an anguished cry of confession, a wail of what he had done to his wife and their unborn child for redemption.

But Merlin's beard, this was all his _fault_. Why couldn't he have just admired Tonks from afar?

It was all _his_ fault she was trapped there. He should not have agreed to let Ollie go in and face Crouch alone, and _now_ look at what had happened? Sirius sat there in his chair, helpless, not knowing what to do for Moony and too wired up to even think properly and he looked towards poor Remus.

"My cousin is _strong_ , Moony," Sirius began cautiously, already know his words were as the wind. "Stronger than anyone gives her credit for. Tonks is going to be _fine_. She's _got_ this. You heard the boy. They just need a little more _time_ , and if we're lucky, she'll be here in a few hours."

But Sirius's words were bouncing off of Lupin as good as wind as the taller man continued his restless, agitated pacing in Dumbledore's study, tugging on locks of his light brown hair.

The thoughts were accelerating inside his head. Remus wanted them to slow so he could breathe, but they wouldn't slow down at all.

"Let me just _process_ this," he growled angrily, allowing the Wolf's gruff, coarse voice to take over. " _Lord_ _Voldemort_ is going to be in the _same_ _room_ as _my pregnant_ fiancée, and we're just going to _sit_ here and let it happen and wait for the boy to bring her here?! She's as good as _dead_ , Headmaster, if we do _nothing_!"

His breaths came in short, spurting gasps and he felt like he was going to blackout. His heart was hammering inside his chest as it belonged to a jackrabbit running for its skin.

"How can you just sit there and do _nothing_ , Professor? We should— _I_ need to—to see her. Need to save her, Albus, I promised her I'd…" The room felt like it was spinning, and he collapsed on the top step that led up to the upper mezzanine of the Headmaster's office where his mahogany desk was.

He sat on the topmost step, trying to make his swirling jumble of panicked thoughts slow to something his brain and body could cope with.

Merlin, but he felt so _sick_. He wanted nothing more than to send his own Patronus to Dora somehow.

She…Dora thought that he was _dead_.

_You can't do that, Moony_ , James's voice piped up from the back of his mind. _We've seen it ourselves; Lily and I. Tonks is just fine. Heartbroken and hurt, sure, but she's fine, given you know, she thinks—_

**_JAMES_**! _What are you thinking?! Can't you see that's not helping him right now?_ Lily scolded in a tone that sounded thoroughly disgusted with her husband's casual statement of how Lupin's fiancée was currently suffering.

Lily heaved a tense sigh and when she spoke, she sounded tired. _My husband, though he possesses the emotional range of a teaspoon, is right_ , Lily snapped bitterly. _If you send a message to her whether, by Patronus or owl, there's a high probability it will be intercepted by Crouch and you would only succeed in making things worse for Nymphadora. If you truly want to keep Tonks and your baby safe, then you need to do as Mr. Brennan said and wait with Sirius here at Hogwarts for them to arrive_.

Lupin growled in frustration, courtesy of the Wolf within himself, and his friends' voices promptly fell silent, recognizing he needed this time.

"Remus," Sirius started to say, but another animalistic snarl from Lupin cut Padfoot off, and before Remus even knew what he was doing, the moment he felt Sirius's hand settled upon his shoulder, as Sirius had gotten up from his chair to come and offer what little comfort he could, he swung around and mentally snapped, raising his wand and propelling Sirius away from him and back against the wall, to which Professor Dumbledore's face paled in anger and he promptly rose from his chair.

Lupin spent his fury well vented on poor Sirius, who barely raised his wand hand to defend himself, the way a deranged wolf tore through limbs, Sirius knew all too well what this was like.

"That is quite _enough_ , Remus!" Albus Dumbledore scolded, and Lupin let out a vicious snarl and soon found himself without a wand, turning to face Albus and realized the Hogwarts Headmaster had disarmed him without a word of his wand and was now clutching Remus's wand in his other hand, as well as his own. "Calm yourself."

"Forgive me, Headmaster, but no it _isn't_ enough," Remus growled, striding over towards Sirius, and shooting him an apologetic look with his eyes, and he heard himself exhale a tense but relieved breath as Padfoot gave a curt nod of his head, eyes shining with understanding. He forgave him. "You cannot ask me to just _sit_ here while the woman _I_ _love_ _suffers_!"

He was panting heavily now, his pale skin flushing heavily with both excitement and terror at the revelation that Tonks was still alive, the elation that she and her baby were unharmed, and terror at the thought of Lord Voldemort himself being allowed even within a hundred _feet_ of _his_ Dora.

Remus could not help but unhelpfully contemplate where in the castle Dora could be trapped under Crouch's hawk-like gaze, or what could have happened to Tonks just two days after news of his fraudulent death, and _why_ hadn't Ollie managed to find time to tell her he was _alive_?

His mind was flooded with how her face had looked at Bill and Fleur's wedding, just before Ollie had wreaked havoc as an Obscurus down on the Burrow's property.

The last time he had touched her, how he had kissed her. The feeling of the gold wedding ring she wore proudly on her left ring finger ghosting over the pad of his thumbs as he held her hand. The look of pure happiness in her eyes that he was quite sure reflected his own.

Lupin strangely wanted to imagine Dora's agony at his supposed death, gruesome though that little stunt of Greyback's was, and revel in the shock in her electrifying gray eyes could have once his fiancée saw that he was alive and well.

"I cannot _stay_ here, Dumbledore! Tonks is in _danger_!" he shouted.

"But you _must_ ," Dumbledore answered in that infuriatingly calm way of his, and before the aging wizard could open his mouth to elaborate further as to why Remus was expected to wait here at Hogwarts for Tonks, the statue to Dumbledore's office gave a horrible creaking. "It is the _only_ way, Remus."

Remus felt his heart practically drop to the pit of his stomach as he heard the screeching protests of Andromeda Tonks as the noise filled his office, accompanied by the much softer, soothing tones of Dora's father, Ted, and the occasional grunt and guttural growl from Alastor Moody and the curt thumping of the limping man's heavy walking stick.

Repressing the taut of worry, Remus coughed once to clear his throat and drew in a deep, shaking breath, closing his eyes, willing his temper to calm, and slowly, he could feel the Mad Beast within himself quiet down.

Andromeda Tonks was looking every bit like her sister, Bellatrix, her wild dark curly hair disheveled, having come loose from her messy bun, donned entirely in black, and when her dark, inquisitive gaze landed on Remus, what little color was left in her face drained, rendering her pallid. " **YOU**!"

As Dora's mother lifted her head and met Lupin's gaze, the coals on her eyes were added with a fiery fuel, and she bared her teeth and pointed a shaking finger towards Remus, and upon her gaze landing on an empty jar, she seized it in hand and flung it, where it sailed across the room, narrowly missing Remus's earlobe by a fraction of an inch, where it shattered into a thousand pieces, and in agitation, she kicked aside a now-broken shard of glass with the edge of her pointed boot's heel in anger.

"Oh, you—you _beast_! How could you rut with my daughter like a—a _dog_ in heat? The two of you aren't even married and now _this_?!" she screeched, eyes wide and deranged as she tugged on a lock of her curly hair. In front of Sirius, Dumbledore, and Alastor, Lupin visibly winced as he felt the outraged palm that belonged to Andromeda pelt across his face with a sickening crack. "She—she's _pregnant_!"

Lupin felt his footsteps falter, and had Sirius not shot out an arm and placed it on his shoulders to steady him, he would have fallen.

The way his pulse currently pounded in his eardrums, the horrible, almost sticky dryness in his mouth, and the uncertainty raging war in his heart made him feel more like a broken, battered wreck.

One look at Andromeda Tonks was more than enough for Lupin to piece it together.

_She knows, Moony_ , James advised cautiously, sounding nervous. _She knows you got Tonks pregnant. I don't think she's taking it well, Remus._

Remus ground his teeth in anger. _Oh, really, James? What gave it away?_ Lily spat venomously. _You need to calm her down, Rem. Now_.

He was grateful that Alastor with one swift movement of his hand not clutching onto his walking stick for support wrenched Andromeda off of Lupin and angrily shoved her into the chair that Sirius had been sitting in.

"Andromeda Tonks, you will _sit_ _down_ and _calm_ _down_ or I would have you forcefully _removed_ from Albus's office!" Mad-Eye growled. "You're making quite the spectacle of yourself and if you don't cease this banshee screaming of yours at my colleague, then you're going to wake some poor first year up from sleep and you'll feel awful when your screeching animal noises you're currently making become that snot-nosed kid's boggart, eh?" he growled.

Sirius snorted at the quip and sounded like he was trying not to laugh. "You okay, Moony?"

But he couldn't answer. Lupin's jaw stung and a part of his eye felt like it was retracting in blinding pain, momentarily filling his right eye with unshed, brimming tears.

Her nails had scratched at his lip and at one of the scars on his cheek.

"You— _you_ did this to her! You got our daughter _pregnant_ with a—" she started to say, but her husband was the one to quell her anger by a simple placement of his hand upon her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.

"Meda, _stop_ _this_ ," her husband commanded, gently but firmly. "Alastor is right. You're making a complete and utter fool of yourself behaving like this. We're all adults, Meda. I know you don't want to hear this, and it's hard for me to accept it as well, but it is not Remus's fault for Dora's current predicament. He saved her life that night outside of St. Mungo's, dear. Like it or not, the two fell in love, and who are we to deny them their right to be together? We owe the man a _debt_. I think it's time we repaid him by allowing their union to happen, because like it or not, they're both legal adults and we cannot tell them what to do, sweetheart."

Ted lifted his chin slightly and let out a tired sounding sigh and held out his hand for Remus to take, who looked at him, stunned, in shock.

"Thank you, Mr. Lupin," he said at last with some difficulty. "For making our daughter happy. Meda and I are looking forward to becoming grandparents, no matter what this child _is_ or _isn't_ ," he emphasized darkly.

Remus froze at Ted Tonks's words, his trembling hand as he reached out to take Ted's hand in his own stuck in midair as if the very gravity had been sucked off him in a split second at the man's acceptance of him as his future-son-in-law and father to his and Dora's unborn baby. "Thank you."

It was all he could say, though Andromeda was looking less than pleased. Andromeda Tonks's nearly cracked lips were parted in shock, and she pierced right through Remus's light brown eyes without even knowing the effect that she impaled upon him, that gaze of hostile wrath.

Remus silently readied himself for the demand that Andromeda would make of him, to leave Dora behind, and fully prepared to defend his resolve.

That he was going to become a _father_ , he and Dora to be _parents_ to a child in nine months, and though that thought terrified him more than anything, not knowing if the baby would be born like its father, suffering from the wolfish characteristics brought on by his unfortunate affliction, he knew that he would not abandon his wife and child, no matter what.

Andromeda was still staring at Lupin with wide, brimming eyes, at the man who she had been previously led by the others to be presumed dead.

The young witch was eyeing Remus as though he were little more than dirt at the bottom of her nose, scrunching her nose in utter disgust.

"So, _dog_ ," she spat in disgust. "It seems you are back from the dead. How _disappointing_."

_Oh, what a bitch_! James growled in frustration, starting to spew a whole plethora of obscenities, but Lupin quelled his friend's voice with a curt shake of his head.

Remus flinched as Sirius moved to sit next to Remus as Dumbledore conjured up chairs out of midair so that they could all sit and converse, and hopefully reconcile their differences and come to a mutual understanding. He could practically the contempt dripping from her voice.

Andromeda was obviously aware of by now of what had transpired between himself and her and Ted's only daughter, and of his proposal.

Not one to forget proper edict and feigned courtesies, as loathe as he was to provide them to a woman who held such a disdainful and prejudiced view against him, Remus offered a curt acknowledgment by dipping his head in Andromeda Tonks's general direction.

"Yes. I am alive. It was a ruse so that I could get closer to Crouch and extra Dora from that—that _place_ ," he spat, disgusted, shaking his head to clear it, "but it seems the plan has _changed_ ," he growled, feeling the familiar surge of anger spark in his chest.

Remus looked towards Albus Dumbledore, who offered a brief nod and proceeded to sigh in response as he laced his fingers together and leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows propped up on his desk.

"Indeed," Dumbledore answered simply. "As much as I can admire and respect your desire to go after Miss Tonks to save her and your child's life, I think that Mr. Brennan's message holds true to fact, as grim as it sounds. Your betrothed is a smart woman, incredibly gifted, and not to mention, unfailingly kind, and if what I've been able to deduce from the man's message is true, then I am afraid that Nymphadora has no other alternatives available to her at this time but to seek out that evidence which would hold up against Crouch's criminal trial in front of the Wizengamot, that would allow him to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of our laws, and then to allow Mr. Brennan to escort her here, where we will wait for her here. I do not, from what I understand, think that Miss Tonks will be harmed in any way tonight. Mr. Brennan was not _lying_ to us, Remus. Ted. I have every confidence in your daughter that she will succeed, sir. She knows what she has to do."

Andromeda made an odd little strangled noise at the back of her throat and she shot Remus a withering look that caused Moody to give her a gruff rap on top of her head, which she fumed at. It was only when Dora's mother lifted her chin slightly to better look Lupin in the eyes did he notice just how gaunt and drawn Andromeda Tonks looked, the dark circles under her eyes, and the pretty witch at age forty-three looked ten years older, hiding behind her mask of wild fury towards her daughter's affianced.

Something was troubling her greatly, and she hadn't slept at all. She was looking immensely annoyed at Remus's presence in the Headmaster's office, as her brows were knitted together in deep annoyance, creasing, and her lips pursed into a thin, narrow line.

"You should have _stayed_ _dead_ , Mr. Lupin," Andromeda declared angrily, hatred seething and swirling as dark pools of apprehension in her brown eyes. "Dead is _better_ for our Dora."

Remus felt the Mad Beast within him growl and tug at its restraints within his chest, and he balled his trembling hands into a fist and shoved his wand into the pocket of his suit jacket, having found time to summon a change of clothes upon arriving at Hogwarts and meeting with Albus.

He felt his desperation and anger get the better of his resolve, and the words tumbled unchecked towards Andromeda Tonks before he could even consider stopping himself, but he was past the point of no return.

" _Please_ , Mrs. Tonks," Lupin heard himself reply, a man who was unused to begging another living being, much less a woman for anything, "I _implore_ you to set aside your anger for me. Tonks, Dora is your only daughter, and she is in _danger_. Now is not the time to discuss this. I have every confidence in Mr. Brennan's ability to deliver her safely home to us. To _me_ ," he growled through gritted teeth, and upon seeing Andromeda's face flush in anger, he raised a shaking hand in anger and promptly cut her off before she could speak. "Yes, I—I didn't intend for… _this_ , to happen," he added, wildly gesticulating with his hands as his own face flushed in shame and anger.

Dora was _pregnant_ , and they weren't even married yet. And Merlin, he wasn't even there with her now to offer any semblance of comfort or protection. The anguish of not knowing was killing him. He couldn't bear it.

He sighed in agitation and frustration, raking his fingers through his light brown hair. "I had hoped that the two of you would find out the news under different circumstances," Remus began hesitantly, and he ground his teeth in anger.

He slapped his knee in frustration and shifted in his seat. "What happened to Dora is _my_ fault, Andromeda. Ted," he added uncomfortably. "I am fully prepared to accept full responsibility for my actions however you see fit, but you will _not_ keep me from my fiancée. She is the _mother_ of my child, and…"

Here, he swallowed past the growing lump in his throat and he clenched his eyes tightly shut, and the next words he spat more than spoke them, though even just thinking his thought was torture.

"And if it should prove to come to pass that the child is…like _me_ ," he swallowed, "then there are certain…treatments that Dora could take. She—she does not have to have this baby," he answered, hearing his voice lower an octave as it cracked and broke. "If…keeping it would put her life in harm's way, then I would choose Dora _every_ _single_ time, Mrs. Tonks. I know that I have _no_ _right_ to decide for her, but you should know that I _love_ her, Mrs. Tonks. And…if she wishes to keep our baby, then I would love him or her too. No matter what it is or isn't. With all that I am, though I may not be much at all," he beseeched, hating hearing the dip in his voice as his resolve slowly faded.

Andromeda could hold her wrath no longer. "You are the _last_ person my daughter needs to marry, _wolf_!" she bellowed, curling her long nails into claws, and raking them down the velvet material of her armchair. "I know that I cannot stop her _or_ you from this," she growled. "But if this baby _harms_ my daughter, _hurts_ her in any way, because of _you_ , I'll _kill_ you. You might have my husband's blessing, but you will _never_ have mine, _wolf_ ," she snarled through gritted teeth, leaning forward in her seat.

Remus felt a pressuring ire building on either side of his temples at the witch's harsh words, and he felt his lips tremble, and the wolfish snarl was out of his mouth before he himself was even aware of it, and he practically felt Sirius and Alastor stiffen beside him as he pulled his wand from the interior jacket pocket of his gray suit and pointed it straight at the witch's chest. Ted Tonks's face was grim as he stood in front of his wife.

"Easy, son," Ted cautioned, raising his hands as a show of surrender. "Just…lower your wand, there's no need for things to escalate, is there? That's my wife you're pointing it at. Just take deep breaths. Nice and slow. Don't do anything rash, boy," Ted pleaded, his voice quiet.

But Lupin's temper had swelled to such an intense level there was no calming the storm that loomed over Andromeda and Remus. Not Sirius, not the Headmaster, not Alastor. No.

There was _nothing_ that could stop this.

"I have gone _out_ _of_ _my_ _way_ to be _unfailingly_ kind to you, Mrs. Tonks," Remus heard the Wolf whisper through clenched teeth and rooted jaw as he seized a handful of the witch's black dress and shook it, standing tall, towering over Dora's mother at his full height of 6'3. "Even though you do not deserve it. I have done _nothing_ but treat your daughter with the kindness and respect that I feel that Dora deserves. _Nothing_ ," he spat, secretly relishing in the terrified sheen of the witch's brown eyes as she witnessed for herself the shadow of the Wolf dart across his features. "Tonks is **MY** fiancée. **MINE**. Even after thinking me presumed dead, you would _still_ try to keep me away from her, when she's pregnant and at her most vulnerable the longer she remains in the company of that _bastard_?" he yelled, ignoring the flinches of Sirius and Ted. Dumbledore, however, he could have _sworn_ he saw the briefest flickers of admiration flit across his lined and weathered features as Remus stood up for himself.

Lupin went on the repeat of the whys he thought it was that Andromeda Tonks hated him so much, knowing it was because of his condition.

_Don't let your furry little problem get in the way of you living your best life, Moony!_ James piped up, sounding like he was cheering him on. _Give this bitch of a wicked witch a piece of your mind. The old hag's had it coming_!

Lily, as always, Merlin bless her soul, was much more polite in her advice to her friend, whose last vestiges of his patience had run out long ago.

_James! Don't be so rude! This is Nymphadora's mother you're talking about! Rem, Rem, listen to me, please. There are going to be some things that Mrs. Tonks isn't comfortable sharing with you just yet. Try to imagine her perspective for a moment. Her only daughter, an only child, is pregnant with your baby, and there's no indication of knowing if your daughter or son will….be…like you, and she probably just doesn't know how to react_.

Unfortunately, James couldn't resist chiming in with a quip of his own towards his wife's explanation. _And just what makes you the expert, Lily?_

Lily's patience with her husband seemed to have run out, and if Remus closed his eyes, he could almost picture sweet Lily throwing her hands up in exasperation and tossing her long mane of red hair over her shoulders, stomping her foot in frustration, and glowering at her husband.

_Because I happen to be female, you stupid git!_ Lily screeched angrily. _And in case you've forgotten, I'm the mother to our son, Potter. I tend to know the ways and thoughts of women, especially those going through Mrs. Tonks's head! And of Nymphadora's as well, but that's beside the point!_ She yelled.

Remus let out a low warning growl from the back of his throat and took advantage of the opportunity of the newfound tense silence to get another word in edgewise. Andromeda would listen to what he had to say.

Or _Merlin_ help her, not even the ancient wizard would be able to save Dora's mother from what was about to happen if the two of them could not reconcile their differences and look past what had happened.

" _If_ ," he whisper-hissed through gritted teeth as he leaned in so the tip of his nose was practically touching Andromeda Tonks's, "by some miracle of Merlin Himself that our child is not born…like _me_ , then it would be better off, a hundred times so, without a grandmother of whom it must always be ashamed! I _see_ the way you look at me, Mrs. Tonks. You hate me. Well, guess what? I hate myself too. I know what I am," he snarled. "There's no changing it. If there were a cure, Merlin help me, I'd be the first in line to receive it, but there _isn't_."

He gestured towards his scars and tugged on a lock of his light brown hair flecked with bits of premature gray brought on by years of a hard life.

"You think that I voluntarily _chose_ this life for myself?! You could not be further from the truth. What happened to me was an accident, and you cannot fault me for attempting to have as close to normal life as I can. I want what every other witch and wizard wants. Family. A wife, children of my own. A home. But you cannot _stand_ there and accuse me to my face that I do not care for your daughter, Mrs. Tonks. I have _every_ intention of marrying her, which brings me to my next point," he snapped.

Lupin let out a haggard sigh and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of short light brown hair and smoothed at a crease in his pants leg. He turned toward Dumbledore, who had, for the most part, remained silent throughout this entire exchange, though the man's twinkling blue eyes confirmed Remus's suspicions.

That he was…pleased with him for the way that he had handled the worst of Dora's mother's wild temper.

Remus offered a slight dip of his head as a show of immense respect towards Hogwarts' current Headmaster and drew in a shaking, tense breath.

"Professor Dumbledore, I recognize that what I am about to ask is most forward of me but given the circumstances of my beloved wife-to-be's current physical condition seeing as how she's _pregnant_ with our _baby_ , I can see no further reason to wait. I'm sure Molly and Arthur are going to _murder_ us once we get back and they find out, but we can always host a party later, but assuming that my fiancée is of sound mind and in a good physical condition when Mr. Brennan brings her back here, would you do the honors of marrying us here on Hogwarts Grounds tonight? I wouldn't ask if I weren't serious." he asked, and bit the inside wall of his cheek in nervous anticipation.

Lupin heard the sharp intake of breath from Andromeda and promptly ignored it, though he could swear that he saw Ted Tonks smile in relief.

He wanted to do right by Dora and wanted them to be properly married before their baby arrived. The two of them did not need a lavish affair. Dora had said as much to him the night of Bill and Fleur's wedding. She wanted him.

Just him.

Lupin bit the wall of his cheek and then his tongue as he regarded Albus's lined and careworn face, which remained unsmiling up to this point.

And then suddenly, as if by a spell, the old wizard's wise face changed, and he smiled and clasped his fingers together. "I would consider it my highest honor, Remus. The world needs a little more love in this world, yes?"

Lupin nodded his agreement, thinking that Albus's smile lifted the mood. Remus felt something warm swell within the confines of his chest and he quickly realized that he still wore his mother's wedding ring on its silver chain around his neck, and he recognized it was the yellow gold ring that was emanating the heat that felt, surging as fiery waves down his spine.

He fumbled with its chain for a moment, removing it from around his neck and tightly clutched it into his palm, though he could practically feel Andromeda and Ted Tonks' stares as they craned their necks to get a better look at the elegantly beautiful but simplistic piece of fine jewelry.

Lupin emanated a tense exhale through his nose as he uncurled his fist and outstretched his palm to show his mother's old ring to Dora's parents.

"A fine choice," Ted murmured approvingly, glancing toward Moody, whose mechanical eye was still swiveling wildly, though seemingly fixated on that of Andromeda Tonks' posture as if it thought that it should watch for any impending signs she might attack Lupin again.

Remus, for his part, tried his hardest to stand at his tallest, tall, and proud, with just a flicker of hope darting through his light brown eyes. He wanted to be the man that Dora had fallen in love with, a man who could be proud of himself to call himself her husband and father to their child.

Though judging by the cold way Dora's mother was eyeing him just now, the only thing Lupin could do was still himself for her pained anger.

Something in Dora's mother's eyes seemed to shift and soften slightly as her gaze remained fixated on the yellow gold ring that was to be Dora's.

"I…I do not know what to say," Andromeda murmured quietly.

At best, and the icy cold of indifference from Andromeda at the worst.

It was Moody who broke the silence first by coughing once to clear his throat as he hobbled over, leaning heavily to the right on his walking stick for support, all the while never once averting his gaze from Andromeda.

"I think that what Tonks's mother is _trying_ to say," he emphasized darkly through gritted teeth, fixing Andromeda with a cold glower that caused the young witch to collapse back in her chair, "is that she, while struggling at this time to accept your relationship with her daughter as _fact_ ," he growled, grunting his words as his hands folded on top of his walking stick as Alastor stood towards Andromeda's left side to keep an eye on her (pun intended), "is that she highly values keeping her daughter in her life, and should she wish to see Nymphadora ever again and not further damage her relationship, she will give her blessing to allow the two of you to be married this very evening if that is what you and my protégé wish," he grunted, narrowing his one good eye and fixing Andromeda with an unusually stony look.

" **MOODY**!" Andromeda bellowed, shooting him a withering look. "Absolutely _not_! I...I _won't_! Why _should_ I? This—this _wolf_ has _defiled_ and _ruined_ Nymphadora!" Andromeda screeched, sounding very much like a wild banshee as she seized at locks of her dark curly hair and tugging on them in fits of rage.

Andromeda drew in a sharp breath of air that pained her lungs and buried her face in her hands. She bolted from her chair and gestured wildly towards Lupin.

"H—how do we know that his wretched _seed_ won't _kill_ her?" she bellowed. She wanted a real, honest-to Merlin answer. Things were happening entirely too fast and were quite overwhelming the witch.

"My dear woman! That is _quite_ enough! Kindly still your rage or I will have to ask you to _leave_ and return to my office to discuss this at a better time when you're of a more sound mental state!" Professor Dumbledore stood abruptly from behind his finely polished mahogany desk and strode to stand directly in front of Andromeda, placing himself firmly between Mrs. Tonks and Lupin. His gray robes billowed around him in some dark, unseen shadow.

His normally kind sky-blue orbs had darkened, almost cerulean in color, and were flashing dangerously as a strange fire danced in those steely orbs of his.

Several of the candles that had been lighted in the man's office were suddenly extinguished as a result of the Headmaster's outburst, purging his office into a sort of half-darkness, though Sirius worked quickly to reignite the candles in their holders and provide some light and warmth.

Andromeda Tonks was suddenly terrified of Albus Dumbledore and let out a muffled squeak and she stumbled backward into Ted's arms in a vain effort to put as much distance between herself and the Headmaster as possible.

There was nothing more frightening than Albus furious, Remus thought, though he could currently make the argument that not knowing if Dora was safe and unharmed to him was much more terrifying than _this_.

_Why_ was this happening to _her_? She had tried to give Nymphadora the best life possible, and now her only child was pregnant with a cub? Not knowing if her daughter was alive or dead at the hands of Voldemort and his accursed, sadistic followers sent a swell of panic through her chest, and confused wasn't even half of what she was feeling right now.

And again, Andromeda felt the urge to cry as tears pricked at the corners of her vision.

"Mrs. Tonks?" Remus's voice was quiet and soft again, less coarse, and rougher than it had before, and Andromeda flinched. She'd have preferred it if the wolf would have just shouted at her. That she could handle. Mrs. Tonks flinched as she met Lupin's gaze.

But not... _this_.

Not this horrible sense of unfailing kindness from her daughter's suitor. It was too much. All of it. Too much, and Andromeda felt something within her break and snap.

His face had hardened considerably, and the fingers of his wand hand clutched firmly around his wand in case she tried to attack him again.

"I know that this may not be what you want to hear, but Dora and I have every intention of getting married tonight. I _hope_." He swallowed nervously but blinked back the onset of seemingly fearful tears and he swallowed the lump in his throat, refusing to allow his mind to take him to that dark place of unpleasant thoughts. "I _love_ your daughter with all that I am, as I said before, though I may not be much, and I have every intention of giving our child, no matter what it _is_ or _isn't_ , the best life that she and I can provide for him or her as its parents, and if you should wish to be a part of our lives, then you will start to treat me with a modicum of respect."

He could see tears welling in her eyes, though he did not stop.

"And, as such, if you want to be a good grandmother to our child, then you will attend _every_ Quidditch match, _every_ Christmas, birthday, holiday that you can to be by our child's side, and if our son or daughter does possess some of my…of my… _characteristics_ , then you will think nothing _less_ of him or her and love it for what it is. Our child," he growled through gritted teeth. "I recognize I should not have lost my temper with you, Mrs. Tonks. I want Dora back. More than anything. It kills me to have to sit here and wait for Brennan to bring her back, but I don't think we have any other choice. So, please. For _my_ sake. Can we try again and at least pretend to like each other enough to come to an understanding with one another? For Dora?" he begged, biting down on his tongue, tasting blood as it settled and lingered on his tongue and palate.

Andromeda's head whiplashed so sharply upward that Ted had to move back to avoid his head connecting with hers. It wasn't her fault!

She had not _asked_ for this! " _Just_ _go_ _away_!" Andromeda attempted to shout. However, due to the fact that her face was still buried in her hands, it didn't come off nearly as intimidating as the young witch had hoped. In fact, truth be told, it sounded quite pitiful. "And leave me _alone_!"

For a long, awkward moment, there was nothing but silence, and then as Dumbledore ushered Sirius and Remus to the lower level of his office to allow Andromeda and Ted a minute or two of privacy, there was the unmistakable sound of approaching footsteps, a new arrival in his office.

Dumbledore furrowed his graying brows in contemplative thought and folded his arms across his chest as he regarded Sirius and Remus.

His cobalt orbs flickered towards Andromeda and Ted, alight with an immense sense of disappointment and he sighed as Alastor hobbled beside him.

"I think perhaps, for now, it is wise not to disturb Mrs. Tonks, as she is beside herself with confusion and is under a great deal of stress and fear as it pertains to the unknown condition and whereabouts of her daughter. Andromeda is in no condition to be approached by anyone here in this room other than her husband at the present moment," he instructed. "Ah. There it is."

Dumbledore turned his back for a moment, rendering it impossible for either Sirius or Remus to see what he was doing, and before Lupin could respond on the Headmaster's off behavior, he wordlessly pressed a small object in the palm of Remus's outstretched hand, though Lupin did not have a chance to see what the item was, as Sirius's back was turned.

"Here it is. I'd hoped I hadn't lost it. It is not much that I can offer you and Miss Tonks, aside from having the great pleasure of officiating your ceremony tonight assuming all that goes well, but I can provide you with a semblance of peace, but you must wait until the right moment. Were I _you_ , I would recommend waiting until you and Sirius are _alone_. Consider this my wedding present to you, Mr. Lupin. Three turns ought to do it, Mr. Lupin," he commanded, and before Lupin could open his mouth to ask what it was that Professor Dumbledore had just given him, the sound of the gargoyle statue turning as it wound on the last set of stairs reached their eardrums, and an aging man tottered his way off the platform.

"There you are!" this new arrival exclaimed, a tall and rather gangly man, panting heavily, and clutching at his side, carrying a dark brown leather briefcase, and brushing off a speck of dust. "I—I got your owl, came as soon as I heard the news. I almost didn't believe you, but my wife said you've never once lied to us. Is it _true_ , Professor Dumbledore, sir?" the man exclaimed, heaving still to catch his breath, looking as though he'd run all throughout Hogwarts until he came to the Headmaster's office. Lupin was perplexed, and a quick glance over at Sirius confirmed his suspicions. Padfoot was just as confused.

Dumbledore offered a curt nod. "I am afraid so, my old friend. I had hoped your expertise on Obscurials will prove useful in finding a method of extracting the entity from Miss Tonks's former partner, a young wizard by the name of Ollie Brennan, who has yet to arrive, but I shall inform of you the minute that he does. His condition is something unique, I've never heard of anything like it. An _adult_ Obscurus. I don't know what could have happened to the poor boy, considering I remember him at Hogwarts and he did not suffer quite like he is now. My guess is years of being held captive by one of Lord Voldemort's own Death Eaters, abuse at the man's hand, has caused his condition to manifest. Your expertise in this matter will be most appreciated, but as our subject is yet to arrive…In the meantime," he added, a faint glimmering twinkle returning to his blue eyes as they flashed mischievously as Dumbledore shot Sirius and Remus a mischievous look and offered a little wink, "perhaps you two would not mind showing our distinguished guest around the grounds, for old times' sake? It will give you two something to do while we wait for Mr. Brennan and Miss Tonks to arrive." Lupin and Sirius mutually nodded their agreement, dumbfounded looks on their expression, and Dumbledore's smile, if possible, widened.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, moving to stand beside the new arrival, watching in amusement as the new wizard plucked a feather from his thick tuft of short but wild white and graying hair and turned towards Remus and Sirius, and seemed to have trouble meeting their gazes and looking him in the eye, though he did offer everyone in the room a strange, awkward-little half bow, "I have invited this man here tonight to see if there is anything that can be done to assist in ridding Mr. Ollie Brennan of his ties to the Obscurus. I hope that our efforts will not be in vain. May I have the pleasure of introducing you to an old colleague and good friend of mine, Mr. Newt Scamander."


	60. In the Eyes of a Friend

**CHAPTER SIXTY**

The problem had arisen just as Tonks was getting ready to leave. She had given a rather vague response to Crouch's house-elf, Winky, when the little creature had stopped by earlier to check on her, but it was partially because Tonks was uncertain over whether it was wise, given her current physical condition and fractured state of mind, that she be left in Crouch's company for the second time in one day.

 _And Lord Voldemort's_ , her mind unhelpfully offered, and a wash of cold threatened to engulf her body. There was also the other simple fact to consider.

That at the time Crouch had decided to pay her a vision, she had been much too shocked, in all honesty, to give the man what he wanted, which was a substantial answer.

Once Crouch and Umbridge both had departed from her room, it felt as though gaining back her solitude had been a sweet, sweet victory.

Tonks sighed, sitting before the fireplace, and stared deeply into the flickering ember flames. The tongues of the fire danced before her sight in myriad hues of reds, golds, and oranges. Occasionally, a log would crackle.

Again, she let out a tired sigh and rested her hand against her right cheek, her elbow propped up on the red velvet chair's armrest, wishing she had even just a pinch of Floo Powder that she could Apparate to safety.

Tonks watched as the wood settled down further into the metal bracket. _If only Rem were here with me_ , she thought bitterly, blinking back a fresh onset of tears as she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, knowing full well it was almost time for the damned dinner.

To spend an entire hour in the company of Crouch and Merlin knew how many Death Eaters, not to mention Lord Voldemort himself was agonizingly frightening for her, and if she weren't so certain that her magical abilities would attempt to heal her again, she'd slit her wrists.

And not to mention, she had a newfound reason to fight and live. Tonks sighed as she felt her left-hand drift instinctively and settle over the flat of her stomach. Merlin, she was going to be a _mother_ in nine months.

Was she ready for this? The troublesome thought plastered as a quiet vibration under her skin and she shivered.

 _I..I'm not. Not without you. I wish you were here, Rem. I…I miss you_ , she thought, biting down on her bottom lip as she blinked back salty, briny liquid. Wretched tears.

The image of Remus darted through the forefront of her mind and sent her lips quivering as an excess of immense waves of sadness spilled out of the edges of her lids again, and she angrily wiped them away with a practiced flick of her finger. She closed her eyes to allow the tears to fall.

Tears were no stranger to her, and Tonks was well familiar with them by this point in her life. Brought here and held against her will. The love of her life, gone, dead, and here she was, pregnant with his baby, and Lupin was not even by her side to revel in the potential joy of becoming a parent.

She was, she had assumed, presumed to be dead, with no one knowing where she was or what had happened.

 _And what about my parents? What about Moody? Charlie? Sirius? Do they know I'm gone? They must be worried sick after me. Is there no way out of this damned place that doesn't end in me dying if Crouch catches me? And I still don't have the evidence that Madame Umbridge asked for_. I don't know what to do. _Help me…_

Tonks sent her plea to the heavens, praying that wherever Remus was, he was no longer suffering and would find a way to help her out. Her forehead fell against her knees, despair and hopelessness now filling the void where her heart used to be, though the moment she laid eyes on Remus's lifeless, mauled body that had caused her to retch the breakfast she'd had from the day before, it felt as though Barty Crouch had plunged his bare hand into her chest and ripped out her heart himself.

Now all that was left in its wake was a horrible, desolate emptiness. What could she do? As much as she was loathed to admit it, the Senior Undersecretary was right. Remus deserved vengeance for how he died.

But without any solid evidence tying Crouch to the murder, it wouldn't hold up well, not to mention, the man's powerful connections.

Was what Madame Umbridge said true? Was this—Merlin forbids—really and truly the only way to avenge Lupin's murder? To allow herself to get close enough to Crouch so that he would let his guard down, that he wouldn't suspect.

 _And the dinner, oh, the dinner! Lord Voldemort is coming, solely to see me…But why? What's so special about me? I'm nothing, I'm no one. By rights, I shouldn't even be here, as a half-blood_.

Just the mention of the name sent a shudder of fear down her spine, and she practically clawed at her stomach, wanting to protect her baby.

"What the hell are you _doing_ , T?" she whispered desperately to herself, clutching at the material of her black leggings even tighter. "I have to get _home_. Somehow. Have to survive this mess. For…for my baby."

Tonks emanated a tense sigh and cocked her head to the side as her gaze befell the window.

Though she had been stripped of her wand, she could still technically climb out the window, and she had considered the possible scenario of trying to scale the castle walls of Crouch's family estate by sneaking out the window, if only for a few hours, but she could not.

The young brunette witch knew that of course, this line of thought was purely wishful thinking, as much as she desperately wanted to avoid Lord Voldemort and Crouch, she had her unborn child growing inside her to think of, and if that meant enduring their company for an hour, then so be it.

Though there was a larger part of her mind that could hardly believe this.

She was, in comparison to Harry Potter, relatively a low target on Voldemort's hit-list, so what, then, on Merlin's green earth did he want with _her_? Was he interested in seeing with his own eyes for himself the young witch that was rumored to drive Crouch to the point of obsession?

Was _that_ it? Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she continued to mull over these troubling thoughts swirling in her sleep-deprived head as she raked her fingers through her short dark chocolate pixie, which she'd showered and allowed Winky the house-elf to trim for her earlier, ensuring that not a wisp or stray strand was out of place, though she had yet to dress.

Tonks still was not sure if she could summon the courage to walk down the stairwell that led into the man's dining room and face _him_ again… Not a third time. She was not certain that she could handle it.

She sighed as she watched as the flickering embers and cinders of the fire in the hearth almost seemed to sway her into a lullaby. The first fitful night she had slept here after Ollie had told her why he'd brought her here, she'd wept quietly. For Lupin, for Sirius, for her mother and father.

Everyone. Her mum used to tell her that her duty was to that of her family. Well. She felt as though she were about to betray her family by having agreed to Crouch's unorthodox proposal that she come willingly with him of her own volition and marry her, but now that Remus was dead…

Was there then a reason for her to keep her pact, aside from the fact that she was pregnant, and knew she had to do whatever it took to keep the child growing within her safe? He had _murdered_ Lupin after all. Tonks thought it was well within her rights to refuse Crouch's hand in marriage, though she knew the man wouldn't take her rejection well.

She had experienced his temper firsthand twice now for herself and had no wish to fall subject to his wrath again, knowing she was pregnant.

The simple, plain fact of the matter remained, no matter how the Senior Undersecretary had spun her tale earlier, how much Umbridge convinced her that this little plan of hers to get closer to Crouch would not necessarily be considered a betrayal to her family, but rather, a plot to enact revenge on the man who had stolen her love's life away from him, she still could not help but feel like she's made a horrible slag of herself.

Tonks stifled a groan as she could hear voices coming from below, nothing more than whispers in the dark, snakelike murmurings, but it was enough. Lord Voldemort and his entire company of Death Eaters were here. And they were here for her. Just that thought was enough to make her want to vomit, and she could taste the bile at the back of her throat.

Though she forced herself to swallow it and shakily rose to her feet. The reason, Tonks guessed, behind her shock at her current predicament, had less to do with Winky's words when the house-elf had come to check on her and announce that Master Crouch expected her in the dining room at precisely eight o'clock in attendance of all the other men in the house, and more with the fact that the demand had come so soon after her argument with Crouch.

The entire conversation exchanged with him had been puzzling to Tonks at the very least, and how Crouch's furtive look regarding her earlier had been suspicious as if he thought she would somehow grow wolf fangs and dig them onto the column of his throat.

He looked innocent and gentle enough, but she was not about to fooled a _third_ time.

And she remembered how, there was that moment where he had unceremoniously shoved her against the wall and she was certain he would have taken her for himself right there when his hands had come up to grip painfully tight on her waist and in her hair, how her inner demons had screamed. She shivered, though not from the cold. _Barty_ _Crouch_. _Barty_. Just the thought of the man's _name_ irked her, sending her spine weak and another cold chill traveling down her spine.

Tonks was still wrapping her head around the situation as she rose shakily to her feet, sauntering over to the small chest of drawers she had been given for clothes, pulling on a pair of fresh black skinny jeans and a long-sleeved black blouse. In truth, Tonks was beginning to wonder whether, in her exhausted, sleep-deprived state of mind, if she had imagined the final scathing words that Crouch had spat viciously at her.

But Winky's prompt arrival up the stairs that led to her room, just as she had been about to change and shut the door in the house-elf's face as a message that Crouch could take his demand and shove it, confirmed that her and Crouch's conversation had been entirely real, and not a figment of her imagination.

Oh, but Merlin, how she wished it was just a dream. A bad one that she would wake up from any moment now and Lupin would be by her side.

Tonks caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and sighed, raking her fingers through her dark brown pixie, smoothing a few stray wisps and strands, having chosen the only decent outfit she owned. Crouch had granted her the use of her wand with a supervised guard standing watch at her door to allow her to procure clothing for herself, for which, she supposed she ought to feel flattered by his 'kindness.'

Dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans and a long-sleeved V-neck black blouse and a simple gold necklace, Tonks figured it was going to have to do. While not necessarily as flattering as perhaps Crouch was hoping for, it was not exactly inappropriate, and Tonks found she was thankful for this because her bleak outfit acted as somewhat of a constant reminder to keep herself (and her temper!) in check to get through this damned meeting in one piece alive, and always remember her position with _him_.

Tonks cursed herself and bit the inside wall of her cheek as she felt the inside of her palms become clammy and trapped with sweat as she clenched her hands tightly into fists at her sides to stop the uncontrollable tremors. She knew that she would have to be cautious in front of Lord Voldemort, regardless of how much the Dark Lord would provoke her perhaps to be outspoken, to test her loyalties towards him and to Crouch.

Tonks had angered Crouch already once today by daring to talk back to him and attempt to besmirch his precious Dark Lord's name out of rage.

And now, her tactlessness had led to this current situation of being forced to come face-to-face with Lord Voldemort and dine with Crouch.

Just that thought alone was enough to make her groan in frustration, and the noise alerted little Ptelea, and Tonks allowed the small ghost of a smile to flit across her features as the tiny little green Bowtruckle poked its head out from underneath its usual lock of her hair and made a squeaking noise that in Tonks's imagination, sounded like a noise of disapproval.

He hopped onto the palm of her outstretched hand from atop her head and pointed a leafy tendril towards the locked door. Tonks glanced at it and a light ignited in her gray eyes as she came to an understanding, and did not even have to command Ptelea to hop towards the doorknob and pick the lock, watching in awe as the little ornery Bowtruckle stuck what she supposed was its arm into the lock and struggled with it a minute, blowing a raspberry at the locked door in frustration before she heard a click.

" _Good_ _boy_ , on you hop," she instructed and stifled her grin as she bit the inside wall of her cheek as her precious Bowtruckle squeaked in protest and shook his little leafy head, wanting to stay with his mistress. "Stay quiet, and let's see if we can get out of here, huh? We'll sneak out a window or something. What do you say to that?" Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and sighed as she held up the familiar lock of her long dark brown bang and angrily pointed. "On you _hop_ , Ptelea, now come on," she repeated, a slight lilt and edge to her shy, sweet tone. "If Crouch or any of the other bad men see I have you, they'll kill you probably, and I can't lose my favorite little guy, now can I? After all, you're going to have someone to play with in nine months, and I need you around, little man," she coaxed in what she hoped was a soothing tone.

She allowed the briefest of giggles to escape past her lips as she heard Ptelea give off another raspberry in protest, though after a few seconds more of coaxing, Tonks was able to convince the Bowtruckle to hide underneath his favorite lock of her hair, though not before poking his head out at the open hallway in front of her, narrowing his beady black eyes in suspicion and blowing a raspberry out at the dimly lit corridor of the castle.

"What are you…?" she whispered, her frown deepening as she squinted into the hallway, poking her head around the corner, struggling to see whatever it was that her pet Bowtruckle seemed to sense with his eyes. And then she heard it. A floorboard creaked from somewhere off to her left, from what was, apparently, a spare bedroom of sorts, she thought.

Tonks jerked her head upwards and twisted herself to the left, letting out a muffled yelp of pain as she felt a white-hot jolt of searing pain dart up to her neck and curve around the shell of her right ear as a neck muscle pulled, and she winced, visibly rubbing at the pinched muscle on her neck.

When she turned back around to face the front of the doorway, Tonks felt her lips part open slightly in shock as she took a few faltering steps backward and blinked owlishly at the new arrival, too stunned for words.

The figure was _not_ Crouch, as she had been expecting, nor was it that of Winky the distraught little house-elf who barely came up to her shin.

In fact, he was not one of Crouch's members of staff (of which he only employed maybe four or five, at best, not counting the house-elf as it wasn't paid), though Tonks felt her gaze drift down to the man's missing finger and the blackened empty hole in his eye socket where his eye used to be.

Given his strange chittering behavior, and the stories she'd heard Sirius tell of this man over a goblet of wine in their library, she quickly came to the deduction that the man standing in front of her now, nervously clutching a silver tray in his hand and fidgeting with his silver, gleaming hand in the other, she knew this man had to be the one and only Peter Pettigrew. The Rat, as Crouch was oft fond of calling him, though she had never seen him, Tonks knew him as another name.

Wormtail. _The Betrayer_ , she thought and pursed her lips into a thin, rigid line. _He sold poor Harry's parents to Lord Voldemort, and now I'm supposed to expect to extend the niceties to Remus and Sirius's friends' murderer_?

 _Yes_ , Ollie's voice answered for her inside her head, and she almost jumped at the sudden unexpected contact. _If it keeps you alive and out of Crouch's radar, if you give him no reason to suspect you, we'll make it_.

Tonks panted heavily, a hand over her racing heart. She never _could_ quite get used to Ollie's interference of her thoughts. He did it randomly, whenever he liked, and without any kind of warning on his part, really.

 _Is THIS going to become a regular thing with you?!_ Tonks scolded, knowing full well the skilled Legilimens could hear her, wherever in the castle that he was. When Ollie did not answer, she could only assume that the man was being watched, and she let out a tired sigh and turned to regard the new arrival that was Peter Pettigrew, eyeing her apprehensively.

Despite the immense dislike for the man who made a better rat over the last thirteen years than a man, Tonks surprisingly found herself moving back a few steps more to allow Pettigrew entry into her simple room, in spite of her initial misgivings and immense distrust for the Betrayer.

Peter Pettigrew was several inches shorter than Tonks, about as high as her shoulder, and dressed in a dirtied gray and black pinstripe suit that looked as though it had not been washed in weeks, maybe months, and just the smell of rotting, festering flesh near his empty eye socket was enough to make her stomach lurch and she hoped she wouldn't vomit. The man possessed a mop of stringy, matted, and tangled gray hair that Tonks thought, considering he was balding at the top of his head, would look much better if he were just to wave his wand and rid himself of it altogether and go bald.

In his hands was a silver tea tray, laden with a small plate of cookies, a mug, a few tins, and a small black teapot that was pristine, neat.

"E—excuse me, Miss Prewitt." Tonks felt herself bristle at the false name he called her by. He should know full well who she was.

Given she had apprehended several of his colleagues.

Wormtail eyed Tonks with no small amount of apprehension in his eyes. Peter Pettigrew took a few steps off to the side and set the tray down as gently as he could on the small wooden night table next to Tonks's bed, which the house-elf had made earlier.

"M—Master Crouch sent me to check on you. I don't mean to interrupt, but that is, M—Master thought you would enjoy a nice hot cup of herbal tea before the…before the dinner," he mumbled, casting his skittish eyes down. "To calm your nerves and it should surely settle your stomach."

Tonks quirked a brow at Peter Pettigrew in suspicion, watching as the shorter, stout man nodded with a curt jerk of his head towards the tray on the table. When she did not immediately answer, he slowly approached her in the same manner that a nervous first year would a wild Hippogriff, setting the tray on a different night table that was closest to her position. She blinked at the tray in curiosity. Tonks could detect no ill will on the man's face.

Was he…actually offering her _refreshments_? Being… _kind_? Oh, what _was_ this?

Tonks could not help but feel somewhat apprehensive and dazed. Since arriving at Crouch's estate, no one had treated her with the slightest inkling of normalcy. They took one look at her chocolate brown pixie cut and her facial features and called her 'Alice.' No doubt to play into Crouch's delusions of grandeur if they valued keeping their own lives. Everyone here had hidden agendas of their own, Tonks knew this, as an Auror.

And she wouldn't be surprised if everyone had their own reasons for wanting to kill her, capture her, trick her, or scream at her somehow. And yet, here was Wormtail, the Rat himself, the Betrayer, this little man, currently giving her an awkward little half-bow out of a misplaced sense of fear and attempting to go out of his way to be _kind_ towards her. Though Tonks was not fooled.

She could tell by the way the man carried himself and stood practically stooped and hunched over like Tom the hunchback that helped run The Leaky Cauldron, that he found her somewhat intimidating as his gaze was constantly looking every which way, everywhere but towards her.

It wasn't until the little man took a fumbling step back, nervously fidgeting with his fingers, weaving them in and out of his knuckles, and turned abruptly to leave that Tonks realized she hadn't offered him a thank you as she moved towards the hot teacup.

The teacup that she now clutched in both hands was small enough to fit the palm of a child, hoping that magic brew that never failed to calm her nerves.

Within her cup was the swirling dark brown glaze, the various hues of whatever herbal tea this was, though one sniff and a brief taste confirmed her suspicions that it was her favorite: hot, herbal chamomile.

"Wait." Tonks winced at how loud and desperate she sounded as the Rat turned on the heel of his shoe to leave, sensing she was uncomfortable.

The poor fellow had actually lost his footing and stumbled out of the doorway that led from her room and into the hallway and would have very nearly fallen down the stairwell had Tonks not shot out an arm to grab him.

"I am _so_ _sorry_ , sir. Are you all right? I—I didn't mean to…scare you like that. I'm really sorry. Seems like this entire week isn't going my way," she growled menacingly through gritted teeth and quickly shook it off. "Did I—did I frighten you? You are sure you are all right, Mr. Pettigrew?"

Tonks could hear the stout man's sharp intake of breath, and she did not even have to look Pettigrew in the eye to see that he was stunned.

Clearly, this man had not expected her to treat him with any semblance of kindness, given now that practically the whole wizarding community in all of Great Britain knew that Peter was behind the Potters' deaths. But this man, Tonks could tell, if his missing eye and several fingers were any indications, had probably suffered a great deal under Crouch's hand, and while she harbored no affection for this man who had played a role in aiding and abetting the murder of James and Lily Potter, she was not about to continue that same scorn, and just maybe, _maybe_ , if she was kind enough, the man would harbor a change of heart and help her escape.

It was a long shot, but she and Ollie needed all the help they could get, and if that meant being kind to the Betrayer, to Wormtail, then so be it.

Without even waiting for a proper response from Peter Pettigrew, Tonks settled both of her hands on the man's shoulders and gingerly set him upright, back on his feet. The little man who made a better rat than human instantly took a faltering step backward to the left this time, away from the stairwell, and straightened himself in a vain attempt to look presentable again, his face flushed red and looking like he was embarrassed.

Tonks flinched, biting the inside wall of her cheek, and mentally berating herself for invading the little man's personal space, and to avoid the awkward tension between the two, settled instead for taking another tiny sip of tea.

Though she wasn't very thirsty, much less hungry, the man had been right in his assumption that the tea would help calm her nerves.

"Er…um, y—yes," stammered Peter, looking even further ruffled than before and uncomfortable, and he adamantly refused to look Tonks in the eye, constantly weaving his fingers, what was left of them, in between his knuckles, though his gaze flitted upwards as he watched Tonks take another sip of her tea. "You'll want to drink _all_ of that, miss. And th—thank you, girl. F—for saving m—my life. I'd have fallen if not for you, likely broken my neck," he winced, rubbing at the pale, bruised column of his throat with his languid silver hand and Pettigrew flinched. "Ah, if there is anything you should need from me, please see me. If you want some more tea, just shout. Mr. Crouch wants you to be happy here."

Tonks blinked owlishly at the short, stout, rat-like creature tottering his way down the hall. She furrowed her brows into a frown as she watched him make his way towards the stairwell, and she pursed her lips into a thin line, and the question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

"Why did you do it, Peter? You _sold_ James and Lily out. _Why_?" She hated hearing the crack and dip in her voice as she asked.

But what Peter had done had affected Remus and Sirius in more ways than either man cared to admit, and if she learned of nothing else from this man, the Rat, Wormtail, the only query she wanted an answer to was the question she had just asked. Why had he done it? Why did he betray them?

Pettigrew could have turned over a new leaf at any time, yet he had not. He did not, and just the sight of the man, this Rat, made Tonks feel sick from the ends of her hair to the very nails on her toes. Tonks did not consider herself a young woman who came to hate another person easily.

But she knew evil when she saw it. She _knew_.

And as Tonks thought of Peter Pettigrew's betrayals towards not just James and Lily, but Remus and Sirius as well, and the entire rest of the First Order of the Phoenix, her lip curled, and she felt her nostrils flare in anger. Her mind felt as if a stone were coursing through it rather than blood, and she felt lightheaded now.

Tonks watched as the man faltered and flailed his arms out to clasp onto the banister's railing to steady himself at the top of the stairs. Clearly, he had not anticipated her knowing who he was, and what he had done.

The question had caught him off-guard, and she heard him splutter and stammer as he tried to think of a retort, but eventually, he quieted, and when he lifted his chin slightly to regard her, the look of remose and immense guilt seem to wash over his entire body in waves, one right after the other, that he started to shake violently.

And when Pettigrew did finally answer her, his voice was so soft that Tonks practically had to lean forward and poke her head through the doorway to better hear the man. "I—I did not _mean_ to," he whispered.

Was that remorse, guilt in his voice? Merlin, but she hoped so.

Peter's face flushed a bright shade of crimson and he looked away.

"The—the Dark Lord t—tortured me for information about their whereabouts. I—I should have _died_ that day f—for what I did, b—but…I'm not brave. Not like _them_. My… _friends_ ," he answered somewhat hesitantly, painfully twisting his fingers. "I—I should have been a Slytherin. The Sorting Hat was wrong to place me in Gryffindor all those years ago. If I had been a true Gryffindor, I...I would not have ratted out my...my two best friends..." The bitterness and self-hatred in his tone were unmistakable and intermingled with that of the guilt and remorse she heard seeping its way into Pettigrew's tones, she realized that she had come to pity this man.

The fact that Pettigrew would live for the rest of his lonely, miserable life with what he had done was punishment enough, Tonks decided.

She was not about to continue a lifetime of jeering and scorn, though she would see to it that if, when the time came for her and Ollie to escape and they ran into complications, which she was very much anticipating to.

Then so help him, if Wormtail wanted to make amends for past transgressions, to atone for betraying Lily and James, then he'd help them.

Tonks gave a curt nod of her head, silently communicating with Pettigrew to leave. He returned the gesture and shuffled his way down the steps, still occasionally making odd chattering noises at the back of his throat. Tonks shook her head to clear it, momentarily stupefied by the odd little man's strange behavior, thinking that, after twelve years living life as a rat, that St. Mungo's was the place for him to be observed and studied.

Sighing in disappointment she stepped back into her room and as she waited for her cup of chamomile tea to steep, she plucked one of the cookies from the plate that Peter Pettigrew had left on the night table for her, and gave it an experimental nibble, biting off just a tiny chunk.

Finding the chocolate chip to be satisfactory, she ripped off a bigger bite with her teeth, washing it down with a small sip of tea and winced as the hot liquid burned a few taste buds off of her tongue, and she frowned. Chamomile to the best of her knowledge didn't taste quite as honey-sweet as this particular brew, did, she thought as she pondered it. The tea typically held gentle notes of apple, and with each sip, she downed there was a mellow, honey-like sweetness in the cup, but also a strange sense of bitterness as well that Tonks was quite sure was _not_ supposed to be there.

If she strained to listen, Tonks swore she could hear low murmurings coming from the floor directly below her, and she let out a sigh, knowing that she would have to head down to the dining hall to meet with Crouch. _And Lord Voldemort_ , she thought unhelpfully with a cold shudder.

As she recollected back over her behavior earlier towards Barty Crouch Jr., at the time, she had not thought his outburst all that shocking, really. To be fair, it was _he_ who had stormed into her room less than twenty-four hours after she was brutally shown the mauled, grotesque corpse of the man that she would have married, who would have been a loving father to their baby, but Tonks knew she could have easily diverted the conversation elsewhere, but Crouch's sudden change in countenance, however, like it or not, had piqued Tonks's curiosity, and she _hated_ that.

Why had Crouch not just…taken what he wanted of her, when he'd shoved her up against the wall and would have tried to…if she hadn't…

She shuddered, and it was causing her to be nervous just thinking about Crouch. Barty Crouch Jr. and his unnervingly wide smile and insatiable lust for 'Alice' frightened her more so than Lord Voldemort did.

Which was _saying_ something?

Tonks frowned and strode to the door once she'd polished off the cookie and took another swig of still-hot tea, following a brief trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth and put on makeup. As much as she was loathed to put effort into her appearance, something told her that if she did not at least try, Crouch would beat her.

Such conflicting thoughts were ruminating in Tonks's mind just as she flung open the door to her bedroom and was about to head downstairs, but just as she put one foot over the threshold, she came face-to-face with none other than Ollie, whose expression quickly turned from that of nervous relief to what could only be described as pure, unmitigated horror.

"Ollie?" Tonks pressed, her voice rising in confusion as she took note of the ashen, terrified look on Ollie Brennan's face. "Ol. What's wrong? Has something...happened?" she asked, swallowing nervously past the lump in her throat.

"What do you think you're _doing_? What on earth are you _wearing_?" Ollie violently exclaimed, gesturing with his free hand not currently clutching onto a wrapped package with a look on his face that suggested Tonks's black blouse and black skinny jeans were nothing more than rags.

"My outfit? Why, what's wrong with it?" Tonks replied simply, glancing down, and tugging on her long-sleeved black blouse in agitation.

"You cannot dine in the presence of Crouch and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named looking like that," scoffed Ollie angrily, whisper hissing his words through clenched teeth as his cobalt blue orbs darkened rapidly. "Even if your manners have no prayer of being corrected, the least you can do is look presentable if it means avoiding drawing attention to yourself. Besides, M—Master w—wants you to look your best. He bought you _this_ …Do what Master says. Do what Crouch says or he'll hurt you."

He paused, and silently held out the wrapped package to her.

"He _already_ hurts me, Ol. All day I'm locked in this room and he comes at night and... and …it can't be any _worse_ ," she whispered hoarsely, her voice cracking.

"It can," Ollie retorted calmly, his voice numb of emotion. "It can _always_ be worse." His words escaped his lips as a low, flat warning. "Do what he says. _Survive_."

Tonks froze, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she closed off the gap of space and seized a fistful of his cloak, hardly daring to believe the words that were coming out of the former Slytherin's mouth. These words from her best friend. They might have come from Ollie's mouth, he might have said them, but this was _not_ her friend.

"What did he _do_ to you? You _betrayed_ me, Ollie! You allowed me to think you were dead! Why…why didn't you find some way to send me a message? I would have come for you. You _know_ that!" she sobbed, not bothering to stop her tears. "You _owe_ me, Ollie. Make it up to me now by helping me escape. _Help_. _Me_!"

She shook the material of his cloak and winced as his eyes filled with tears. "Do you _hear_ me, Ollie? _Ollie_." He wouldn't look at her. " _Promise_. Take me somewhere safe. Disapparate with me. To—to Hogwarts. _Please_." Tonks heard Ollie emanate a tense shaking breath and he nodded.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she saw no other choice available to her but to unwrap it, though if she had been gifted the courtesy of being allowed her wand, she would have set whatever Crouch bought for her on fire and promptly refused to wear whatever this garment was.

She allowed the wrapping to fall to the carpet beneath her feet and held out a lavish white lace floor-length gown with long flared sleeves. Simple in cut and design but the fabric was the finest silk she'd ever seen.

"Oh no, no, no, _no_!" protested Tonks hotly and threw the dress that more resembled a bridal gown than something appropriate to dine in onto her made-up bed. "I cannot wear this, Ol! It's too much! Inappropriate!"

" _You have to_!" Ollie violently exclaimed, curling his hand into a fist, and slamming it down on her chest of drawers hard enough to crack and splinter the word. Upon seeing his friend's paling face in fear and anger, he sighed and pinched at the front of his temples with this thumb and forefinger. "I know. I _understand_. He killed Remus. I know better than most what kind of monster Crouch is. I know why you don't want to."

He made an odd little face that to Tonks suggested perhaps he knew more than he let on, but he did not elaborate, which only succeeded in fueling her temper further.

"You don't want to draw any more attention to yourself, T. But we need more time. You want Crouch to _kill_ you and your baby for disrespecting him? Just…put it on, and keep your mouth _shut_ ," he growled, perhaps for the first time since knowing him, Tonks thought Ollie looked… _angry_. "This is the _only_ way. I—I _promise_ to get you out of here, but _please_. F—for _my_ sake, can you _please_ mind your tongue tonight? I—I _promise_ to help you escape. Tonight. After dark. I swear. I already sent a message ahead to Professor Dumbledore, I'm to take you to the Hospital Wing immediately first chance we get, but I can't keep my promise _and_ keep you safe if you're trying so damn hard to get _killed_! You have captured M—Master Crouch's attention, whether you like it or not. This is your chance to get vengeance on the wolf," he growled.

Upon seeing the dark look Tonks shot him, Ollie stammered and immediately began trying to correct himself, gingerly rubbing at his neck.

"I—I mean, _Remus_ ," he snarled, though the note of jealous bitterness in Ollie's tone was almost unmistakable, and Tonks blinked owlishly at him. "Don't you realize how _lucky_ you are? We can take Crouch down. The fact that the man fancies you is just an added bonus. He won't suspect. Now hurry up and change out of those clothes. We'll be _late_ , T. _Now_."

As Ollie's voice turned more somber, his cobalt eyes darkening in ire until they were almost cerulean in color, Tonks began to listen to her best friend in earnest and consider the man's words. Everything he had said to her thus far was true. And yet, it did very little to quell the churning pit in her stomach, which seemed to suggest to Tonks that she was rejecting Ollie's sage words of wisdom to her, even though she partially agreed with what the man was saying.

"I understand your point," she grumbled darkly.

"But…?" prodded Ollie, allowing the smallest ghost of a smirk to flit across his pale, broken features, and Tonks startled. For a split second, she saw the shadow of her former best friend, before tragedy had ripped him away from her. He rested against the wall of her bedroom, arms folded across his chest, one leg crossed over the other, lifting his eyebrows slyly.

She huffed in frustration and stomped her foot, a release of her pent-up agitation and hurt towards the violent way in which Lupin was killed. Tonks blinked back angry, briny tears and swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat.

"B—but he…Crouch is entirely disagreeable. I don't give a _damn_ if he's a Death Eater or not, Ol. He murdered Remus." Her voice was hot, the edges of her tone clipped and hard, and as she lifted her gaze to look at Ollie directly, she was surprised to see the man regarding her with a look akin to admiration and awe in his blue eyes. "I can't see what _any_ kind of advantage Umbridge or even you think that I would have by daring to allow myself to get close to him tonight."

Ollie, for his part, merely proceeded to smile in an almost incredulous manner as he shook his head and turned away at the waist, avoiding her gaze. "That," he answered, as he fiddled with something in his hands.

Tonks stared, not quite getting it. "I—I'm sorry?" Tonks stammered, completely nonplussed and all she could do was blink owlishly at Ollie, confused as to whatever it was that her best friend might be referring to.

Tonks glanced down at the lavish white gown clutched in her hands, which she held close to her heart. Though she was reluctant to don anything Crouch believed would flatter her figure, she hated to admit it.

But the man had good taste. If she were to pass this by a window in Madame Malkin's shop, there was a ninety percent chance that she would have bought it herself. _Perhaps even_ , she thought, _I would have gotten married in this_.

" _That_ ," Ollie repeated, sounding ever-so-slightly impatient with her, and he uncrossed one of his arms from his chest and lifted a half-cut off finger that made Tonks flinch before he shook the sleeve of his black robe over his hand to hide it, "is the reason why Crouch is infatuated with you so much. _Use_ that to your _advantage_ , T. I know you want to avenge your fiancé's death. So do I. I _owe_ Crouch for keeping me locked up inside this hellhole for years and torturing me. Get through this damned bloody dinner in one piece, _say_ _nothing_ ," he growled, "and I'll get us out of here."

"I—I don't understand," Tonks stammered, frowning as she shook her head in confusion, still clutching tightly onto the white lace dress.

Ollie sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose, motioning with a wave of his arm for Tonks to head to the bathroom to change her clothes.

"And all the better that you don't," Ollie growled darkly. " _Change_."

Before Tonks could form a proper response that in actuality was more of a violent, protesting exclamation, Ollie shot her a dark, withering look that would have had, had Brennan the ability, probably turned her to stone. With anyone else, perhaps, Tonks would have allowed her temper to get the better of her and would have violently protested his advice to her, but her best friend was as stubborn as an ox sometimes, and Tonks knew that, deep in the recesses of her heart and mind, that he was right, damn him.

The easiest way out of this mess was for her to see this dinner through. She only prayed that whatever Crouch was planning wouldn't involve in her losing a finger or two like the man had done to poor pitiful Peter Pettigrew if there was a chance (and she thought there a very strong chance) that she would not be able to mind her rapidly swelling temper.

Tonks emanated a tense breath through her nose and quickly ducked into the bedroom to change, not wanting to test Ollie's temper further.

The young witch had seen firsthand for herself what happens when Ollie lost his cool, and she had no desire to have the entire castle come crumbling down underneath her if the Obscurus attached to him erupted.

She worked quickly to apply a little makeup. With makeup, she no longer had her mother's eyes. It was her features that she feared, the cold paleness, pools of gray, windows into nothing at all now that he was dead.

The young witch drew a pretty line in deep espresso over the top and the thinnest layer below that alone was enough to make it bearable for Tonks to look at herself in the mirror and took those eyes to be her own.

Tonight, she would describe her makeup as war paint, forced to use her own sexuality as a weapon. She could twist Crouch around her pinky finger or flirt with another man and make the Death Eater so jealous.

Though she hated this idea with every fiber of her being, she had no other choice. Tonks gave her reflection a quick once-over in the mirror, scrutinizing her new dress. Or rather, she supposed it was more of a gown.

Tonks sighed and smoothed her short dark chocolate pixie down and gave her lips one final coat of clear lip gloss and nodded, stepping outside.

"Well? How does it look, Ol? _You're_ the judge here, after all, Ollie," she asked, hearing a slight teasing lilt to her voice that had not been present in her voice for the past few days as she caught Ollie gawking at her in her new white silk gown.

The sleeves were overly long and somewhat old-fashioned, looking like something one of the medieval maidens in a few of her favorite Shakespeare plays would have worn, but it was a true thing of elegant beauty, and she sank into a low, mocking curtsy for Ollie.

Stunned at the sheer transformation of his friend's appearance, how raw and emotional it was, Ollie barely felt himself fold his arms about Tonks's middle.

She felt incredibly warm against him as she burrowed deeper into his broad chest. Her shaking hands clutched at fistfuls of his robe for support, as if afraid to let him go, that he would die in front of her all over again.

"B—beautiful," Tonks heard Ollie whisper reverently as he rested his chin on top of her hair, yearning to speak what was on his mind and in his heart, in case Crouch killed him later before he had a chance to confess it.

"What?" Tonks intoned, still buried in the comfort of her friend's arms.

" _You_." He paused as Tonks pulled back slightly in his tight embrace to study his features. Ollie cringed, thinking now was as good a time as ever to say it, lest this might be his only chance. "I…I cry for you as well, T. More...more than you know, Tonks," he admitted quickly, watching as astonishment spiraled across her pale face and a dawning look of horror and understanding flitted in her gray eyes. "My dreams are _filled_ with your face, your pains at thinking me dead all those years, your death. I-a—and there's nothing I can do to save you. Last night," he paused, drawing in a breath for strength, "when I dreamed, you accused me of allowing it."

"Oh, Ollie, _no_. No, no, no," she begged, fresh tears sparkling in her ears. "Do not _do_ this to yourself. I—I don't blame you. Not for a _second_ , so don't you _dare_ think that any of what happened here is your fault."

The second she started crying, Ollie cursed himself, regretting his admittance immediately. He _never_ should have said. He felt his heart clench and he felt one of his fingers drift upward to her cheek to wipe away the last tear tract that rolled down her pale face.

Luckily, she'd given whatever makeup she was wearing a good spritz of whatever witches used to keep the look in place, so her liner and mascara weren't running, but…

And then he remembered. He dipped into an interior pocket of his black woolen robe and silently placed a small yellow gold ring into the palm of her hand and curled her fingers over it. Tonks blinked, staring.

"Are we getting married?" she asked dumbly, gray eyes wide and round. "B—because oh, Ollie, what _is_ this? I—I'm flattered, but I'm not interested..." But her voice cracked and trailed off as she heard Ollie snort.

"It's Crouch. I guess this is the ring he wants you to wear, but…" he growled and his voice trailed off as he watched with no small amount of disgust in his darkening cerulean blue orbs as his face rapidly paled in anger as Tonks slipped the simple yellow gold wedding ring on her left ring, all a part of her ruse tonight.

He could not help but to shake the feeling that this was the final punishment of Master Crouch's to Dora. To give her a ring that was almost identical to the one that the werewolf had proposed to her with. It was…

Cruel. Cruel and unfair. _Cruelly_ _unfair_ , he thought, though they were running behind as it was, and Ollie reluctantly reached for the doorknob and escorted Tonks out of the sanctity of her bedroom and downstairs.

As Tonks allowed her best friend to escort her down to where Crouch and the Dark Lord waited, the dread and fear crept over her entire body like an icy chill, numbing her brain. In this frozen state, her mind only offered her one thought: it was tonight.

No matter what happened to her.

There was no avoiding meeting him. The Dark Lord Himself. She felt like a cow being herded into a truck for the slaughterhouse, only the cow didn't know where it was going, and Tonks, unfortunately, did know.

Straight into the arms of Death.


	61. Escape

**CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE**

Crouch mentally swore inside his head, not caring if the Dark Lord heard him, the skilled Legilimens that he knew his Master to be, though the man himself only used the talent when only absolutely necessary.

The very second the Dark Lord's icy, and somewhat wasted stare reigned a fit of unease in his general direction from the opposite end of the table, he thought for sure the glower Lord Voldemort was giving him was sure to fire, and he'd be dead before he could as much as blink an eye.

Impatience was a part of the Dark Lord's nature even on a good day, and it was perhaps the one nerve that Crouch always managed to strike a chord with as often as one would be disappointed in their own child.

He raised the glass of wine to his lips and heavily drank, all the while never taking his eyes off the entryway into the dining hall, watching for signs of her. She knew better than to disobey, or else she would find—

"I heard," the Dark Lord carried on through gritted teeth and rooted jaw, as he laced his bone-white fingers together and propped his elbows up on the table, and just the iciness of his tone sent the chills down Crouch's throat as Barty felt his throat hollow and constrict as if there were a thick, horrible weight on the column of his throat sucking the very air from his lungs and rendering it impossible for him to breathe.

"Heard what?" Barty asked in what he hoped was a nonchalant voice, feigning innocence, and he made a show out of tracing the rim of his wine glass with the delicate pad of his index finger. " _Milord_ ," he quickly corrected himself upon seeing the Dark Lord shoot him a dark glower.

The Dark Lord's red eyes narrowed until they were mere slits, red pinpricks in the dimly lit dining hall, so much so, that the wizard's eyes resembled that of the snake-like slits of a poisonous pit viper's soulless pupils.

"I have given you your chance with this girl, Crouch, to do with her whatever it is that you _please_ , however, if your beloved little _plaything_ is withdrawn from my sight, this opportunity that I've given you, I can take it away just as easily. Perhaps if you are going to mistreat this young woman who seems quite the prize, I should hand her over to Rookwood, hmm? Or _maybe_ …" he paused, tapping his chin in mock thought, seeming to take a sadistic gleeful delight in watching Crouch squirm and writhe at his comments.

Crouch, for his part, said nothing, which only furthered Lord Voldemort's attempt in an effort to inspire some kind of response from Barty.

"What of the _wolf_? Perhaps I would turn the young woman over to Fenrir to take as his _mate_. It is becoming quite clear to me that given how I thought I made it quite _clear_ that the girl was to be seen by _me_ , _alive_ and _unharmed_ , do you understand? If what you tell me of her is true, if she really is a pureblood witch, then Prewitt had best not show up to this arranged meeting as skin and bones, if the rumors that I hear of your future little bride _starving_ hold truth…"

Crouch furrowed his dark brows into a frown as the Dark Lord fell silent as if he'd never spoken to his top Death Eater at all, and he spat. He talked of Alice _unharmed_ and yet he was constant talk of killing Harry Potter, that half-blooded, dim-witted four-eyes, pompous little _git_. Barty bit the inside wall of his cheek, feeling his foot beginning to tap restlessly against the cobblestone floor beneath him with his black leather boot, the red-rims of his darkened brown eyes blackening with pious anxiety.

He watched every single Death Eater, male and female alike, that entered the dining hall, and it did nothing to quell his racing heart, that damned stubborn corded mass of muscle within the confines of his chest.

His palms became clammy as he curled his hands into fists, feeling the sweat trapped within them, and his imagination ran rampant when Alice still had yet to appear.

"Where is Alice?" one of the lesser-ranked Death Eaters barked sharply, his voice gruffer than perhaps he meant it, waiting.

It was a question Crouch wanted to flay, and Barty ground his teeth in anger. _Shut the hell up, Rookwood, you fool_. Crouch stifled a low growl in the back of his throat as Alice showed no signs of appearing by his side at dinner tonight, when he had specifically commanded her to, or else… Though, come to think of it. He had more or less yelled it at her earlier, and he had not exactly given her a choice, though when it came to the Dark Lord's wishes, and the man's simple wish for this evening was to meet her, then you bloody well complied with him unless you wanted to end up as a meal for the damned snake, Nagini.

Seven Hells. What had he been _thinking_? His father, and to a lesser extent, the Dark Lord, was right. He was nothing more than a bastard, so why should he pretend otherwise?

"Where. Is. Alice?" Crouch barked towards Peter Pettigrew, who lingered, cowering in the corner of the dining room, a ting flagon of wine in his hand as he had retreated from making his way about the table.

"Sh—she will be here, milord. I—I have spoken with her earlier, the girl showed every indication that she would attend. If you like, I can go and fetch her, sir," the stout-like rat of a man murmured, half of his face shrouded in shadow, the other bathed in the dim light from the candelabra above, though Wormtail had long since perfected a look of indifference when around Crouch, though Barty was not at all fooled by it.

Pettigrew had always been a bad liar, and the man was nothing but a pious coward.

Crouch resisted the urge to roar like an enraged dragon as another Death Eater asked of him the same question as his rattled gaze stared at the rest of the congregation around the table that wanted proof of her existence.

Crouch was no bloody _fool_. They had all come to bear witness to the young witch who had stolen away his heart, to see it for themselves.

The realization doused him as though someone had poured a bucket of cold water over his head. Alice Prewitt, beauty though she was, was standing him up, and his thoughts became clouded with darkness as visions of locking her up in his own bedroom with no hopes of seeing the light of the sun ever again flitted through his mind as he raged war with himself.

Crouch stifled his low groan of frustration as discreetly as he could, out of the corner of his eye and to his left, towards the far end of the table where the Dark Lord sat as the Head, of his Master's hostile, rigid posture.

But the second he halfway had risen from his chair with intent on dragging Alice down here kicking and screaming, his ears perked up at the noise of delicate footsteps too light to belong to those of a young man's.

"Alice Prewitt." Crouch turned his head so sharply towards the dining room's entryway that he almost gave himself whiplash with the effort.

Now that Crouch had claimed Alice for himself and himself alone, he could not bear to lose this…thing, whatever it was that existed between the two of them, that which made him feel so complete.

He didn't know if what he felt for his future bride and mother of their pureblood lineage was lust or…or…the beginning of an emotion when he had previously no longer thought himself capable of feeling, not since his days as a young lad at Hogwarts, one that the Dark Lord and everyone else seated at this table would chastise him for. Dare he even think it?

" _Love_." He sneered, raising his goblet to his lips, and tossing his head back, and downed his red wine. " _Mine_ ," he breathed lowly, standing up and moving to greet Alice, exhaling slowly through his nose, extending an arm and he felt her flinch.

Barty felt his already pale face drain of color and his facial muscles tensed as he slowly walked her towards the other end of the table to the Dark Lord, whose face remained impassive as he too, slowly rose from his chair.

As they passed by the others, they had to pause to allow the other male Death Eaters in the room to kiss the hand of the luscious beauty that had (thank Merlin) finally decided to grace them all with her presence. Crouch silently seethed, grinding his teeth in annoyance, feeling ventilated at best.

Crouch was, at the very least, pleased to see that Alice had donned the white gown he'd picked out especially for her, thinking it would highlight her curvaceous figure and bring attention to the chocolate hues of her short hair. His gaze drifted downward, and he was pleased to see she was wearing the ring he'd gotten for her.

Perhaps things were finally looking up and she was coming to her senses. He could only pray that she was. The little minx seemed to be in the mood for play, he deduced as he slowly led her around the table as she was every inch a proper young pureblood witch as she extended the appropriate courtesies where necessary with her dazzlingly white, queenly smiles, and then it hit him.

Alice was just as beautiful as the first time he'd truly laid eyes on her back in that alleyway in downtown London, but when she slowly lifted her chin and her light, glistening gray orbs met hers, her smile faltered.

And Crouch realized that he felt… _jealous_ , a feeling which only intensified as the Dark Lord rose fully from his seat, black robes billowing as he did so, and he could have sworn he heard his sweet Alice give off the tiniest squeak of fear, as the Dark Lord stood in front of them in silence.

Lord Voldemort took his time in eyeing this girl, this strange material of beauty that was Alice Prewitt if what Crouch was telling him was true of her heritage. Ah, but he had heard stories of this bright young witch.

How she defied conventional standards by daring to consort and cohabitate and dare to _mate_ with werewolves even possibly, how it was rumored that this witch possessed the ability to transform into a She-Wolf.

This young Auror had become the topic of many stories amongst the Death Eaters in his rank, how just her bewitching beauty alone had enchanted Crouch, bewitched him somehow, so that his mind could think of nothing but her, and thus, _she_ was the reason for his distractions lately.

Such rumors, of course, were nothing more than stupid, slanderous lies, and Lord Voldemort was not even about to entertain the idea of digesting and subjecting himself to such ridiculous gossip. It was beneath him.

'Alice' was, even Lord Voldemort had to begrudgingly admit it, something of a sweet sight, though he himself considered himself beneath the pleasures of the flesh, the Dark Lord recognized a pretty face when he saw one, and Crouch Jr.'s latest obsession was very much so a pretty face.

Pale skin cut from the finest pearls, rich dark chocolate hair cut in a short pixie that highlighted prominent cheekbones, an elegant neck, and a graceful jawline.

Her slender figure curvaceous and eye-catching in what appeared to be a brand-new white floor-length silk and lace gown with long flared tow sleeves, and on her ring finger, Voldemort practically sneered at the sight of the simple yellow gold ring on her left ring finger.

The Dark Lord as Alice and Crouch approached had a feeling that he would know soon enough for himself which of these rumors would prove true and which were falsehoods.

The girl was a lovely little creature, indeed. Crouch's future bride was not a girl anymore and she would never be again. The traces of the young girl that lingered in her face and the petite form of her body, though her curves had filled out a little, just enough to give her an adult shape, the comely figure of a twenty-four-year-old.

She was a few years younger than Crouch, who was nearing his thirty-fourth year, but the age, the Dark Lord supposed, was right enough.

Not a little girl and not older than him. Her light gray eyes were sharp and inquisitive, and as he felt his gaze boring straight into the young witch's eyes, he felt drawn to them in a way that even he could not quite explain.

The iciness he found within felt like he was being pulled into a frozen lake of emotions, a whirlpool of apprehension.

The Dark Lord could tell by the witch's body language that she despised him, as she fidgeted with her fingers, weaving her fingers in between her knuckles and toying with the yellow gold wedding ring she wore on her left ring finger nervously.

He watched as the girl shifted her weight skittishly from one foot to the other, and it did not escape the Dark Lord's attention that he could have sworn he saw Crouch's hand curl tightly, possessively so, into a fist around her forearm, keeping her firmly rooted to her place before Lord Voldemort.

"Alice Prewitt," he began slowly, the witch's name rolling off his smooth, languid tongue, and he saw the young brunette flinch slightly. "Welcome." He gestured towards the dining hall. "I trust that Mr. Crouch has ensured that you will be comfortable with him. Well provided for?"

His voice was crude, and Lord Voldemort watched as 'Alice' shied away from him in hesitation and a nervous apprehension, and as she lifted her chin slightly, daring to look the man in the eyes, there was that which the Dark Lord could only perceive as venom in those gray eyes, no doubt the witch was labeling him as a terrorist.

But then why wouldn't she? He half expected the girl would grow fangs, if she truly were a She-Wolf, and try to dig them into his neck.

Though the young brunette witch did neither of those things.

Suddenly, the hostile look on her face changed, as if under influence of the Imperius Curse, though he knew for a fact 'Alice' was not, given he could still see those gray orbs of hers, and she offered him a bright smile.

Reaching out to her knee and bending her right knee slightly, she gathered the material of her white gown in both fists and offered a brief but still quite respectful curtsy.

"Milord. It is…an _honor_ to be here, in Mr. Crouch's home. He has…been truly _kind_ to me, and has treated me quite _well_ , I can assure you," she began demurely, her voice almost that of a purr. "There can be no…greater pleasure than to…meet you, at last, milord…"

It strangely lifted his sour mood, hearing the girl's words in her quiet, shy tone, sweetened like honey, and Lord Voldemort felt himself loosening his clenched white-boned fist and let out a crooked smile.

He could have sworn he saw the witch flinch slightly, though he sat back down and gave a curt wave for Barty and this new woman to sit to his immediate left.

All the while Barty Crouch Jr. spent the last five minutes agonizing in silence, fretting like a simpering child and had failed to notice the other Death Eaters at the table had started eating, whispering amongst themselves like the poisonous snakes in the night Crouch knew them all to be, really.

Crouch scowled, his brows coming together as he watched all of their faces: Rodolphus, Rookwood, Rosier, and even wretched accursed Karkaroff, all of the men eyeing _his_ Alice, begging for another chance at their youth, at an attempt to wile and beguile her at their first opportunity.

And then the Dark Lord announced it. Of Alice's Prewitt's unexpected pregnancy to everyone there at the table.

"What say you, Crouch? Will you father and babysit your little _wolf_ _cub_?" he snorted over the rim of his wine goblet, his voice a droll, listless tone, as he sounded rather bored.

Alice beside him sucked in a breath that resembled that of a sharp, shooting, enduring pain. Crouch ground his teeth in gritted anger as he raked his hand along Alice's thigh, not caring if he scratched the material of her white silk and lace gown, pouring the very wrath and hot, dragon-fire anger into his ironclad grip without giving a hint to anyone in the room. Not Brennan, who lingered as a guard alongside Pettigrew just outside the entryway to the dining hall.

Neither of those wretches was allowed in. And it remained there and transfigured itself into a different kind of hunger for the young brunette witch. He wanted _her_. Right _now_. He'd take her right here on top of the table in front of everyone for all he bloody well cared.

He needed to release the insurmountable tension welling within his chest, and before his grip could reach that little bit higher, the Dark Lord's voice snapped him out of his dark mental swirling of vicious thoughts.

"You appear to be distracted, Bartemius?" The Dark Lord once again snatched his mind away from lustful thoughts of Alice, and Crouch felt as his hand froze in mid-climb as it had been in the midst of snaking its way up her thigh.

Lord Voldemort was carefully studying Crouch's expression through red, narrowed slits that were his eyes, though Barty thought it rather unnerving to see the head of a snake on a man's body, as Master's was.

He was studying the pair of them over the rim of his wine goblet.

_Damn it_ , Crouch swore internally, his teeth clenched, and jaw locked in anger. The Dark Lord must have sensed the strange behavior of Alice.

Alice's posture had stiffened and tensed, though there was a strange glint in her glistening gray orbs that almost suggested a mask of serenity as if she were… _pleased_ with herself.

"You're not eating, Crouch. What ails you?" The Dark Lord inquired yet again. "I would have hoped you would have valuable insight to offer me as to how we might infiltrate the Ministry and begin the process of planting members of our own ranks within her. You are unusually _quiet_ this evening. You've always had a say in these matters, Crouch. What seems to be on your mind this evening, Barty?"

But Barty could not find it within himself to look at Lord Voldemort as he felt his eye twitch with ire. Putting Alice on a platter and eating her. Bedding her until she can't walk. "I…I am yet to decide, milord. I—"

He couldn't bother to finish his sentence. The familiar ache that he had come to know over the last few days as lust had clouded his judgment and his mind and he couldn't even begin to tell the Dark Lord of the best approach to even consider infiltrating the Ministry with their own men.

But Crouch felt his eyes fling wide open when Alice spoke to him.

"Mr. Crouch has been quite fatigued these last few days, milord, if caring for me and seeing to my needs, if you will please spare him from further torment, I would greatly appreciate it."

Crouch felt his head turn sharply to the left and she did not so much as spare him a second glance or give him the attention he thought he deserved. Instead, she locked eyes directly with Lord Voldemort, continuing.

"Perhaps you ought to give him a reprieve out of a sense of duty towards me, milord. He has…been caring for me these last few days. I am sure that you understand the great cost to him. And to _me_ , sir."

Soft chuckles echoed and rang throughout the room as the other Death Eaters in Lord Voldemort's ranks snickered amongst themselves, scoffing.

Crouch froze, feeling his blood turn to ice in his veins. _No. She cannot be doing this to me right now. Not here. Not right now. Not Alice. Not her_. Barty used to consider himself quite skilled at hiding the vexation on his face but right now, his entire face represented the anger that surged in his veins.

Cold bullets of sweat had begun to bead in succession on his brow, and there was a lump forming in his throat that cut off his oxygen.

When Alice drew in a sharp breath of cool air, he felt the very need to rip the breath off of her, and yet, Crouch found he could not bring himself to do. He couldn't even process her next words as she spoke to Voldemort.

"But it is not just that, milord," she began demurely, and Crouch could swear he heard the triumphant smile begin to seep into her honey-sweet tone. "He has…been seeing to my needs these last few days. If you could at the very least, find it within yourself to spare him, just for tonight, as I require him to show me to the crypts if it would please you. I have…been plagued with constant headaches and stomachaches ever since I have learned of the news that I am pregnant. Will you allow him this leave?"

There was a slight murmuring and a tittering amongst the crowd from the other Death Eaters, laced with just a hint of concern for the pretty brunette witch, and the Dark Lord raised a pale hand and there was silence. He gave them their leave and fixed Crouch with an unusually cold stare.

"Permission granted," he answered listlessly. "Perhaps then a Sleeping Draught tonight, Miss Prewitt, will help you to sleep and rest."

Alice dipped her head in acknowledgment and as silently as she could, rose from her chair, gathering the long hem of her white dress in her hands to avoid tripping over the train and swiftly quit the scene before Crouch could respond, though before she could slip her arm out of his grasp, he caught her by the doorway, yanking her to him and whispered in her ear.

"That comment was completely unnecessary, Alice!" he snarled between his grinding teeth as he could hear anger dripping from his words.

But Alice lifted her chin and looked at him without a hint of dread or trepidation as she dared to meet Crouch's wrathful, glistening glower.

"And neither was _murdering_ Remus, _kidnapping_ me, or _assaulting_ me every single night," she answered pointedly, and Crouch felt his jaw unclench and he reluctantly relinquished his ironclad grip on her arm.

Crouch felt his muscles condense and she wrenched herself out of his grasp and continued not up the stairs to head back to her prepared bedroom, but to the crypts, no doubt to see the Wolf corpse's remains.

He did not follow.

* * *

She wasn't sure how long she stayed down here, whether it was five minutes or five hours, not wanting to face the consequences of her actions, what she had done by humiliating him in front of the Dark Lord himself.

Tonks knew that was sure to be punished, perhaps even tortured, and killed.

Tonks was not sure how many more deaths she could suffer. She had lost so many. At first, Ollie, or so she had believed at the time. Amelia Bones. Hestia Jones. Her grandmother, years ago. Friends. Now Remus.

What had she _done_ to offend Merlin and Fate so much that made living her life now too cruel than to curse her with something much worse than Death? An eternity of grief that was unrelenting and just as violent.

The heartbreak she felt at Lupin's grisly end felt cold. It felt like concrete drying in her chest. This heartbreak was unexpected, as they always were. At the top of the world with your love one minute and cut down the next.

Why _was_ that? What had she _done_ to warrant a horrid fate as this? There was a sort of broken heart that was akin to a smooshed ice-cream melting on a hot road; then there is the sort that is akin to lighting a match, enjoying the flame, and leaving the ashes.

Tonks's memories of Remus, the fun ones, are that flame, but the rest are the ashes she wanted nothing more than to watch them all blow away in the wind.

She thought it fair. Tonks sniffed as she felt the last wretched teardrop leave her sore and stinging eyes as she stood in front of the covered remains of her love.

The young witch vowed she would stand in front of Lupin's body forever if that were what it took to somehow enchant him back magically to life. She refused to eat or drink anything out of spite towards Crouch.

But at this point, she thought it was a convenience. Crouch and his goons could starve for all she cared.

Hell, she could starve. She _wanted_ it. If it meant getting to see him again. Tonks did not want to raise her baby without its father by her side.

Tonks bit down hard on her tongue, hard enough that she tasted the metallic tang of iron on her tongue and palate as she recognized it was blood.

Though there were things in life she wanted to give up, Remus had _never_ been on her list. _Never_. But now, as she stood in front of the tarp that covered his remains, what little of him was left, she knew how selfish she had been over the last weeks.

To come so close to pure love as she had with Remus and lose it so violently is something no medication or spell would ever be able to heal.

There was no graveside she could mourn by, no coffin to bury. Her heart felt broken, what beat now in the confines of her chest was merely a mass of angry muscle that would function only until Tonks could avenge him.

He should have had a long and happy life. Love, laughter, music, dancing. With _her_. With their child as they watched it grow. Tonks had never considered herself a violent and angry person by nature, but without Remus's love in her life, the foreign feeling swooped in the pit of her stomach and held her captive in its cold embrace, faster than she could have ever imagined.

"I—I just want you back, Remus," she whispered. "Come back to me. Haunt me. Ravage my nightmares, but just come _back_."

That day when Crouch had shown her Lupin's remains, it felt as though her very heart had been ripped from her chest, and as her knees buckled and gave out beneath her, only the strong grip of Barty's hands around her waist had held her firmly in place.

Tonks couldn't remember feeling her chest heaving as she hyperventilated, her soul plunging into an abyss of darkness.

And then when Crouch had finally covered her from the horrific sight with a seemingly numb embrace and a kiss to her cheek.

That was when the tears had poured relentlessly in steady tracts down her ashen cheeks. And they had been pouring ever since. She could fill a dry well with as much as she had cried over the last two to three days.

"Come back to me, Rem," she whispered hoarsely. "Please don't leave me," she begged through salty tears as the wretched liquid blinded her. Remus had promised her he would always be by her side, and—

_Tonks_? Ollie's voice shot through her steady stream of thoughts. _I know this might not be the best time, b—but…we need to think of leaving. And…_

Tonks frowned at the Legillimens soft, somber voice trailed off.

_He's alive. I—I wanted to tell you earlier, the—the corpse is a ruse. Lupin made a deal with Greyback to try to come and get you, but the body is NOT Remus's. Polyjuice Potion on another werewolf that was in the middle of dying of a heart attack. I—I'm sorry to lie to you like this, but with M—Master Crouch watching my every move, I couldn't. Remus is alive, waiting for you at Hogwarts, the—near the Forbidden Forest_.

Tonks blinked owlishly at the tarp, feeling her gray eyes widen in shock.

"Wh— _what_?" she whispered; her brain not able to put together a full sentence. She felt in shock. Were her best friend's words _true_?

Not a _trick_?

_We have to go, Tonks. Hogwarts. The Black Lake is where Lupin said he'd meet you. To Remus_ , Ollie's voice said quietly. _You WILL see him, won't you_?

Tonks continued to blink. She—she didn't _understand_. Remus was… but then she got the bright idea and her hand moved of its own volition and gingerly lifted the tarp covering the corpse, not even realizing that her hand was violently shaking as she lifted it and knelt to examine the face.

Not his face. Not his hair. _Oh, thank Merlin above, it's not him_! Remus was _safe!_

He hadn't been viciously mauled to death by Greyback's clan! Right when Tonks had been about to give up when she was about to let go of the dwindling ray of hope that flickered dangerously inside her heart, the damned stubborn corded mass of muscle within her chest, the smothering black blanket of darkness and despair was replaced by bursts of light and warmth that pierced through the darkness of her own heart.

It was like Merlin above Himself had given Tonks another chance to live her life right, now that she knew that her love was alive and unharmed.

Her heart felt like it was soaring, threatening to grow wings and escape, mending itself once more, and she wanted nothing more than to find him. He was _alive_!

She—she was saved! Waves of happiness and immense, overwhelming relief washed over her, a newfound sense of purpose and happy adrenaline surging through her veins, and she felt it soak right into her bones.

Dizzy with exhilaration, she closed her eyes a moment and savored the felicity that fizzled within her heart. _Oh, thank you, Ollie_!

Remus was _alive_. He—he wasn't _dead_! They were going to be _parents_! It was those thoughts that propelled her backward with full intent on fleeing up the stairs and out of this damned moldy crypt that smelled of death, dried old blood, and bodily fluids, and up the stairs to Ollie. To freedom from this awful place. To Remus.

Though she was halted in her movements by a shadowy tall figure that could only belong to Crouch. She swallowed nervously, though she felt a muscle in her jaw twitch as Tonks found her inner resolve to pry the false ring from her finger and shove it into Crouch's palm, curling his fingers over his fist.

"Your ring back," she snarled. "You _lied_ to me. He's _alive_ , Crouch."

But Crouch did not seem to be processing her words. "I ought to burn him tonight. You should be here to watch it happen, little dove, don't you think? It would be the best way to put him behind you for good, Alice."

Tonks flinched as she dared to meet the man's wild, unhinged gaze. He was not listening to her and seemed to be lost in his own little delusions.

"I could protect you, Alice. Much better than he could," Barty spat disgustedly, going on as though she had not just revealed a huge secret. "Provide for you. You're a pureblood, Prewitt. You deserve the highest form of respect and on behalf of the dog," he spat the word as though it were poison on his tongue, "who failed to do it for you, I do apologize. I am willing to try to make up for the werewolf's shortcomings. Marry me."

A stunned pause was nothing that Crouch could have hoped for, and then— Tonks looked him with such pity as she shook her head in disgust that she could tell how she was regarding Barty was greatly confusing the man.

"I wish that you could hear yourself, milord," she whispered shakily, biting the inside wall of her cheek, realizing she needed to still play his little game and go by Alice if she held a prayer's chance to Merlin in getting out of this alive. "You-you're proposing _marriage_ to me in front of my own fiancé's lifeless body. This is _not_ right. So much talk of your _respect_."

Tonks breathed out a shaking breath as she could practically feel the animosity of Crouch's gaze burning a hole in her skull and she felt his body tense and stiffen. "You still grieve for the _dog_. You just need more time, sweetheart."

She bristled at Barty's words, and the angry retort was out of her mouth, words pouring unchecked and unprompted from her lips before she could stop herself.

"You could defeat an entire army of fire breathing Hungarian Horntails and I would _never_ consent to marry you, Crouch!" she shouted. "Lupin is _alive_! Your little plan to kill him failed! It's _over_. You _lost_! I'm leaving!" she growled through gritted teeth, but his arm blocked her path. "Get out of my way! _Now_!"

The manner in which Crouch's glistening dark brown eyes angered and glimmered with unshed moisture that was not exactly tears, per se, rendered her blood to ice in her veins and caused her chest to dent.

"Then you leave me no _choice_ , Alice," he growled, and her skin jumped, crawling as the door to the crypts that led to the stone stairwell that would take her back up to the first floor and towards Ollie shut tight."I did not want it to come to this, but you've given me no other alternative..."

A wash of cold ran over her body and a vent of adrenaline surged in her veins as she attempted to duck underneath Crouch's arm which was effectively blocking her only exit, and in a split second, she felt the fevered crack of Crouch's open palm against the delicate, unbruised skin of her cheek.

She fell onto the hard cobblestoned floor with a sharp cry of pain. The pain from the sheer force of his blow came rushing immediately following his hit, which had been a good one.

Tonks could feel the blood rushing in her mouth, and she turned her head to the right and spat blood. She let out a muffled whine, wishing she knew where the bloody hell he had hidden her wand as Crouch calmly approached her, his dark brown eyes dull and listless and yet consumed with a horrible hostility.

Her breathing came in short, gasping spurts, and before Tonks could crawl on her stomach towards the exit, Crouch already hovered over her, wrenching her by her arm so that she was facing the stone risen platform.

Where the man's body lay. Tonks felt the acidic bitter stomach bile coat the lining of her throat, though she swallowed back the urge to be sick.

He pressed against her, pressure great and swelling on her hips as his strong hands came up to strongly grip and maintain to keep her in place. Crouch closed a strong arm around her, and her stomach gave a laborious, twisting lurch, and she might be sick all over the man's precious leather boots.

"Hush, darling," Crouch breathed into the shell of her ear. "The less you fight, Al, the quicker this will be. Don't fight me, lovely." His grip upon her arm tightened, and she could feel his fingers fumbling with his belt, loosening it.

Hot tears began to sting and blur at the edges of Tonks's vision as her throat began to close up, and all that she could manage to utter was a small mewl of fear.

Was Merlin really so _cruel_ , such a bastard, to allow this to be her fate? To allow her to be raped and tortured, over and over again, by Crouch, until she went insane? But by the Light of Merlin, and all the ancient wizard had to offer, it could not be so!

When this was all over, she would be dubbed the only Auror at the Ministry of Magic who was claimed by none other than Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr. before she slit her wrists.

Though, when she clenched her eyes shut, completely at the mercy of Barty Crouch and of time, the movement did not let her see darkness. But _his_ face.

Lupin's. In the midst of her Hell, as she felt her body rapidly lose strength as she lacked the energy to fight back, and had no wand with which to defend herself, she began to hallucinate, a blinding white glaring into her eyes and an image of a laughing child floating across her vision. A beautiful boy.

_Our son_. _My son_. He had light brown hair and brown eyes like his father, but his mother's facial features. Good jawline and cheekbones, straight nose. His hands reached up to her, asking to be held and comforted, smiling.

And suddenly, Tonks felt a fresh surge of adrenaline course through her veins and she felt _alive_ again.

Alive at the sudden burst of cold, frigid air that flooded her knees, and she felt her kneecap come up to whack Crouch firmly against the chest, with Tonks seizing the bronze candelabra that had been resting on the platform next to the unknown Wolf's corpse and viciously swiped it across Crouch's well-defined jaw with one good swipe.

Crouch let out a guttural roar from deep within his chest and crashed to the cobblestone floor, and Tonks could hear the Death Eater writhe in pain and in anger as crimson blood flowed viciously and unrelenting from the wound now reddening and swelling on his wounded scalp and cheek.

Tonks now knew of only one person in this whole damned estate that she would trust wholly with her life and her mind was immediately made up. She had to get out of here, and Tonks broke into a wild, frenzied run.

Before the groaning of Crouch's could turn into snarls and animalistic growls of fury, Tonks heaved herself to her feet and scrambled for the door.

The tunnel curled away coldly into infinite darkness, the light that showed the rough walls of the castle's crypt dwindling as it snaked away. Her skin shuddered, and Tonks could feel her brain starting to defocus, searching for a way out.

_Upstairs…upstairs. Need to get to him._ _**NOW** _ _!_

As Tonks broke into a run and headed for the upstairs hallway and to the left, a vile pain spread throughout her chest and her lungs beseeched her to stop running, her knees feeling like rubber, but she couldn't stop. In spite of her feeble and somewhat fragile condition, her lips curled into a brief, two-second triumphant smile as the realization that Remus was alive, and she was about to flee this place for good finally hit Tonks.

She felt smug at her little victory. She had really made it. She was _free_. Tonks continued running down the hallway, striding over lengths of the carpet beneath her feet until she reached a closed door. "Ol! **OLLIE**!"

The young witch's frantic tapping of her knuckles on the man's door became clawing at the old oaken wood until her very fingernails bled.

"Tonks? T, what the hell _happened_? What's wrong?"

The door flung violently open and Tonks breathed a heavy sigh of relief at coming face-to-face with her former partner, who bore such a look of shock on his face at the sight of her stance—dress torn and dirtied, sweat, tears on her face, and a vicious red welt where one of Crouch's rings had caught her eye.

"Take me _away_ from here! Take me to Remus, Ollie. _Please_! _Help_ _me_!" Tonks seized fistfuls of Ollie's robes and shook at the man's shoulders before collapsing to her knees as Ollie quickly dragged her inside his room.

Ollie became frantic at seeing his best friend in such a state like this, catching his breath and seeing no one else come for her in the hallway before violently slamming the door shut, driving them both within the confines of his bedroom, what little safe space he could offer was temporary.

Ollie wordlessly tossed her a change of clothes and kept his back turned as Tonks shed the white dress and shrugged into a pair of black skinny jeans, black boots, and a simple red button short sleeved shirt, good for walking.

He tossed her a small dark brown flap knapsack and Tonks, not wanting to waste the white gown, from Crouch though it was, stuffed it into a ball and shoved it into the bottom of her pack, thinking Molly could help her mend it later and it could be repurposed for her wedding dress in future.

Ollie darted across his simple room to the table and stuffed a few loaves of what looked like stale, hardened bread into his and her packs, along with canteens of water, flinging the strap over his shoulder, though he paused for a second in concentration.

Tonks waited with bated breath, knowing what he was doing.

"He—he says thank Merlin you're safe, and…he'll meet you at Forest's edge, to stay _put_ and don't move a muscle until he gets to you."

Ollie reached for Tonks's hand, but before he could Disapparate with the pair of them, a shower of red sparks appeared just outside of his bedroom window, near the edge of the woods that bordered Crouch's estate, following by a long, lone howl of a vicious wolf.

The battle cry of war. Greyback was laying siege to Crouch's estate. Tonks, against her better judgment, practically glided towards the window, despite Ollie's quiet murmurings that they needed to go _now_.

Tonks craned her neck as she looked out the window and drew in a sharp breath that pained her bruised abdomen and ribcage from where Crouch had kicked her during their scuffle at the sight of several black figures, all of them werewolves, pouring out of the Wolves' Woods, a couple thousand strong, at least.

Another howl came forth and rent the silent night air, this one longer, angrier, more desperate, followed by the barking commands of an unknown Death Eater who fired off a jinx.

And that was when all hell broke loose. A cold hand tugged at her arm, and Tonks turned to see Ollie, and his voice was an intermingled mix of trepidation with that of relief.

"Let's get the _hell_ out of here. Get you home to him," he growled, not giving Tonks a chance to respond as he seized onto her arm, and with a loud _crack_! Disapparated for the Forbidden Forest, _hellbent_ on getting Tonks back to Remus quickly.

Though what either of them had failed to notice, as the pair of best friends and former partners had been so fixated on the coming siege, was that Barty Crouch Jr. had snuck up behind Ollie and Tonks and managed to latch onto the sleeve of Ollie's robe at precisely the exact second the man Disapparated, a cry of rage on his lips that was drowned out by the sound of the pair of best friends Disapparting.


	62. Of Centaurs and She-Wolves

**A/N:** **So, just a fair warning, but there are two introductions to 2 original minor characters in the story, but they do serve an important plot point to the Forbidden Forest section of the story going forward and how they come to interact with our main characters, but in no way do they overshadow our lovely Remadora, is this is very much _their_ story, after all. For whatever reason, in fanfiction, OC's are met with the scorn which I don't understand, but oh well. I enjoy OC's and will continue to write them in my stories. They're minors and in no way outshine Remus and Tonks, and I enjoy them and exploring the relationship :) **

**Anyways, on with the show! Hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO**

Everything was black. Tonks found herself falling in this darkness, hurtling to an invisible floor. A forest floor that would almost likely kill her if she continued to fall at this speed. The air pushed against her face, she closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. Her body twirled and jerked as Ollie unceremoniously let go of her arm, her screams filling his ringing eardrums.

The wind in her face made it impossible to breathe, and Time itself seemed to slow down when you were falling. In the seconds it took for her to reach the ground, she knew that it was going to bloody _hurt_. She winced, bracing herself. The world of the Forbidden Forest around her rushed by in a blur, and she knew the pain was coming. It went by fast, and yet slow at the same time, almost suspended.

"What the f—" Tonks heard Ollie curse and swear under his breath and an explosion of darkness that send her spiraling forward into the tree, and his ironclad grip was relinquished of her arm as she continued falling.

But whatever he had been about to say, he never got the chance to finish.

Tonks barely heard the man's cry of shocked surprise as it filled the air around her right as she violently hit the ground. "Ow," she moaned, clenching her eyes tightly shut.

Oh, Merlin Above, it really _hurt_! Tonks whined and realized she hadn't heard a groan or cry of pain. A shout, anything from her former partner. "Ollie?" she whimpered pitifully, collapsing onto the ground with a pained thump. "Ollie? Wh—what happened? Wh—where…?" she whispered hoarsely.

Nothing but silence. Tonks heard the familiar tortured scream tear through Ollie like a great shard of glass that pierced the damned stubborn corded muscle that was her heart. Tonks felt her eyes widen and pulse quicken. Then he screamed again.

More desperate this time, terrified…human. She knew that scream well. _Oh, Merlin, Ollie_ , she thought, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she lay on the forest floor, feeling grateful, at the very least, that he'd made her change clothes before Disapparating with her.

What if he Splinched himself? What, then? In his emotionally fragile and broken state, there was no telling what would set Ollie off if she weren't by his side. What would make the dark demonic entity that was the Obscurus erupt from within his fractured mind?

She could not just leave him out here alone if he were injured. After all that he had attempted to do for her, saving her life from Crouch. She was not about to leave him here to rot. Abandoning wasn't her way.

_No_ _way_! **_OLLIE_**! She screamed internally, clenching her eyes tightly shut, praying the skilled Legilimens heard her. _Ol, please, please, if you can hear this, please answer me. Say something. Let me know that you're alive, or if you're hurt. Answer. Me._

When she was met again with silence, she shivered. _Something's happened to him_. _Oh, God, oh, Merlin, oh, I don't… I—I can't_. Tonks flinched as she heard Ollie's scream come again, somewhere in the distance, sounding like it was coming from the far side of the Forbidden Forest, and she could swear, she was sure, yes, she was _sure_ , that she heard unintelligible shouting, that to her, sounded like a pitiful cry of pain, a call for someone to help them. _That's Ollie's voice_ , she thought, eyes closed, her teeth gritted. _In trouble. Hurt. He—he Splinched himself somehow. Bleeding out a—and I'm not there by his side to hold his hand as he dies. What if he erupts again and I'm not there to stop it, he'll destroy the entire Forbidden Forest and me with it. Hang on, Ol. I—I'm coming_ , she thought, biting her lip, and grinding her teeth.

Her distorted view slowly came to focus. It was the kind of darkness of the Forbidden Forest that was dark, mysterious, and you couldn't see much more than a few dozen feet in front of you without some thick brush or tree blocking your path, though, in Tonks's case, it was a horrible white mist.

Blankets of darkness covered the cold forest. The view would have been beautiful, if there was no thick fog spoiling it, or to put it straight, the strange grunts and growling, snarls of some creature fighting another off in the distance, on the other side.

" _Damn_. Wh—what if it's _you_ , Ollie?" she pleaded, grinding her teeth. Silence. "Oh, Ol, please don't die on me. Not after…not after that."

_I'm coming, Ollie. Just—just hang on. I—I'm going to save you. We're NOT going to die in this forest! We won't. I—I promise you, Ollie_!

Whatever Tonks had landed on when Ollie had let go of her arm in mid-Apparition, it was _hard_. _Very_ hard. It felt as though her entire body _ached_. The young witch wasn't sure if she'd broken or sprained any bones during her fall, and the only thing she was absolutely certain of was that attempting any kind of movement, even just the slightest twitch, was probably a bad idea now.

Instead, Tonks chose to focus on regulating her breathing as much as possible, forcing air to return to her lungs while also trying not to cry out in the process just in case Ollie screamed for help and she needed to determine his location.

Hell, she needed to do that anyway, but she'd be of no help to her best friend who had just saved her life if she couldn't bloody even _move_ at all. Once breathing proved to be no longer painful, Tonks, still keeping her eyes squeezed shut, decided that it was safe to test for any broken bones or torn ligaments. She wiggled her toes in her boots with no problems.

Success! Then her fingers, which moved with ease, albeit rather tingly and stiffly, as though she had fallen on her hand, though there was no pain when she moved them, and nothing appeared to be broken that she could tell.

She lifted her red shirt slightly and was dismayed to see bruises alongside her abdomen, blue and purple splotches.

They would smart for a week and hurt like hell, but if this was the worst that had happened to her when she had fallen, then she ought to consider herself lucky.

Her _head_ , however, was debatable.

Tonks let out a groan through gritted teeth, not bothering to sit upright just yet. It felt as though her head had been split into two, her skull cracked wide open. It hurt as hell something _awful_! There was bound to be an egg-sized lump at the back of her skull.

Tonks winced and bit the inside wall of her cheek as she lifted her arm, nearly crying out in pain and had to grind her teeth in anger in order to swallow back the urge.

There was no telling what else was in the Forest with her and Ollie and making any kind of noise might give away her position to something a little less than desirable.

_Spiders… wolves._ She shuddered. There were rumors of giant spiders, Acromantula, in the Forbidden Forest, and she had no desire to find out if the speculation held truth. Her shoulders were bruised, and just the simple movement of her arm as she gingerly lifted it to feel at the base of her skull for any lumps sent shards of pain traveling down her spine, up her neck, and around the curves of her ears.

_Damn_. Tonks ground her teeth so hard, she thought a miracle of Merlin that they hadn't cracked and shattered under the sheer force of the pressure. _Shit_.

She didn't curse lightly, but when she did, it was always with good reason, and Tonks considered this quite a good reason, given how much her entire body ached.

Tonks tentatively raised a shaking hand to her hair and raked her fingers through her dark pink pixie cut with ease, gingerly pressing the pads of her fingertips here and there to check for lacerations, any bumps or bruises, mentally preparing herself for when she did finally come across one.

Oh, but _Merlin_ , she hoped she didn't have a concussion. She felt a horrible sinking feeling begin to form in the pit of her churning stomach as Tonks realized that her wand was still likely to back at Crouch's estate, and probably broken in two again, now that the wolves had laid siege to his castle. And then she found it at the back of her skull.

"Just _great_ ," she murmured darkly through gritted teeth. "How many more wands in my lifetime am I going to go through? Oh, Mr. Ollivander is going to _murder_ me for losing another!"

She let out a hiss of pain as her fingers continued wandering through her hair, actively searching for the source of the hard contusion.

Then she found it. A good, solid, egg-sized lump. She had hit her head, then. The split second that her overly cautious fingers touched it, a flare of sharp, shooting pain erupted and shot down her spine like lightning.

Groaning, she winced as she forced herself to sit up, every inch of her bruised and battered body protesting slightly as she did so, shifting the straps of her small brown flap knapsack on her back to distribute the weight better evenly.

Looking around, Tonks tried to steady herself, trying to comprehend what the hell happened.

Why had Ollie let go of her and where had he landed up in the Forest? Was he hurt? Dead? Dying? Bleeding out somewhere? Just these thoughts were enough to send swells of fright mounting in her chest, creating an unwanted heat that spiraled through her entire body.

"Damn it, Ollie. Where are you? What the hell happened to you, huh?" she swore, still carding her hands through her short pixie and shakily rising to her feet, though it was not without great difficulty. Her whole body felt as if she had been bruised in every single crevice.

Her legs felt shaky, as though they could no longer support her body weight, yet her head and shoulders were the only things that were feeling heavy. Tonks arched her back, her hands on her hips as she forced herself to stand up straighter, as the pain was rushing through her body like an igniting wildfire.

Her eyes squeezed tightly shut as her face twisted and contorted into a pained grimace. Never had she ever experienced such horrible pain in her life. This was _almost_ worse than when she'd Splinched her arm.

Tonks could feel her head spinning ultimately, her jaw clenched as she continued her somewhat incessant behavior of carding her fingers through her pixie.

It helped to ease the pains. Slowly but surely, the pain in her body began to subside a bit.

Her hands relieved themselves of being entangled in her short locks of thick hair and her arms lowered to her sides, her whole body trembling with fear.

_Hang on, Ollie_ , Tonks silently pleaded, and when she received no response from the Legillimens, it only heightened her fear.

_Just hang on. I—I'm coming…_

Sweat trickled down her face, her breathing rate slowly reverting to normal. She blinked owlishly once, twice, three times.

At first, her vision was blurry and out of focus, or maybe that was just the fog that was causing the trees to become heavily veiled in the thick mist, their trunks a somber brown with sable cracks that gnarled the already twisted bark.

As her eye traveled to what she hoped was the edge of the woodland, they became mere silhouettes against the white blanket, as if she were standing in a pocket of white air and suffocating.

_Have to get out of here. Find Ollie, get out of this bloody forest, find Remus. Get medical…attention_ , she thought, grinding her teeth as a sharp jolt of pain traveled down her spine.

Though what troubled her most with each ginger, half-step forward were the pains in her stomach. The pain had an unpleasant warmth to it, eating away at her intestines. There was nausea too, just enough to make her clutch onto the trunk of a nearby tree for support.

Had she eaten something, drank something that could be causing this? It wasn't the chocolate chip cookie she'd eaten earlier, and she'd purposefully ate nothing at dinner, so…

_Oh, what about the tea that I drank! I remember it tasted bitter…_ She thought, clenching her eyes shut, forcing her breathing to try to return to normal.

Tonks had often prized herself on her ability to ignore the pain and just rock on regardless, but that just wasn't possible right now.

It owned Tonks, dominating every thought, controlled every action, permeated her mind. Blinking rapidly, grinding her teeth, one hand wrapped around the bough of the tree for support as her stomach continued to ache and throb, she managed to clear her vision just long enough to where the blurry shapes and colors began to solidify into something she recognized.

Or rather, a creature. A _someone_.

"What…?" Tonks whispered and looked towards the new arrival with widened, almost fearful eyes. _Merlin's Beard_...

The first thing Tonks noticed about the creature standing in front of her was the Stranger's hair. Long, braided black locks as jet-black as a raven's wing or the midnight sky above her head cascaded down past his shoulders, his blue eyes framed by graceful brows.

His skin was a light pale blue in color. He had prominent cheekbones and a well-defined chin and nose. Muscles rippled across every part of the man's torso. He was obviously a seasoned warrior if judging by the bow and quiver containing the man's arrows slung across his shoulder meant anything to Tonks.

She had never before seen a creature with defined features such as these, but she knew without a doubt what it was. What _he_ was.

This man was a centaur. she gulped nervously as her gaze drifted downward. Whoever he was and whatever it was that he wanted of Tonks, was no ordinary man. For where his legs ought to have been, instead was the body of a horse. The wind wisped his hair and mane into the air like shadows, and when the centaur stomped its hooves in agitation, a frustrated look on his defined features, his muscles rippled from underneath his freshly groomed pelt and his powerful legs.

His ears pricked as his cold gaze took in Tonks's appearance, and it frowned. His dark hair dusted along the centaur's jawline, his chin, which framed his slender face in such a way that almost proved to be…handsome.

But it was not the fact that he possessed the lower body of a horse that caught the young witch's attention the most, but his eyes.

It had been too dark to get a good look at the centaur's eyes before, but his eyes were seriously blue. Almost sickeningly blue, full-on Prince Charming, the field of cornflower, perfect, cloudless sky-blue, glistening. However, within the centaur's darkening cerulean orbs was a smoldering, fathomless rage that seemed to simmer just beneath the surface, and Tonks felt another swell of nausea wrack her entire body.

The anger in the creature's eyes and on his face was so torrent, that it felt as though the two of them were about to near the edge of a cliff and jump off together. That's what it felt like to Tonks right now.

The centaur's eyes told her everything about this creature that the young witch needed to know. They weren't at all expressive, they were cold as ice. When Tonks peered into the creature's frozen irises, she felt an electrical chill of fear travel down her spine, making her features numb, like frozen ice, unable to move.

She knew what this centaur was, how he behaved here in the Forest. That this was a being who yielded to no one, except himself. A centaur, both assertive, strong-willed, and temperamental.

And she would be lying to herself if she did not admit that the creature's cerulean eyes burning bright with rage scared her.

"Wh—what? I—who….?" She started to ask, but never had the chance to finish. The centaur moved at lightning speed to close off the gap of space between them, and she could swear she heard the sound of an arrow being pulled from the centaur's quiver, though she was wrong.

It was a knife.

Tonks felt the knife being pointed at the pale column of her throat before she saw it, and she looked into the icy blue listless eyes of the wielder. Eyes that were filled to the brim with a burning animosity, bitterness, and hatred.

It was a well-known fact that centaurs here in the Forest did not particularly take kindly to humans infringing on what they claimed was their 'territory,' their part of the Forbidden Forest.

But she wasn't _in_ their encampment! At least, she _hoped_ not, though she had no indication of where exactly it was that she had fallen when Ollie had accidentally let go of her arm in mid-Disapparation.

For all she knew of her location, which was admittedly very little, she could have accidentally Disapparated straight into the middle of the centaurs' territory in the Forbidden Forest, and wouldn't that be just her luck?!

Tonks could feel the panic beginning to mount rapidly in her heart as she thrashed against the centaur's ironclad grip, clawing at the creature's calloused hand that held the blade and was effectively holding her throat hostage. Tonks grunted with the effort to push the centaur's appendage away from her, and this only further angered him further.

The centaur let out a low warning growl and reached out with his opposite free hand and seized her already injured shoulder into the bark of the tree, and Tonks let out a whimper as the bark dug sharp splinters into her back.

Pain flared from the injured joint as fire, and she didn't even both to try to stop the frightened mewling of pain at his brute force.

" _Human_ ," the centaur growled, almost whispering it roughly, his voice sounding rough and grating, like the sound of a wooden crate being scraped alongside a cobblestone street, "You are _trespassing_ here…."

Tonks felt a panic swell in her chest stronger as she struggled in vain to breathe, feeling like her throat was hollowing and constricting.

"Ngh…please…can't…breathe," she begged pitifully. "I…please…"

But the centaur was turning a deaf ear to Tonks's pleas and growled. " _Who_. _Are_. _You_? What are you doing in our territory, _witch_?"

The centaur, who had leaned in and his face now merely inches from hers, growled his question harshly, his deep baritone voice rumbling in anger.

Tonks could feel her lips part open slightly to speak, but all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech. Ah, but _Merlin_ , what she wouldn't give for her wand!

One good Knockback Jinx straight to the creature's chest would at least propel him backward, enough to put just the right amount of distance between it and her, to allow her to escape. The young witch could not bring herself to answer, terror seizing hold of her voice in a vice grip, just like that Muggle story that Dad used to read to her as a child about the mermaid and the sea-witch.

The siren of the sea had traded her voice in exchange to be transformed into a human in order to find a prince that she had saved from drowning. And now, Tonks felt like that siren.

She couldn't respond. No. Scratch that. She was too _terrified_ to even _think_ about responding, much less form a coherent thought in her mind.

The centaur's eyes burning bright with anger with alight with such a horrible rage, a wave of burning anger, that she felt her back instinctively press against the trunk of the tree, as far as the tree would allow Tonks to.

Tonks flinched as the centaur's lips curled into a fierce snarl. The creature looked as if it meant to kill her. _Wait_. _Kill_ her?!

Tonks let her eyes widen as they flung wide open and her pupils dilate, even here in the darkness.

Instinct took over as she felt a powerful wave of adrenaline surge through her veins, igniting her bloodstream as an overwhelming need to survive and do whatever she could to stay alive and protect her and Remus's unborn baby took over, and she kicked out with her feet as hard as she could, the heel of her black combat boot kicking the centaur square in his burly, slightly hairy chest.

The creature fought to maintain his vice-like grip on her shoulder, but Tonks was growling and snarling like a savage She-Wolf, in no condition whatsoever to be reasoned with.

She was past the point of no return. Tonks had had it up to _here_ with centaurs pointing knives at her throats, Crouch's threats, and physical assaults on her in the darkness of the man's chambers three days ago, every single night after the sun moved behind the clouds without fail, the man's unwanted kisses, touches, other things. Hearing his groans, murmurs in her ear…

Tonks let out an animalistic snarl, baring her own teeth as she latched both of her fingers around the centaur's wrist that still held the knife to her throat and clawed at the weapon out of a sense of desperation, digging her long, purple-painted nails as deep into his skin as she possibly could.

Not that it amounted to much. Centaurs' hides were tough, having adapted to years of survival in the wilderness out here.

The creature merely grunted at the effort, but she didn't give a damn. The only thing right now that mattered to Tonks was saving her own skin, doing whatever she could to protect her baby, finding Ollie. Tonks growled as she shot out her right leg again, and the second time was the charm, as the heel of her boot caught the creature in the fact.

She winced as she felt his nose give under the pressure from the sheer strength and force of the kick she had laid out, heard the crack.

Her body was jolting with new vigor, an untapped rage that was boiling from the pit of her stomach to the rest of her body. She felt hot.

She didn't even notice her fists were clenching until blood came back on them. She was too busy staring at the centaur, who was now roaring and snarling like an enraged lion, though no lion was this thing.

Out of the corner of her eye, something silver and metallic slipped from the centaur's grasp and fell to the forest floor underneath a pile of leaves as he grasped, wildly clawing at his now-broken nose, both of his nostrils wildly gushing crimson liquid, bellowing like an enraged bull.

The centaur stomped his hooves in agony, his tail flicking wildly, and Tonks breathed a sigh of barely audible relief as the weight of the creature's hand on her bruised shoulder was gone. Thank Merlin above!

She was free! Tonks took advantage of the opportunity and bolted, turning on the heel of her boot, clutching at the straps of her brown knapsack, and practically skidded to a halt and let out a squeak of fear.

Tonks could have sworn she heard angry shouting and yells coming from all around her, from all corners of this forest's clearing.

Oh, Merlin, help her, there were _MORE_ of them?

_Of course, there are, Dora, don't be stupid! They're centaurs! They live in tribes, clans!_ She scolded herself and swore under her breath as her mind continuously screamed at her to get away. _Find Remus. He'll help you._ _Find Ollie. Find Remus. Get the hell out of this stupid, dark forest!_

Panic and raw adrenaline flooded her entire system as she bolted, and if she would have risked one last glance over her shoulder, she would have seen a young woman not much older than her leap down from the boughs of a particularly tall oak tree, having been shrouded under the cover of the trees' canopies, pointing her wand at the creature's nose, and she'd have heard the sharp crack of the centaur's nose being set back into place, and would have heard also the creature's roar of agony at the bones moving back where they rightfully belonged.

Tonks would have seen the creature's mouth move as he barked an order to the young woman, but she hadn't bothered to look behind her. Instead, she did the only thing that she could think to save her life.

She ran.

* * *

Astelos clutched a hand at his newly-mended nose and throttled the urge to roar like an enraged Chinese Fireball dragon at what that trespasser had done.

The centaur stomped his hoof in a blinding rage, feeling his tail thrash about wildly. The other members of his herd currently gathered around the Black Lake for their weekly collection of water to take back to their camps wouldn't _believe_ this.

A She-Stranger, a young human _witch_ , no less, had managed to get the jump on him.

Eyes watering with glimmering, unshed tears, Astelos did his best to keep the She-Stranger in his line of sight, watching as the young witch with the dark pink short hair scrambled away from him and the She-Wolf, Norah, who'd been waiting in her usual spot high above the canopy, hidden by the tree, just in case he needed back up in dealing with this _intruder_.

The She-Wolf, Norah, turned on her heel in an effort to assist the Human once she was satisfied that Astelos's nose was truly mended, but halted in her tracks when he shot out a strong arm to stop her going.

"I wouldn't if were I you, _She_ - _Wolf_ ," he spat venomously, hearing the anger dripping from his words. "The _witch_ is a clever thing. You have _no_ _idea_ what she might be capable of. You'd only succeed in getting yourself killed," Astelos growled angrily, still trying to stem the bleeding with his hands, and practically whinnied in frustration when the She-Wolf again raised her wand in an effort to clear away the crimson flow of blood stemming from both of his nostrils. "No. That is _not_ necessary, _Wolf_."

The She-Wolf, whose true name was Norah, lifted a hand, which were covered with a pair of black acrylic fingerless gloves and pointed towards the direction in which the She-Stranger, that witch, had run off. The young witch, who was not that much younger than Norah herself, had meant the centaur no harm.

Norah had heard a man's yelp of pain in the Forest a few kilometers off from here, and if she wanted to find the strange boy clad in all black suffering from a broken arm and was being dragged towards the giant Acromantula, Aragog's lair by another strange-looking fellow in black who possessed a dark, dangerous aura, she could _smell_ it with her heightened senses, as the full moon was another few weeks away, and if the pink-haired stranger wanted to have any hope of finding her friend and save him from becoming the next meal for Aaragog's children, then she was going in the wrong bloody direction and needed to turn around right the hell _now_.

She and the other Wolf that she smelled, most likely this girl's mate. And the two humans that were with the Wolf. All of them were about to become food for the spiders if they didn't turn around and head either north or southwest.

Norah snarled in annoyance at Astelos's lack of judgment on his part, thinking the damned Man-Horse was always so quick to act on emotion, thinking everybody to be a threat, feeling the edges of her lips curl upwards as she bared her sharpened, pointed incisors and canines at the centaur.

"Oh, this just _great_. Just how I wanted to spend my night, _horse_. A _fine_ mess you've gotten yourself into now, _centaur_ ," she snapped, her usually calm and quiet, soothing voice, now much angrier. "I'm sure the poor thing is running herself into hysterics," the thirty-year-old young She-Wolf growled, raking her hands through her short blonde almost boyish pixie cut in frustration, seizing tufts of her golden-blonde hair, and pulling on it in agitation as she restlessly paced the forest floor.

Norah had seen for herself with her own heightened wolfish-sight at the look of panic in the young witch's face, how she was close to working herself up in a stupor, and she had been able to smell something else.

The pheromones, the honey-sweet smell the witch had given off that had caused the She-Wolf's nostrils to flare told her the girl was pregnant with a wolf cub of her own. A little wolf chap, just like its father, probably, only much smaller, and if she did not vacate this forest at her earliest opportunity, there was no chance the young witch would survive.

Astelos for his part, shot the young, female werewolf a withering look, but couldn't quite manage it while still attempting to quell the bleeding stemming from his mended nose. "I did not see you make any attempt to engage it in combat, _dog_ ," the disgruntled and humiliated centaur spat disgustedly, his tone cold and bitter at allowing the female to flee.

Norah bared her teeth as she whirled back around on the heel of her shoe and snarled animalistically at the centaur.

_Goddamned bloody Man-Horses!_ She only engaged in weekly rendezvous' with Astelos to preserve the peace between the centaurs and the werewolves' clans. They would not enter into her territory, nor they in theirs.

"The girl is _pregnant_ , _horse_ ," growled Norah angrily in retaliation, and the look of immense guilt on the Man-Horse's face was well worth the sharp retort. "Perhaps if you had not acted so irrational, beast, I wouldn't have to go after a frightened witch who should be going _that_ way to save her friend! Because of you and your thick-headed stupidity, she and the cub growing inside her are in danger. This? This is _on_ _you_ if something happens to the poor girl."

She pointed a shaking finger in the opposite direction and furrowed her light blonde brows into a withering frown that she shot him.

"I don't think we should let the girl, _or_ her companions leave until we discover who they are, what they're doing this far into the Forest. What their purpose is for coming here. But first, we have to _find_ her and calm her down, otherwise, she's going to hurt herself and maybe lose it."

Norah ground her teeth as the centaur nodded in understanding. They both knew she did not need to elaborate on what ' _it'_ was in this case.

"I want to know too why the Dark Wizard is here In _our_ forest," she growled. She did not know the Man's name, but she could smell him. He smelled of blood, danger. Of Death.

And she had heard Wes talk of him, and her mate had never anything good to say about the Man. Just that he was prejudiced against their kind, and was the reason why Wes had led a small group of wolves here to the Forbidden Forest, wanting nothing more than to get away from Fenrir Greyback's archaic and violent ways.

Norah's inquisitive, cobalt gaze drifted back towards the centaur, before making to head in the direction the young She-Stranger had fled.

"How are you going to do that, _dog_?" spat the centaur. "Calm it down. What if she tries to attack you next, She-Wolf? Hmm? What then?"

Norah, who hated having things demanded of her, clenched her eyes shut in frustration and wordlessly pulled her wand from the pocket of her black leather jacket.

"Backup," she joked, shooting a vicious smile the centaur's way that she could tell made the Man-Horse's skin crawl.

Astelos merely snorted in response and rolled his eyes, stomping his front two hooves in frustration and his tail flicked away a mosquito.

"Find the girl and the other intruders. I heard other voices that way," he snapped angrily, gesturing with his hand that now clutched an arrow in it towards the East, in relatively close proximity to the Black Lake.

Still silently fuming in anger at the thought that a _human_ had somehow managed to break his nose with no use of magic, he spun around and made back to head to his camp. "The sooner you find this group of Strangers and we sort out this mess, the better off we all are."

Norah nodded, though she offered up no verbal response, something about the hesitancy in the young centaur's voice gave her pause.

"Hey," she called back over her shoulders as she was in the midst of following after the She-Stranger and was relieved to see Astelos halt.

" _What_?" he barked harshly, his tail flicking to and fro in agitation. He was clearly in no mood for small talk.

"When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light," Norah offered quietly, pointing with her index finger towards the canopy of trees, where, if you squinted and looked close enough, you could see the stars.

Something in the Centaur's gaze softened, and Norah could have sworn she saw the damned bloody beast offer her a small half-smile.

It was hard to tell in the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, but her piece said, Norah and Astelos went their separate directions in a joint effort to cut off any potential escape routes the She-Stranger might use to cut through the forest and escape before Norah could get answers. Between Norah able to use her heightened wolfish senses of sight and smell, given that she knew now the She-Stranger carried a little cub of her own growing inside her belly, not much bigger than a blueberry, and the Centaur, who had a fond habit of using the stars as navigation, there was very little chance of this group of humans escaping the Forest.

That was only _if_ the witch didn't break their noses first. Norah smiled. Not many had the ability to get one over on the stubborn Man-Horse, let alone with their own two bare hands, the use of magic notwithstanding.

She smirked, feeling the corners of her mouth turning upward as she followed the She-Stranger's scent, thinking she smelled of honeysuckle and eucalyptus, whereas the other werewolf smelled of pine.

Norah made a mental note that when she _did_ finally catch up with this bright young witch with the pink hair, to offer her congratulations. Anyone who could break the stubborn, arrogant, and rather pompous Man-Horse's nose in her book, was, at least, someone worth knowing.

Maybe even someone to call a _friend_.


	63. Of Thorns and Reunions

**CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE**

_She's alive. Your baby is safe. You're going to see her in less than five minutes_. He kept repeating this mantra to himself to propel him forward.

The Forbidden Forest that was once so alive now chilled his bones. In the fading light of the day and heat of the late afternoon, Lupin was actually shaking.

Though he supposed that could also be from the adrenaline and excitement coursing through his veins at being reunited with Tonks again.

These woods were ancient. The trees thick and old, roots that were twisted. It might have once been filled with bird-song and other animals that roamed.

But now the place was overrun with any manner of Dark creatures, and ages past its former glory. Its canopy was so dense and thick that he could only see the occasional streak of fading sunlight that very rarely touched the forest floor.

Even its thick vines were slowly taking away the last remnants of his sanity. He just wanted to find Dora, let Mr. Brennan go with Mr. Scamander for observation, and marry the woman of his dreams, and be a father to their baby.

Remus could feel the darkness drawing closer to him and pressing down, suffocating him slowly as he carefully stepped through the thick maze of woodland, with Mr. Scamander and Sirius taking the lead.

The densely packed trees of the Forbidden Forest loomed high above their heads but remained eerily still despite the cold October autumnal breeze that continued to float around the small group as they slowly but surely made their way to the Black Lake.

Lupin only had to squint to see, only to see a path of gloom and uncertainty ahead.

Occasionally he could hear the murmuring of Sirius and Newt in conversation, though he missed it, his focus solely on that of seeing Dora again.

There was not an ounce of pride that swelled within him, only the desire to keep pushing forward until they reached the Black Lake. To see her face again.

What would he _say_ to her?

It had crossed his mind to write Tonks a letter, and yet…what _for_. Without her here by his side, he'd feel cold and lifeless.

But if only Dora knew just how much he truly _loved_ her, deep in his mind. He dreamt of her every night, and he clung onto his mother's ring, turning it slightly in the palm of his hand, occasionally glancing downward every few seconds as if to reassure his frazzled mind the little piece of jewelry was still there.

He couldn't wait to give it to her. He wanted nothing more than to feel her lips pressed against his when he saw her, overflowing her and saturating her with so much love and affection until Dora thought she would probably burst from the attention.

He had never really once said that he loved her, though he felt it. He loved Dora more than he ever could love himself, more than anything.

Remus blinked owlishly as he heard Padfoot's voice cut through the otherwise silent forest air.

"How exactly deep into this damned forest are we going, Mr. Scamander?" Sirius barked harshly, sounding thoroughly put off.

"As far as it takes to find Dora," Remus retorted hotly, not giving Mr. Scamander the chance to answer, who had, for the entire duration of their trek into the Forbidden Forest, had said very little, though occasionally, he stopped to comment on the willow trees or the elms and to visit the Bowtruckles. "I'd travel into the seven hells and back if that's what it took to get her back, Sirius, and if you don't like it," he snapped, fed up and beyond annoyed with Sirius's reluctance and hesitation to enter into the Forbidden Forest, "then you can turn around. Go back."

Sirius bristled at his comment, though the man said nothing.

It was Newt Scamander who chose to break the rather awkward silence. "You care for her, Mr. Lupin. Remus, if I may call you that?" Newt asked, biting the inside wall of his cheek, and reaching up a hand to scratch at an itch behind his left ear, watching with furrowed brows as Lupin immediately nodded. "What will you do when you find her?" he asked, to make conversation, though Remus himself was not entirely sure what he would do to her.

Hug her. Kiss her. Touch her and make sure that she was really _real_ , that this was not about to be another figment of his imagination, of his nightmares. He'd had enough of them. At last, Remus managed to find his voice, and when he spoke, it was quiet and reserved.

"Tell her…tell her how much she means to me, Mr. Scamander. But I can't help but feel worried," he confessed, his nervous eyes skittishly glancing to the left and right, praying, hoping to spot any sign of Dora or Mr. Brennan. "What if something happened to her?"

Newt nodded. "Remus, then. Trust me when I tell you we'll find them."

Lupin scowled, biting his tongue hard enough to bleed. "Tell me, then, Mr. Scamander. Has anyone ever _believed_ you, Newt, when you tell them not to worry? Do they trust in your words?"

He flinched at how hostile he sounded. Remus could only watch as Newt gave a light shrug of his shoulders and promptly looked away for a moment.

"My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice. We _will_ find her," he reiterated with emphasis. "I promise. What color are her eyes?" Mr. Scamander inquired casually, frowning a little as he swatted away at a mosquito and moved a fallen tree branch out of their way. "My wife Tina has eyes like a salamander."

Remus blinked, taken aback by the strange man's comment about his wife having eyes like a salamander. "Her eyes. They're gray," Lupin answered perfectly. "Gray and perfect. Like the gray of the knight suits of armor back at the castle. Or…eyes like the sea after a storm."

Something ignited in the renowned Magizoologist's eyes and he smiled.

"Oh, like the eyes of dove feathers! Or—or the color of a Kappa's eyes!" Newt Scamander chirped obliviously, to which Lupin felt his brow quirk in question towards Mr. Scamander, with Sirius regarding their new companion with an incredulous, disbelieving look in his glistening eyes.

Sirius furrowed his dark brows together in quandary and pursed his lips into a thin line and shot Remus a disbelieving look.

"Moony, whatever you do, do _not_ listen to this man's advice. Do _not_ tell my little cousin that she has eyes like dove feathers or Kappa eyes, for Merlin's sake. God bless, Moony. _Do_ _not_ say that to her _ever_. If you do, I'll be forced to jinx you. Don't say another word."

Newt, meanwhile, completely ignored or was oblivious to the taboo-ness of his comment. He seemed to find it perfectly acceptable to compare Dora's gray eyes to that of dove feathers.

Lupin spluttered and stammered, trying to think of a polite response to Mr. Scamander's rather off-handed comment, and was lost.

"N—no, not quite," Remus stammered, struggling to form an apt response, sharing a dark look with Sirius. Who exactly _was_ this man and why had Dumbledore thought it was a good idea to have him tag along to get Tonks? And then it hit him. Oh. _Right_. The Obscurus.

Sirius spluttered and stammered to think of a retort as he and Remus watched as Newt cast another spell, as a soft, golden light surrounded the forest, and Remus couldn't be sure, but he swore, he swore, that he saw Dora's outline walk off towards the east, in the direction they were headed, and he felt his heart lighten, the spell this time in the direction pointing east, and both men were repulsed as the strange, eccentric genius on magical creatures got down on all fours and licked the dirt and spat out a mouthful of leaves.

"Annnd we're licking the _dirt_ now, okay, what's _next_?" Sirius growled, sounding disgusted. "That's so disgusting. _Don't_. But if it helps him find her then I guess who am I to argue?"

Remus blinked owlishly at Newt Scamander's strange behavior, but the man had gotten them this far into the Forbidden Forest and hadn't led them astray, and no sooner than did he think this thought did the famed magical creatures expert right his posture once more, standing back upright and pointed them in the direction to their right.

"That way," was all he said. "Hopefully the Obscurus will be with your fiancée, Mr. Lupin," Mr. Scamander murmured, his voice hardened.

_Damn_. He'd almost forgotten, and then he felt an immense wave of guilt wash over him, rendering his blood to ice in his veins.

He'd been so focused on finding Dora before anything _else_ could happen to her in her physically vulnerable state, given she was _pregnant_ , he'd forgotten Ollie. _Just great._

He winced as he felt the familiar stab of jealousy prick at his heart any time his mind wandered to thoughts of Nymphadora's former partner.

Though the two men had come to somewhat of a begrudging understanding, there was no quelling the hot fire-seed of anger in his chest, at the simple fact that Ollie was everything that Remus was not.

Handsome, younger, with much more potential, providing Mr. Scamander and Professor Dumbledore's efforts to rid the poor long-suffering man of the Obscurus attached to his soul and body proved effective. He was certainly much more of an appropriate choice of husband.

_Oh, don't think like that, Moony_! James barked, sounding annoyed. _Don't even tread down this path anymore, my friend. Don't doubt her love for you_. _You two are going to become parents! She's going to marry you!_

Remus frowned at his friend's advice and did not have time to respond as he blinked owlishly as he came to the realization Mr. Scamander was still eyeing him curiously, as though he were nothing but an interesting specimen he had managed to capture from a zoo.

Newt gave a curt nod in understanding and raised his wand towards the thick brush ahead of them.

"Stand back," he commanded, his voice hardened. Sirius and Remus did so, shooting each other a quizzical look as Mr. Scamander pointed his wand at the thorny thicket.

" _Bombarda_!" he yelled. There was a horrible explosion, and both Remus and Sirius had to shield their faces by putting their hands in front of their faces to protect themselves from the thorns, though Lupin winced as he heard Sirius give out a pained yell.

The thorns of the brush that Newt had, rather un-orthodoxically cleared the pathway ahead of their feet, were wooden and each as large as a falcon's talon. They would cut your skin as easily as a knife, leaving you looking like you'd been whipped, or at least, poor Sirius in this case, as the man's arm had been impaled with a rather large thorn that looked like the size of a dragon claw.

Sirius, with his one good arm, was clutching onto his now-injured right arm, letting out a strangled scream and felt blood well in his tongue from the tongue Padfoot had just bitten straight through in a vain attempt to stay quiet.

Newt pocketed his wand and without looking at either man, took another step forward.

"Oh, and it's best to _step_ _back_ for that particular spell, it helps. I thought you knew better, Mr. Black," Newt Scamander spoke up, rather casually, shrugging his shoulders.

Lupin couldn't be sure by the blasé way the famed Magical Creatures expert talked, though it sounded like the man was fighting back an urge to smile.

Remus winced and gingerly took a half-step forward, swallowing hard down past the lump growing in his throat and when he barely laid a finger on Sirius's shoulder, a gesture meant to calm and comfort him, his best friend spun around on the heel of his boot and immediately rounded on Mr. Newt Scamander, his temper flaring.

" **DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE WARNED US BEFORE YOU BLEW UP THE BRUSH**?" poor Sirius bellowed, glancing down at his arm. Lupin had to crane his neck to peer over Sirius's slender shoulder and flinched, biting the inside wall of his cheek. A deep wound was sliced in the flesh of his upper right arm.

It was heavily oozing blood and there was now a rapidly forming bluish-purple bruise forming around it. Sirius lightly pressed his index finger against the center of the cut caused by the prickly thorn and sucked in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as the pain spiraled all across his body.

Colorful spots contoured at the sides of Sirius's eyes and he bit down his bottom lip in anguish, having to repress his scream of animosity and hurt.

" **I'M SKEWERED FOR MERLIN'S SAKE**!" Sirius roared, the worst of his temper swelling as Newt casually shrugged his shoulders in a manner that suggested the somewhat eccentric man didn't care, and was not fazed by the outburst, and continued walking forward, not bothering to meet Sirius's wrathful gaze, nor Remus's confused stare that was currently threatening to blow a hole in the back of his thick skull. " **WHY THE HELL DID YOU BLOW UP THE PATH**? **WE COULD HAVE** **DIED**!"

But Newt raised a finger to his lips, effectively shushing Sirius and signaling both men to be quiet, as the man moved another tree branch out of the way.

" _Mr. Lupin_. There she is. We found her." Newt's quiet voice cut through, and Lupin's head whiplashed sharply upwards, thinking that he was going to have to let Padfoot off with another warning, given he was not in a patient mood, and he wanted Dora.

One way or another, Mr. Scamander was going to help lead them to her, and—and—

But then Dora's face came from the shadows from the path that Newt had just cleared, her pale, ashen features suspended between grief and joy. Seconds pass, his brain taking her in, struggling to comprehend that Tonks wasn't just another figment of his imagination, that she was really _real_ , in front of him.

Remus's brain couldn't formulate a thought, at least not one based in any language, and he knew if he didn't touch his fiancée soon, the atoms of his very being would tear themselves apart.

How the ground was erased between the two of them, Lupin would never quite be able to recall it, but for a suspended fraction in time, he and Dora were apart, and then she was running towards him, and the next they were morphed into a single being.

The warmth of her warm body met his cold skin, giving her hope just as she had before she'd gone without him. Lupin felt his eyes fill with tears, the anger at the selfless way she had given up her own life for his, knowing full well that she had put herself at risk while pregnant with his baby, his child, forgotten.

Before he could fathom what was happening, he was hugging onto Tonks tightly, his tears dripping from his cheeks onto her dark red shirt.

His arms were encircled around her, making him momentarily forget that they were in the Forbidden Forest, that Sirius and Mr. Scamander were watching.

He remembered nothing except for the smiling, silently crying face in front of him. One of her hands clasped around his lower back, the other entangled itself in his hair and stroked it. With each soft touch, more tears fall, from both of them. Tears that neither of them bothered to wipe away.

After three agonizing days apart, not knowing if the other was injured or dead or even worse, the two of them had the chance to make new memories, and wasting time wasn't on his list.

The second Lupin had stepped from the shadows, stealing away Tonks's breath and the very heat from her skin.

Suddenly, it felt to the young witch as though her defenses were just paper, a paper that was being soaked by the rapidly falling briny drops from her eyelids.

Before Tonks could even think about drawing in the air her body needs, she melted into his form. She let out a content sigh as she could feel Lupin's firm torso and the heart that beat within the confines of his chest.

His hands were folded tightly around her back, drawing him closer to her. She felt her body shake, crying for the missed three days of the time that she was not by his side then, crying to release the pent-up tension of three, agonizing brutally long days and nights trapped in Crouch's company.

Tonks felt Remus pull his head back slightly and wiped her tears away with a slightly calloused finger, even this roughness brought more relief than Tonks thought she was capable of dealing with right at this time.

The man was practically eating her with his light brown eyes, running his hand through her short hair, as if Remus could not quite believe Tonks was not some part of an almost forgotten dream, another one of his nightly hallucinations.

When he leaned in and kissed her, it was sweet, gentle, and tasted strangely of her own tears, though Tonks did not complain. She wanted to speak.

But all she could manage was a croak, "Don't go. Not again, Rem. Don't leave…Is…is this another dream? Am I…am I died? I've died, haven't I?"

Her sweet voice was laced with so much disbelief and anguish that Lupin thought he could hardly bear it. "No, love. You're not dead, Dora."

The two of them stared at each other in an odd way, as if it were a silent argument, and a quick glance up to the left confirmed (thankfully) that Sirius had sensed the two of them needed a moment alone and had dragged a reluctant Newt Scamander away from a nest of Wrackspurts, with Mr. Scamander's Spectrespecs still perched on the bridge of his nose.

Tonks made a muted noise at the back of her throat and looked as though she wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry and opted instead for a pained smile as she looked back towards Lupin. "Wh—why is Mr. Scamander here? I—is he here for Ollie?" Tonks whispered hoarsely.

"Yes," Remus answered immediately, furrowing his brows in a frown. Their glances battled one another until they both found themselves crying.

"Why did you _do_ it, Dora?" he demanded, tears rolling down his cheeks with the same quietness as hers. "Y—you _never_ should have left my side. Do you even _realize_ what your life _means_ to me, love? Going with Crouch like that, knowing full well you're _pregnant_? I—it was pretty damned _stupid_ ," he growled, clenching his eyes shut and willing himself to take deep, slow breaths, not wanting to pick a fight with Dora. "What were you _thinking_?" he snarled. "I...I can't lose you, love. Not...not again."

Lupin felt his heart sink to the pit of his already churning stomach as it swooped and turned, and he was not at all surprised to see the beginning emotions of antagonizing disappointment in Dora's gray eyes.

Tonks was looking at Remus through red-rimmed eyes, as though Remus had slapped her, her arms on her hips.

"Well, I guess we're _both_ disappointed with each other, then, Rem," she growled, her face rapidly draining of color and gray eyes dilating. "What are you so afraid of, huh, Remus? That I'm going to end up like _Lily_ _and_ _James_?" she snapped, folding her arms across her chest, her frown deepening as Remus's face paled in anger, lips parted open slightly in shock. "I _won't_! You and I have to trust each other, Lupin! Like it or not! I—I'm not going to…to put myself at risk anymore. I can't, and there's...something I need to tell you, but I..I'm not sure how you're going to react," she mumbled, lowering her voice an octave and wincing as she realized her voice was echoing through the trees and very likely giving away their position to whatever lurked in this Forest.

"That does not change what you did was reckless!" he yelled through gritted teeth.

"I did what I had to escape. A—and if it weren't for Ollie, protecting me, Crouch would have done _worse_. And I see the way that you look whenever someone mentions Ollie's name around you. There is _nothing_ between the two of us, Rem. I _need_ you to learn how to _trust_ me. He's my best friend. Nothing more, and nothing less than that. I wouldn't have said yes to marrying you if I did not love you, with all that I am, though I'm not much at all."

She scowled as Remus's face paled as she spat his own words back at him. "Everyone I've _ever_ cared for has either _died_ or _left_ me!" she cried, her breaths hitching in her throat the angrier and more upset she got.

When Lupin took a half-step forward to approach her, Tonks shoved him backward slightly, poking at his chest with her fingers.

"Everyone…except for _you_!" she bellowed. "So, don't _tell_ me that I would be _safer_ with someone else, Rem, because the truth is, I would just be more _scared_!" she sobbed, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and Tonks did not bother to stop them. "You _owe_ me to help me find Ollie, Remus. _I_ owe him. I'm going."

Remus opened his mouth to retort, face flushed red in anger when he could not help but notice how one hand was curled around her stomach, and she staggered backward from him slightly in mental and physical pain, and almost instantly, his anger dissipated and was replaced with an overwhelming ache of worry in his chest.

"Wh—what _is_ this?" he stammered, his voice cracking. "Dora? Love? Are you ill? Is it...is it the baby?"

She did not immediately answer him. "I—it's nothing," she said softly, though as she spoke to him, her face twisted in a pained grimace.

"This doesn't look like ' _nothing_ ,'" Remus growled in agitation, hating that what was supposed to have been a sweet reunion had erupted into an almost argument, though tensions were high on both their sides. "A—are you _hurt_?" he demanded, almost sounding angry with Tonks, and he flinched, realizing how harsh his tone came off, and he visibly flinched. He pulled back slightly to study her features and give her physical condition a once-over. "What did Crouch _do_ to you, Tonks?"

"I—I'm _fine_ , h—he…didn't do _anything_ to me, Rem. I—I promise," she whispered, her voice barely audible as a sudden gust of wind picked up and tousled her short dark pink bangs off her forehead.

But there was a crack and faltering of her voice that gave off the impression there was _more_ to what she had endured at Barty Crouch Jr.'s hand than she was letting on, and it sent his temper briefly aflame, though he fought it. They had bigger problems to address right now.

Such as getting out of here in one piece.

Tonks blinked back briny tears and swallowed the lump in her throat. "Y—you're really _here_? You're not dead?" she whispered hoarsely.

His mouth painted a soft smile and he nodded once before folding her in his arms again. "I'm alive, sweetheart. I promise. I'm right here where I'm standing, Dora. I'm not anywhere else. I...I'm sorry I lost my temper just now, I just...it _scared_ me, not knowing if you were alive or dead if I would ever see you again, Tonks," he murmured into the shell of her ear, one of his hands drifting down to settle on the flat of her stomach, and he did not bother to stifle his smile. "How's our baby, Dora?" he demanded. Remus did his best to ensure his voice remained calm, though there was no mistaking his voice as it cracked and faltered.

Tonks blinked, her face paling. "Y—You _know_?!" It escaped her lips as a hushed whisper, and she sounded nervous. Afraid, of what he might think, how he would react to her pregnancy.

Tonks wore a face like she was expecting anger from Remus, anger that just did not exist. All he had for his future wife and mother of their unborn baby was love, all he wanted was to keep her safe.

She just wouldn't accept it quite yet.

He could see it in her eyes, she felt some horrible sense of misplaced guilt. Remus could respect and appreciate that Tonks wanted to own up to her mistakes, but she needed to learn how to forgive herself too.

Until she could, she would never let him in to allow him to help her to heal, and he wanted it more than anything.

So, Remus took the emotions currently raging war within the confines of his heart and put a stopper on them, not to bottle them up forever, but instead keep the love save until she could accept it as her Merlin-given birthright, really.

"I do, sweetheart. I—I'm happy for us, love," he murmured, holding her tight, not wishing to let this celestial-like creature go. "My father told me the day after…after…everything happened. I…there…there was something that I was hoping to do to you, I mean _with_ me, and I think I deserve it, sweetheart, given my multiple savings of your life now, Dora."

Tonks blinked and felt the corners of her mouth turn upward in a soft smile. "I _know_ what you want to do, Rem, and the answer is _yes_ ," she whispered, holding out her left hand and her smile widened as Remus took a moment to unclasp the silver chain in his hand off of his mother's plain yellow gold wedding ring and without so much a word, slipped it onto her finger. "Ollie might have…spoiled it. Tonight? _Here_? Are you mad at him?"

Finding the way that she bit down on her bottom lip in a slight pout endearing and adorable, Remus smiled. He nodded, taking hold of her left hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "How could I be mad? I don't want to wait anymore, Dora. I've waited long enough. I—I want to do right by you. By our child, and I wouldn't feel comfortable waiting to marry you until after the baby is born. Dumbledore's agreed to officiate once we get out of here."

Tonks nodded, but then almost immediately, her smile faltered, and Lupin felt a wave of cold wash over his entire body, and his grip on her hand tightened.

She broke into a ragged coughing fit, almost gagging as she curled in on herself in the effort to force air into her lungs, though it looked worse than that.

How pale she was, the beads of sweat on her face, she looked like she was about to throw up again, and Lupin felt his concern escalate for his fiancée to a whole new level, seeing her like this. It did not help matters either, knowing that she was _pregnant_.

"What's wrong, Dora?" he demanded, trying his best to keep his voice neutral, though it was inevitable that he hard the crack and dip in his soft tones. "Talk to me. Tell me. A—are you sick? Is it…is it the baby?" he begged desperately.

"Ollie," Tonks whispered hoarsely. "H—he got…separated from me, I—I think he's _hurt_ , h—heard him scream, a—and then…centaurs, I—I ran into some, they're—they're after me, Rem," she heaved, one hand clutching at her side to catch her breath as she confessed, painfully twisting her fingers together in nervous anticipation. "A—as much as I don't want to go back into their damned territory, we have to go back for Ollie, W—we _have_ to look for him, Rem. What if he got Splinched? And if the centaurs find a _human_ in their territory, there's no telling what will happen to him! H—he _saved_ _my_ _life_ , Remus! I can't just _leave_ him out here!" she asked, and Remus noticed the tremor that went down her spine. "We have to find him! Ollie saved me from Crouch, Rem. Please."

She was practically begging him now, and he could never resist.

Remus froze, thinking that never before did her former partner's name sound like a wretched curse. What made it all the worse was how Ollie Brennan's name sounded on his fiancée's lips.

_There's no need for this, Rem_ , Lily's voice chimed up softly at the back furthermost corner of the recesses of his troubled mind. _Tonks loves you. Cares for you. She—she wouldn't have agreed to marry you tonight if she did not love you_.

Oh, he knew Lily was right, Merlin blesses her sweet, caring soul, the unfailingly kind witch that Remus knew Lily to be. But _still_.

He could not help but feel the immense hot, prickling feeling of jealousy surging through his veins. He did not especially like the look of shock and concern that was currently etched on Dora's beautiful features, or how pale she was, and she wasn't looking that well if he was being honest with himself.

When she walked, she practically staggered, and had Lupin not already been clutching onto his fiancée's arm in a tight vice grip, she surely would have fallen over a twisted tree root.

Lupin lifted his gaze to glance into the thicket of the Forest. There was no telling where in the Forbidden Forest Mr. Brennan could have landed up, really.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, the other hand gripping tightly onto Dora's shoulder as he steered her towards Sirius, who was still clutching onto his bloodied, scratched right arm and every once in a while throwing a look of daggers Newt's way, who was preoccupied in casting a Tracking Spell around the entire Forest to look for the injured Obsurcus.

" _I_ will find Ollie, Tonks," Remus promised, hardening the edges of his voice as he continued to steer her towards Sirius, who was looking hellbent on getting out of the Forbidden Forest at his earliest opportunity. "I want you to go with Sirius to the Hospital Wing and _stay_ _there_. Get Madame Pomfrey to give you something, I don't like the way you're looking, love. I—I don't want you over-exerting yourself in your condition, sweetheart," he said, his voice a growl. "I want you to go back."

Tonks huffed and stomped her foot in frustration. "I'm coming with you! Ollie is the only person out of all of us that he trusts, Remus! I—if I don't come with you to find him, there's no telling what kind of chaos the Obscurus attached to him will unleash. He's got a hair-trigger temper!" she protested hotly, folding her arms across her chest, glaring. "He's _dangerous_ , Remus! Please!"

"All the more reason for you to stay put. You're pregnant, Dora." Remus could feel his temper beginning to swell at her stubbornness.

Couldn't she _see_ that he was only trying to protect her and their child?

But Tonks vehemently shook her head no. "I'm _coming_ , Remus."

"No." His command escaped him as a low growl, and if she weren't mistaken, Tonks could swear she could see the shadow of the Wolf dart across his handsome but lined face. "No. _You_ _aren't coming._ You're _pregnant_."

"All the more reason for me to go! I—I want to be safe just as much as you do, b-but I _have_ to! There is no other way around this, and you and I _both_ know it, Rem!" Tonks shouted in protest, stomping her foot in frustration, and kicking aside a fallen tree branch in anger with the heel of her black leather combat boot. "Rem, _please_. Ollie will _kill_ you or anybody _else_ that dares to try to approach him in whatever condition he might be in, especially if he's hurt and already vulnerable. _I'm_ the only one who is capable of calming him down. I can't…I can't… _lose_ him _again_ , Remus. Once was enough in my life. _He saved my life_. I owe him mine. Do you honestly believe that I'm going to let the fact that I'm pregnant stand in my way, Rem?" Tonks demanded hotly, her hands on her hips.

Lupin felt a fiery surge of protective anger course through his veins, hating that he still allowed himself to get so damned angry at the sound of anguish in Dora's voice at how laced with pain it was for Ollie Brennan.

He had to remind himself that this was simply Dora's unfailingly kind personality, and she would have done the same for anyone.

_Even if it was me?_ The demonic, snakelike voice chimed up unhelpfully, and, sensing Tonks was waiting for him to say something, he opened his mouth to protest, but then Tonks lifted her chin to meet Remus's gaze, and the sadness within those gray orbs of hers caused something within himself to shift, his anger almost instantly dissipating. He hated this.

But Merlin's beard, he _hated_ this idea so very much. With every fiber of his being, he wanted nothing more than for Tonks to go back to Hogwarts with Sirius and wait for him in the Hospital Wing, to have Madam Pomfrey look at her, finding what could be causing her stomach to cause her such pain, but there was a look glistening in her eyes that told him otherwise. That she was not going to comply easily with him.

"Do you mean to _stop_ me?" Tonks left the very question she had just posed to Remus as a threat and he could tell she meant every word of it. There was no changing Nymphadora's mind once it was made up.

She was well and truly hopelessly in love with him and given the nature of what she had endured at Crouch's hand, though he still sensed there was more to her captivity that she was letting on, she was adamantly refusing to leave his side, and Remus knew now that Tonks would go to any lengths necessary to stay by his side and find her former partner, and get him out of harm's way.

In her own way, he knew, Tonks cared for and perhaps even loved Ollie Brennan. He was just going to have to accept that, but there was a reason that she had chosen him.

Though what reason or those reasons might be, only _she_ knew.

"Tell me _why_ ," he pleaded, imploring with her, practically begging Tonks, just short of falling to his knees in front of her, demanding an answer as to why she had selflessly chosen to sacrifice herself for him. "Why did you leave? You...you should not have done it, Dora."

He was _not_ _worth her life_. He wanted her to have it, to take it _back_.

Tonks felt an urge to do something, to comfort Remus, but also herself. Both of them had gone through so much over the last few days.

In a split second, she had closed off the gap of space between the two of them and pressed her lips against his, felt Lupin's body loosen, and his arms gently touch her shoulders.

She pulled apart first, pulling back slightly to study Remus's face, daring to meet his gaze with hers.

"That is your answer as to your 'why.'" Tonks whispered it, like a hushed, dirty secret, and bit down on her lip in hesitation. "It's payback."

Lupin let out a sigh and pulled her closer, resting his head on top of her hair before burying his face in her hair, inhaling the intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and eucalyptus and lavender.

"Very well," he relented with a sigh of exasperation, reaching down, and clutching onto her left hand tightly in his, his gaze lingering on his mum's wedding ring for a moment. "I suppose it wouldn't really matter if I said 'no' in the first place, would it, Dora? You'd follow me anyways. I cannot stop you, love. And I...just want you to be safe, Dora."

Unable to resist the call of her aura anymore, his grip on her waist tightened and he pulled her close, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her head slightly.

He kissed her and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled.

She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest.

"Ahem!" The sound of Sirius coughing to clear his throat caused the pair of them to abruptly tear each other's gaze away from one another and spun around to see both Sirius and Newt resting against the large trunk of a tree.

Though Sirius still cradled onto his injured, bleeding arm, one leg was crossed over the other, and he looked rather smug about something as the corners of his mouth twitched as he fought back a smile.

"This is all very nice and heartwarming, Remus. Cousin. But in case the two of you have _forgotten_ , there is the rather troublesome matter of an adult Obscurus somewhere in this damned bloody dark forest who may or may not desperately need medical attention and most certainly could use your words of comfort and presence by his side, Tonks, remember? I really fancy rather not _dying_ today, you lot, so please, for _my_ sake, can we _move_ , if you two are _quite_ finished undressing each other with your eyes? Save that for later tonight when you two are officially married, yes? Can we _please_ get a move on now? I'd like to get out of this bloody damned freezing, cursed forest!" Sirius asked offhandedly, as he made a pretend show of pretending to pick at and examine his fingernails.

Remus and Tonks shared a quick glance with one another, then Tonks grabbed onto Remus's hand and dragged him forward towards the clearing where Sirius and Mr. Newt Scamander were patiently waiting.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as Tonks tried to ignore the fiery heat speckling along her cheeks, trying in vain to keep the growing fire from spreading so rapidly across her face, but it was always a damned bloody curse of hers, how fast she blushed, really.

Trying to look at everywhere but except at her soon-to-be-husband and father of their baby, Tonks drew her attention to the path ahead.

Somewhere, deep in the Forbidden Forest were the answers she needed.

Somewhere in there, her partner, her best friend was hurting, her second anchor in her life, the other anchor was currently holding onto her hand in a tight, vice grip, and afraid seemingly to relinquish his hold on her, was waiting for her and Remus to come and save him.

_Hang on, Ollie_. She shot a silent prayer to Merlin and the heavens above, praying that somewhere, Ollie could hear her, wherever he was, hoping that he was uninjured.

_We're coming for you. Just hang on a little while longer_ …

Tonks only hoped that by the time they arrived, they weren't too late to save him.


	64. Tensions

**CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR**

He did not know what to do. Alice had evaded his embrace yet again, for a second time. Well. Not a third time. He did not know yet how or where he would find her, but his own wretched soul is damned, he would.

Oh, he _would_. Crouch came here whenever he needed to calm himself and having the accursed wretch of an Obscurus practically hog-tied to a tree near one of his old friend's dwellings was going to have to suffice for now.

He had a feeling his sweet Alice would find the boy soon. In fact, Barty Crouch Jr. was _counting_ on the woman finding him.

The bare branches of the Forbidden Forest that lay at the edge of Hogwarts spiked into the sky—no sign of life to be found anywhere.

It was so dark he could barely see where he was going, and he was in such a mood he didn't bother to light the tip of his wand.

There were only small sounds of rustling bushes and the howl of the wind. You never knew what lay ahead in the dark forest, all you knew was that it wasn't going to be a peaceful journey.

Barty could feel the darkness drawing closer to him and pressing down, suffocating him slowly as he stepped carefully through the thick maze of woodland.

The densely packed trees loomed high above but remained still despite the icy breeze that continued to flow around him.

The silvery moonlight was slowed to a trickle by the full branches, and Crouch had to squint, only to see a path of gloom and uncertainty ahead, and he cherished it.

With only the moonlight to guide him, Crouch surged deeper and deeper into the Forbidden Forest, his teeth grinding together in anger as he scanned the path beneath him.

_I'll find her. I'll find her, find them both if I have to burn down the entire world, and then I'll kill that bastard myself if it's the last thing I do._ _Alice WILL be mine._

Crouch let out a guttural growl from the back of his throat and heard himself snarl. There was the thick slime and taste of iron on his tongue as he seized tufts of his dark hair and violently tugged, repressing the urge to lift his head to the canopy above and roar in frustration.

Crouch spat the blood that minutely filled his taste buds and there his body shivered while he curbed his pained breathing, willing his breathing to slowly regulate back to something that even resembled a sliver of normalcy. As he walked, he could not help but think of _her_.

How he had been pulled blindly into the forest by Alice Prewitt, how, that night when he'd caught her suffering from a severe headache, he'd not thought she would have chosen to go with him.

As he walked under the dark tresses of the twisted, gnarled trees of the Forbidden Forest, his feet caressed the velvet flesh of the forest ground. He loved her, his sweet Alice, and they all _laughed_. They made a mockery of him for it.

He loved Alice, just as he loved this Forbidden Forest. The others did not simply understand her ways. She _breathed_ this forest. None of the Dark Lord's other followers believed him. They could not hear her voice when she sang, they could not see her beauty.

The others, they did not understand. They could never learn to love her as Crouch did. This place, this forest, she had many children, and although they were not his, he loved them all as if they were. Darkness engulfed, all that lighted his way was the will to lay with her.

Letting out an agonized groan, he allowed himself to sit under her heart. Using the trunk of a twisted old oak tree, he braced his back against the edge of the trunk and slumped to the forest ground, carding his fingers through his thick tuft of dark hair, sticky in between his fingertips as he let out a holler.

He had not anticipated when Umbridge had paid Alice a visit just the other day, that she would be _pregnant_.

And that revelation hurt as hell. Crouch continued raking his fingers through his hair and licking his lips to moisten them, feeling unshed moisture glistening in his eyes. It took him a second to realize that a wretched, accursed tear had escaped from his lid.

He breathed in and out repeatedly, continued doing it, and in his deep, macabre moods while his face remained buried in his hands. His throat hallowed and a sob threatened to escape his lips, but he refused to let it.

He'd die before he'd ever cry again.

_I'll kill him. I'll kill it_. _I'll cut that worm out of Alice and feed it to Greyback's bitches, after I deal with the traitorous wolf when I get back_ , he thought.

He'd have not believed it possible of Greyback, and Crouch hadn't stuck around to see his castle fall siege to the werewolves. Crouch had sent word ahead to Dolores that the plan was falling apart and for the Senior Undersecretary to meet him at the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest once he was certain that his sweet Alice was safe in his arms again, and the only thing he gave a damn about was finding Alice and the _Wolf_.

Barty Crouch Jr. clenched his teeth tightly shut and squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a frigid breath of cool October night air as he sat in the Forbidden Forest.

The arteries that pumped lifeblood into her and her children now pulsed through his veins as he lay just below her. All Crouch asked was for the forest to take him, to love him as he loved her, and show him the way to his sweet Alice. It never mattered if the Forest could speak to him.

They all said he was demented. That it could never be, this place, where the trees rustled and whispered to you, where werewolves and spiders and unicorns dwelled, she was the darkness, and people belonged in the light.

But Crouch wasn't like them all. Why did they fear it? Were the dark coils of the woods _truly_ so foreboding? Sometimes, especially right now, the painful recalling of his past haunted him. Not sometimes, but all of the time. There was no escaping from his deeds.

Every time Crouch was reminded of it, it felt like someone stuck a thousand pins in him. It stung. A _lot_. It felt as though he were soulless, whenever he walked amidst a sea of people, be they members of the Dark Lord's followers or Muggles, he was the only alien.

The one who dug his own nails into his palms to numb the pain. One who clutched and tugged furiously at his hair, out of the exasperation. But the tears still would not flow, as if they were frozen in their ducts.

When the guilt came to haunt him at what he had done to his poor, sweet Alice, it took him down the old familiar path. Crouch wanted nothing more than to refuse to walk it, pretend that he was the person he demanded that he be. For his Alice.

He wanted to wipe his mind of the memories, but if he did that, he would lose the serenity of her pretty face, the smile that always gave him a sense of peace.

And it's true what the rest of the world said. "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And now, that he had Alice, he couldn't bear it.

_Or would have. If not for the wretched Obscurus taking her_ , his conscience reminded him. As soon as he dealt with the boy. Greyback had killed the bastard wolf, so that was, in its own way, some small measure of comfort at the very least.

Crouch really did not want to hurt Alice a second time. He sorely hoped she did not make him use force, that once he found where the two of them had disappeared to, that his Alice Prewitt would come with him of her own volition.

Barty let out another groan and slowly rose to his feet, plucking from the air what he now knew to be a single thread of her hair, a lock he'd managed to grab earlier. He furrowed his brows into a frown as he, with his thumb and forefinger, gingerly plucked the delicate strand from in front of his face, where it had been almost slowly and lazily tumbling to the forest floor beneath his boots.

It wasn't much, but it was a start, and he could swear, he was sure, he was sure that only but a moment ago he heard… other voices, but more specifically…. _Hers_.

So…she was on the hunt for the boy, after all. Crouch heard himself emanate an exhale of relief as his shoulders relaxed. Ah, but _Merlin_. If it was a game of chase that Alice wanted, then he would indulge in it.

For her. For Merlin was truly kind to him, was he not? Crouch knew the Forbidden Forest better than anyone, and if he strained to hear, he could hear a muffled yelp. He snorted and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

The dark woods of this place of sweet, blessed silence would drive a normal man's mind insane if you had no map to guide you, and with the Forest, there had never been any sort of map.

"Only thing in these woods are unicorns, centaurs, werewolves, and spiders," he murmured, echoing the Caretaker's words when he'd asked after the forest once, as a first-year, and had been immediately reprimanded, told _never_ to enter the Forbidden Forest at any cost, and of course, Barty hadn't listened to him. "If you want to play, Alice…then you're going to have to start, little dove…"

_If she wants to hide, then I'll seek. I'll find you, Al. Oh, yes…I will find you._

With somewhat shaking fingers, he pointed his wand at the single strand of his Alice's dark hair, and he was pleased to see that, earlier back at the abduction site, the girl hadn't played any of her foolish games around Crouch, or perhaps her powers had been affected by the emotional blow Barty had purposefully dealt with Alice by revealing his ace, none other than her former partner, Ollie Brennan. She had changed her simple pixie back to dark brown.

_For_ him. _Because_ of him. As Crouch brought the tiny strand of her hair to his nose and sniffed it once, inhaling the intoxicating scent of eucalyptus, pine, and honeysuckle, with eyes closed, before releasing it from his ironclad grip, pointing the edge of his wand at the single floating strand of Alice's dark hair, and murmuring, " _Point me_ …"

His mind was flooded as he allowed his feet to instinctively take him deeper into the path of the Forbidden Forest, as sweet Alice's face drenched his serene memory, and his shattered soul slowly pieced itself together as he allowed his wand and his magic to take him down the very same path that he'd once brought Alice to when he'd taken her to the Forest via means of the portrait's secret passageway.

He tried his hardest to block out the memory, the night that it all changed, grinding his teeth and locking his jaw in anger, but no matter what, he did not do a good enough job, because the memory returned to him anyways, in vivid, excruciatingly painful detail, and despite his hardest to block it out, he couldn't.

Crouch let out a sigh as he allowed the sweet memory of the last time, he had looked upon her face, her succulent smile, serene face drench his memory, wishing he could change, but knowing that he couldn't.

It was too late for someone like him…

* * *

The secret passageway through the portrait in the stairwell was incredibly dark, though Barty was used to that by now, having traversed this same path now for the last eight months, no one any the wiser as to its existence.

Crouch could practically hear poor Alice Prewitt sniffling behind him as she fought off the last remnants of what sounded like a nasty head cold, and Barty could hear Prewitt struggling, barely managing to keep up with his somewhat frantic pace as he held the tip of his lighted wand in front of them, the single pearly ball of light emanating a soft glow towards the path in front of them that lay at their feet, almost beckoning its call to be explored.

Luckily, the entrance was only slightly cramped, and he'd never exactly taken another living being with him down this way, so he hoped she would be comfortable.

Alice had refused the offer of his hand and had managed to clamber up into the secret passageway all by herself, leaving Crouch behind her, standing rather dumbly with his hand outstretched in mid-air, a look of dawning growing anger in his eyes.

He felt her refusal to be an insult of the highest order, but before Barty could so much as open his mouth to protest that he insists that she take his arm and not let go, Alice Prewitt brushed right past him, her shoulder accidentally grazing his, asking him rather bluntly and brazenly which direction she was supposed to make: left or the right.

Crouch, in a somewhat annoyed fashion, scowled and furrowed his brows as he put the painting back up and shut the trap door successfully behind him, hearing it click.

She was already a good distance ahead of him, and Barty had to almost jog to catch up to Alice, practically snatched the wand from clean out of her hand, much to Alice's chagrin, and barked at her to simply stay behind him and follow his example.

Although on a normal day, he could appreciate Prewitt's steadfastness and fierce sense of independence, there was a time and a place, and now was certainly not the time, nor was it the place.

What followed was a rather awkward and cold silence between the Gryffindor and Slytherin seventh-year students, but after a few minutes of them walking in stoic silence, Barty was becoming quite aware that although he, who was holding Alice's lighted wand in his hand, could see exceptionally well in front of him, Alice, however, could not and he heard her squeak in fear.

Crouch came to an abrupt halt where the passageway split into four different directions, and Barty shifted at the waist just slightly just to see the young witch nearly trip over and practically barrel over him due to a pebble and quirked a suspicious dark brow Alice Prewitt's way, who caught him looking and flushed, he was pleased to see, that she was embarrassed.

A light pink blush speckled its way along her pale cheeks, and she looked away.

"I—I'm fine!" she breathed, practically panting as she clung to the nearby cobblestoned wall, once again refusing Barty's hand and righting her posture, brushing her hands on the skirts of her Hogwarts uniform before lifting her chin to meet Barty's gaze and looked towards the Slytherin student expectantly. "I—I don't _need_ your help, Barty!"

Alice held out a hand in front of her to stop him from further approaching her as if the young spritely brunette somehow thought that would keep his distance from her.

But she couldn't have been more wrong.

"This is bloody _ridiculous_! Will you just take my damn hand, Alice?" growled Crouch, feeling his annoyance rise to what he recognized as a dangerous level, somewhat bluntly, and he practically shoved his arm towards Alice.

When she made no move to latch onto his arm, he growled in frustration and bared his teeth, just slightly, beginning to feel nervous and somewhat irritated that Prewitt was staring at him so skittishly.

Was he really _that_ despicable?

He ground his teeth in anger at the young brunette as she swiped a stray wisp of her dark pixie cut out of her eyes and tucked it back behind her ear where it belonged.

"Take. My. Arm." His voice was hard as granite, and he inwardly flinched as Alice shirked away in fear. "And don't even _think_ about letting go of me, Alice."

"Why?" she asked, her wide eyes doe-like and innocent, fearful.

"Because I don't need you flailing about like a banshee and creating unnecessary noise and alerting our position to Pringle, yes? I'd rather fancy staying out of detention, wouldn't you? Besides, you keep tripping over yourself like this, you'll wind up _hurt_ and I don't want to see you get injured, Al. And you'll scare the first-years and cause them to think Hogwarts is haunted."

Perhaps it was a trick of the light emanating from Alice's wand tip, but he could _swear_ that he saw Prewitt turn away and began to smirk at his quip, though he had no time to dwell on the matter.

Thank Merlin, Alice, after a moment's reluctant hesitation, did eventually take his arm, and they spent the walk out onto the Hogwarts grounds in silence.

Crouch never once turned to look at Prewitt at all, though he was sorely tempted, and he could see the seventh-year eyeing him somewhat cautiously out of the corner of her eye, her intrigue piqued.

In all honesty, he was kind of surprised the little minx had not once turned to ask him where he was taking her, why they were going this way.

Crouch, though he would never admit this to anyone, especially not her, he himself did not really know.

Oh, he knew exactly _where_ they were going, but he did not know exactly what had propelled him to cause her to come down the portrait's secret passageway into the dark tunnel with him.

He told himself it was because he did not want Alice to suffer through a Saturday night's detention, but somehow, he suspected that was not the case.

Crouch wasn't exactly sure if it was because their conversation from earlier had been interrupted by the arrival of Pringle, but he just knew that he wanted Prewitt by his side for right now.

Crouch let out a frustrated, audible sight, causing the young Gryffindor to flinch slightly at the unexpected gesture and tighten her grip on his arm, which sent a sudden spiral of incredible heat down his spine.

And he supposed, in some way or another, that it was just as well. Barty wasn't a fool. He knew that Alice, in some small measure, was afraid of him.

Though there was something about the young brunette pureblood witch's quiet intuitiveness that sent a cold chill down his spine and a dagger straight to his heart during moments like just now when he didn't expect it.

Like the other day, when she and Lily Evans had caught him in the corner of the corridor with Mary Macdonald, and she pleaded with him to let her go.

And he had. Mary had, unbeknownst to Alice, insulted Prewitt for daring to even talk to him during Potions, given they sat next to each other, and Barty could simply not allow for her words to go unpunished.

Alice had gotten a look in her eyes that suggested to Barty that she could bear straight through his dark brown eyes, see past the antagonized hurt, the layers of hardness and aloof distance that he'd built up as walls around his heart to shield the other Slytherins from learning the truth of how wretched his home life around Father was, what Father did to him.

But Alice…somehow, she saw right through it, and she frightened Barty, with that clear gaze that could bear straight through his soul that way. He supposed that, for the sake of his own sanity, he ought to have stayed away.

Crouch knew all too long that pigheaded arrogant bastard Frank Longbottom of all oafs had designs on his Alice, though the man hadn't exactly come out and made a move to ask her out, that he knew.

Barty furrowed his brows into a frown as he realized that he had no other choice available to him at the current point in time than to accept that from the moment he'd laid eyes on her in their third year, she became his crush and Alice was the source of his current desires.

_Always_. Barty felt the sheen of perspiration throng on his forehead as he bit the inside wall of his cheek. Were this any other witch in Hogwarts in their same year, he would have just taken what he wanted, but…but…with _her_ , with Alice, it was… _different_.

_She_ was different. Not at all like the other girls in their year. He had long since lost the urge to devour her, to succumb to the intense heat Prewitt gave off, to wonder what made Prewitt set his blood in his veins aflame.

Now, he was merely content to be by her side, to have her next to him. _Pathetic_ is what Father would have said. _Useless. Worthless, hopeless, foolish, romantic boy_. In truth, he was right to think of his son in those terms.

Lost in the confines of his own mind and deep in thought, Crouch did not realize they had come to the end of the passageway, and he would have run face-first, nose squashed, into the door had Alice not shot out a hand to stop it.

"Th—thank you," he stammered, feeling the heat creep to his cheeks. "We're here. Stay quiet and follow me," Barty murmured, lowering his arm, and reluctantly causing Alice to relinquish her vice-grip on his arm, and the instant her hand left his forearm, he felt… _cold_. Desolate. Alone and empty and worthless.

Barty had occasionally noticed it throughout their long walk down the tunnel that curled away into the infinite darkness, away from the garish light of day and candlelight and towards Hogwarts' grounds, on the other side of the massive castle, close to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

He couldn't be certain, though he could have sworn in time past her dear friend and fellow Gryffindor classmate, Remus Lupin, the werewolf, used this same passageway to sneak out to the Whomping Willow during those three times a month that he transformed.

The gentle touch of her hand on his arm had been warm, and had calmed down the worst of his ire at their lack of conversation, and had quelled his temper enough to the point where he found suddenly he did not mind their lack of conversation.

However, once the gust of cold October night air hit their faces and pinked Alice's pale cheeks, it woke him and shoved that foreign feeling aside.

Crouch opened the trapdoor and allowed to swing open fully, revealing that they were at the edge of Hogwarts, relatively close to Hagrid's hut.

Quite far away from prying eyes, which was his intent. He stepped down and hopped off the passageway's ledge with a little more spring in his step, holding out his arm and he felt a surge of hope in his chest as Alice, unprompted and of her own volition, did not hesitate this time to take his hand and allow herself to be helped down, though the second she pulled away, Barty frowned.

He resisted the urge to roar like an enraged dragon and throw a temper tantrum at the lack of her warmth, and he thought it amazing how just a simple touch could elicit such a powerful reaction. Was this…what _love_ felt like for him?

Was _that_ what this awful, terrible constricting in his lungs was? To care for another so deeply, this witch beside him as if she were the very light of his life, the damned good thing in an otherwise wretched, miserable, and lonely existence.

Crouch furrowed his brows into a frown and scowled, though his expression softened as he shifted at the waist and turned towards Alice.

The young brunette Gryffindor was regarding him with something akin to awe and wonderment in her eyes as she looked towards the Forbidden Forest.

"I…had no idea that this was here," she breathed, glancing back over her shoulder at the now-closed trap door, and Crouch stifled his smile, thinking the muffled squeak of surprise she barely managed to repress as the entrance magically concealed itself as part of the cobblestoned brick of the castle revealed its ability. "I—I guess then…it only lets certain people use it?" she asked him.

Crouch shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure. I just know I've been using it for the past two years to sneak out whenever I can't sleep so I can take walks."

In the clear moonlight of the silver half-crescent moon that had poked out from behind a cloud, he could see Alice more clearly now as he escorted the girl towards Forest's edge, and the slight redness, the pink blush in her cheeks was not missed by the observant and sharp seventh-year Slytherin student.

He was, at the very least, if nothing else, relieved that Alice seemed much more relaxed around him tonight than she had whenever they had Potions together. And the way that Alice was currently eyeing him was rather…hopeful.

Which was causing him great conflict in that he did not know what to do? Barty was also acutely aware of the fact that he knew that Alice despised him.

And everything that he, as both a Crouch and a Slytherin, stood for.

"Won't we get in trouble?" Alice whispered fervently, and he froze as he felt one of her hands come up to grip onto his shoulder, and he almost had a heart attack at the unexpected gesture. "What about…Hagrid? Won't he tell?"

Crouch watched, stunned, as his gaze drifted down and settled on her hand, and though Alice noticed him looking, made no attempt to remove it.

"We won't get caught, Alice," he sighed, looking away. "Not as long as you're with me. I…have my ways of getting around the grounds undetected."

Alice did not immediately respond, but it didn't escape Barty's attention that Prewitt looked away, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks that he suspected had nothing to do with the late cool autumnal chill of October tonight.

Glancing down, his gaze befell a crumpled and torn piece of parchment, and after a moment in silence, as they reached the edge of the Forest, he paused.

"The letter, is it from your family?" he asked quietly, not even noticing that somehow, Alice was now the one leading the way, and he'd fallen behind her.

"Yes," she whispered, looking up at Crouch with mild surprise in her kind eyes as she waited for Crouch to catch. "They—they were supposed to allow me to come home this weekend, but they're traveling, so I…I can't," she growled.

Alice's gaze nervously flitted towards Barty, and she blinked owlishly at the tall Slytherin seventh-year classmate, surprised to find that he was smiling.

That in it of itself wasn't so surprising, she had seen him smile before, but not like _this_.

He almost looked… _kind_. Handsome, and was eyeing her in a strange way.

"They miss you?" Barty heard himself ask, and even he was surprised at how his voice had lowered an octave, and he did not sound as rough as before.

He sounded softer somehow. Almost…tinged with melancholia. Alice blinked owlishly in surprise at hearing the shift in Crouch's tone. "Yes, of course."

Crouch nodded, though he could not stop the briefest flickers of outrage from darting across his handsome features as he could not help but think how lucky Prewitt was, to have a family who cared. Father and Mother didn't care.

Not about him, oh, no. Fathers, proper ones, did not hit and burn their sons whenever they made a mistake. And Mothers were not supposed to snivel and cry in the background and silently plead for Father to stop hurting their sons.

Barty felt his face flush in shame and anger, and he ducked his head to allow a lock of dark brown hair to fall in front of his face to avoid looking at her.

"Come." He held out his hand for Alice to take. "I have a surprise for you. If we're lucky, it won't have moved on since I last found its den the other night…."

Alice virtually had no time to protest as she allowed Crouch to grab her by the hand and practically drag her forward into the Forbidden Forest, crossing that threshold, the fine line that separated the Hogwarts Grounds from the Forest.

She gulped nervously as the pair of them walked in silence, and it did not escape Alice's attention that Crouch was trying to make as little noise as possible.

Not sure what the Slytherin student wanted with her or what it was that he wanted to show her, the young brunette Gryffindor surmised that the best course of action in this scenario would be to simply to follow and copy his lead.

"There," he encouraged, his voice soft and barely above a whisper. He was pointing towards a clearing that looked as though it headed down a glade and to a brook, because the sound of babbling, running water over pebbles reached her eardrums. "Try not to make any noise," Crouch cautioned and stepped back.

Alice walked forward with bated breaths and gingerly approached the clearing. Crouch followed behind, and the sharp intake of frigid air he heard Prewitt inhale was worth it as she poked her head out from behind a thick bush.

"Wow," she breathed, as Crouch moved to stand beside her as the pair of them eyed the elegant, white unicorn standing at the edge of the brook to drink.

"She's really something, isn't she?" Crouch commented, unable to stop the smile that crept its way across his features as Alice turned towards him in awe.

Alice stared in awe towards the retreating mare, that little white horse as a penetrating coldness trickled over the now bleak landscape in the unicorn's absence, as its ears had pricked up and its tail flicked as the distant howl of a wolf nearby had caught the majestic beast's attention and it quit the scene.

She moved swiftly, the little unicorn, her powerful limbs tearing into the earth and her ears pricked, and then, just like that, the unicorn vanished. Gone. As if she had never been there. Alice's face fell, crestfallen, and she turned towards Barty, who had a strange glimmer glistening in his brown eyes.

"I wanted you to see her before she moved on to a different part of the Forest," Crouch hastily explained, noticing how she was shivering from the cold.

"She—she's beautiful, Barty," Alice stammered, teeth chattering from the cold, her arms clutching herself as it was fairly cold out here and she had not come out to the grounds without a cloak or any kind of a jacket. Crouch sighed.

Without a word, he unclasped his cloak and pulled it off, draping it over Alice's shoulders, causing her to glance up at him in utter alarm in horror, and Crouch did not respond as he wrapped it around her petite form just as she had opened her mouth, no doubt to protest.

"No, no, I can't take this, Crouch."

"You're shivering. _Yes_ , you _can_ take it and you _will_ ," he added with emphasis, hardening his voice with a slight edge of steel that told Alice to accept the gift of his cloak. "And…call me, Barty," he said blatantly, ignoring Prewitt's pleas. "I won't have you getting sick out here. Professor Slughorn would likely transfigure me into a teacup if he found out I got one of the top members of his Slug Club sick out here after dark," he snorted, and he swore he heard her laugh.

She scooted a fraction of an inch closer, and Barty felt his breath catch in his throat. "Is it so wrong to care for another person, Barty?" Alice whispered.

"No." Crouch flinched, clenching his eyes shut as he turned away. "You care for him. For Frank Longbottom, don't you, Prewitt?" he growled angrily.

He did not bother to turn around, for he knew he was sure to see the disappointment and horror in Alice's bewitching eyes.

She was looking like she had been slapped, but why should he bother to hide the truth anymore, really?

Alice Prewitt was born perfect, and he like this.

"You can do better than me, and you _should_ ," Crouch snapped, feeling the fire-seeds of jealousy well deep within the pits of his stomach at the thought of envisioning this creature before him with another man. "Why don't you go out with Frank? Why aren't you?"

Alice ignored his question. "I know what you think of Frank, Barty. He isn't so bad. If you'd give him a chance, you'd find that not all Gryffindors are bad. Just as a Slytherins aren't," she sighed sadly, giving Crouch's trembling form the once over, though he was not shaking with the cold, but rather, from anger. "You aren't so bad, Crouch, and if you should know, I sat by you in Potions almost every day for an entire two years, hoping that…you might change your ways, that I could…one day, maybe call you a friend someday, Barty, but now I see that it isn't the case. I _saw_ what you did to Mary Macdonald, Crouch."

Alice shook her head in immense disappointment and wrapped his cloak tighter around herself for warmth and made to walk away and was halted in her movements by Crouch, who shot out her arm and grabbed at her wrist tightly.

"We should head back, Barty, it's late, and I don't want to get caught out here after dark. Thank you for showing me the unicorn, she was truly beautiful, but we need to head back to the castle, Crouch." Her eyes flashed. "Let _go_ of me!"

He ignored this last request, and if anything, Crouch felt his ironclad grip tighten on her wrist. "Frank Longbottom does not _deserve_ you, Prewitt!" he yelled. " _I_ do!" he growled, his temper imploding as a warmth of a different kind spiraled through his system, and it was then that Barty realized that he hated himself.

This…this was not supposed to happen. Not like this. But Merlin….

"No, you don't!" Alice shouted. "Frank is _my_ _boyfriend_ , Barty! I was willing to give you a second chance to try to earn my friendship, but this is too far!"

Words flew from her mouth that she never thought she'd even think, let alone say out loud, and it was on the person she perhaps cared for the most. She knew instantly from the look in his eyes that they'd hit their mark. In that instant, their friendship shattered into glassy shards. Nothing would ever be the same again, and they both knew this.

They were both panting, Crouch still cupping her cheek. Alice's voice was cold, hollow, and he wondered why she was as upset as she was. He figured maybe it was because she had grown used to her life in Hogwarts, and the people here, that she had no true family, that she was like him. He saw it in her eyes.

Though Alice would never admit that, that she didn't get along with her parents, just as he despised and reviled his father. They were more alike than she knew.

Maybe she did not trust him, did not think that he would simply support her without wishing anything of her in return. Barty knew she had her morals, much stronger than his. But still, he needed her to understand why.

But this was also perhaps the last time he could ever look upon her beautiful face ever again. Never again, at least, not in this manner. Crouch could not stop himself from letting his thumb drift across her cheek, wishing he could make her tears disappear

"Your future is not here. You as good as said it yourself, you do not belong in this place forever," he said stiffly, and then, realizing he sounded too harsh, softened his tone, once they had recovered somewhat.

Alice glowered at Crouch, folding her thin arms across her chest, scowling.

"I will help you, Alice. I—I don't know how that is, but I promise to repay you for all the good that you have done for me, to apologize for the hardships you have suffered. I care about your future, just as much as you do, and… if you stay here, with _me_ , you will be labeled. People won't…take you seriously. I'm a _monster_ , nothing more, nothing more. My father was right," he growled darkly. "I'll _never_ be anything but a monster, and I was _foolish_ to think otherwise. I can't be your friend."

_There's nothing for you here_ , is what he wanted to say, but couldn't speak.

The tears betrayed them both, falling from her eyes and landing on the back of his hand. What was the secret behind them? Crouch shook his head as he thought about this.

He voiced his own thoughts as they came to him. "Why would you even want to stay here?" he said, smiling at Alice as she looked sharply away, biting her bottom lip hard enough to cause it to bleed if she weren't careful. "What possible reason could you have, when the whole world is waiting for you out there?"

Here, he gestured to the Forbidden Forest and out onto the Hogwarts Grounds. "I know it is a dangerous one, one not particularly kind to young witches, I know that, but I believe there is something better waiting for you out there despite this."

Crouch had expected her to reply immediately, but he saw her wince as if Alice were only just coming to terms with something deep within herself.

She almost looked guilty, though Merlin only knew why. When she finally rose to confront him, the young Slytherin saw clarity in her haunting eyes, as well as confusion buried there.

Her gaze trailed across his face, and he flinched as it finally rested on his eyes, just as he had looked at her many times over. It was as if she no longer cared that he knew that she was looking at him. He had thought of it.

Of course, he joked to himself, knew she felt something, but… if it was to the degree he now saw clearly in her eyes, then something had only just now become apparent to her at that moment like she had woken up from a long sleep or some horrible witch's curse at last.

"When you sat next to me in Potions all those years we had classes together, Crouch, a—and saved me in the corridor from getting beaten by Madame Pince that one time for daring to have chocolate in the library, I…" she began, but her voice quickly faded as Barty let go of her cheek, letting his hand fall to his side. "I didn't know. I hadn't thought that I could…that I could…be your friend. I—I hoped for it. To be one of the first Gryffindor students to be friends with a Slytherin, after all those years of Houses divided, I thought you might be different." She was struggling badly.

It was Barty's turn to look incredulous now, as he stepped away.

Alice Prewitt was looking rather scared, scared of his reaction, but she took a step forward. "I don't want to deny how I feel," she whispered. Her voice was resilient, but also on the brink. Crouch could hardly believe that he had actually placed her there. Placed her there because of his own monstrous stupidity.

Alice bit down on her bottom lip and furrowed her dark brows in a frown. "I…care about you, Barty. More than you think. But you do not care for yourself."

Crouch stared. Why couldn't he have just left her be, left her alone, admired her from afar! The confused, distraught Slytherin shook his head, turning away from Alice.

His voice was hard as he looked down at his boots, wishing he could turn back time. This had been a truly terrible, _awful_ idea, to bring her here like this.

"You only feel this way because you are confused," he said coldly. He dared not look back, for if he had, he would have seen her white face.

Alice Prewitt was far too pale, her knuckles white with suppressed rage, her shoulders shaking from the effort to restrain herself from lashing out.

"How _dare_ you speak to me like that? Take that back, right now! So, I am confused but you are not?" Alice retorted, frustration rising again. "I am not some idiot daft bimbo of a witch with no understanding as to her own feelings! It's clear this had nothing to do with me or my future here once we graduate and leave Hogwarts," she snarled. "You simply don't wish to confront the fact that something is there, something is happening between us, that thing is _friendship_ , something you cannot even begin to contemplate because of who you are, what I am. Because you were born as a Crouch, and I know your family doesn't have the greatest reputation, I understand, and I like this," she snarled, gesturing to herself and then him. "But you're not as bad as you make them out to be. Why can you not see that you have the potential to be _kind_? You could have easily bullied me, Crouch. But you _don't_. Here you stand, a Slytherin, conversing with a Gryffindor. I know you want things to be different. Just like I do! But why can't you see that I love Frank? Are you _blind_?" When he did not answer, she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "No, not blind. Just _stupid_."

This was what she thought of him, really thought of him. Barty closed his eyes, letting a ragged breath escape from his mouth, exposing his feelings to Alice Prewitt at long last, feeling his rage spiral out of control.

Crouch heard her timid footsteps as she approached him from behind, and he could feel the heat radiating off her body, reaching out to him, trying again.

Alice was looking at him as though she had just had some sort of epiphany, for her eyes were growing wide and round with shock as she realized something.

"I see it now. I think I am beginning to understand. You're _ashamed_ ," she said, her voice as hard now as his. "You are ashamed of me. That is what this is, though you don't wish to admit this." Crouch felt his eyes fly open and he pulled himself towards her and cleared his throat before turning to look at Alice again.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts before replying to her one-time true statement. It was true. Though she had one crucial part wrong.

He was not ashamed of her, but of himself. He had foolishly allowed this to happen, to think that for an instant, that he might have…that he could have had a future with this beautiful young woman.

But Father, in the end, had been right.

There was no denying what he was. He was a monster, and he would always be one, and he could not—would not—subject sweet Alice Prewitt to that same fate, which is what she would become if she stayed with him.

The other Slytherins would label her a freak, an outcast, a bitch for daring to live with this _monster_. He could not allow this.

"You're wrong, Alice," he said quietly, as he felt himself smile sadly, though he did not turn to look at her. "The creature you met in our Potions Class as the third year, the one who only saw an angelic girl in front of him, he might have thought that, once. But I'm not doing this to you because of what I think. I don't even blame you for thinking such thoughts of me. I expect it from you."

"Why?" she asked, and the heartbreak in her voice was entirely too much.

"Alice, if you stay here with me, then I…" Crouch let his sentence drop, lifting his hand again as he winced and flexed his fingers, touching her face again, despite the anger displayed here, and he was surprised in that she did not turn away from him like he expected her to do.

He took a chance and stepped forward so he hoped she would understand, see what he was sure was displayed so clearly on his face now.

"I know what will happen to your reputation if you stay with me, Alice," Crouch whispered as he grimaced, hating how desperate his voice sounded. "You and I both know you could never truly…I could never be with you as a…" _Boyfriend_. _Husband_ , his conscience finished.

By Merlin's left testicle, he couldn't say it. It did not need saying, yet Alice's eyes lifted abruptly, brightly shining with shock.

Clearly, she had not expected him to think that far. But he had. Oh, Merlin's Light Above, he had. A million times over, but it couldn't be.

Taking hold of her face now with both hands, Crouch took the last few moments he had in her company to try and memorize every little detail of her face, the slight of her mouth, that little wisp of her short dark hair which never failed to fall on her forehead. If ever there was a time where he wanted to kiss her, this was it. He almost laughed, a bitter, cold laugh at himself.

As if he had not wanted to this entire time, during their entire friendship and acquaintance.

"I will not do that to you," Crouch continued. "I—I can't, Alice. I…love you." Crouch raised a shaking hand and pressed it to her cool, pale cheek, and caressed the silk-like, unblemished skin there with the pads of both his thumbs.

He had always wondered what they felt like, and it felt strangely comforting.

Crouch did not even bother to look into Alice's eyes, at the shock brimming within as well as fresh, almost glistening tears, though if he were to look closer, he would have noticed that they were not tears of joy or happiness, but of _fear_.

Before he lost all sense of his sanity, if this was the only time that he could be with her, truly alone as he wanted her, then Barty was damned going to make sure it counted. He knew she didn't love him back, but he couldn't resist. He leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching.

Dear Merlin, above, help him, he couldn't fight against the thoughts that were going through him. Thoughts of lust, desire.

Her very smell was flooding his senses now... His lips brushed against Alice's. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate, and demanding. Crouch wanted to pull away before he lost himself to the sensation of loving her, and he could swear that he heard Alice let out a muffled yelp of protest, but Barty couldn't seem to…

In this minty moment, his senses have been seduced and he could no longer think straight, much let alone calm the monster within his chest that had been, up to this point, violently struggling to resist the call of Alice's aura.

"Alice" he whispered slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. He smiled, his heart fluttering at the way her name sounded coming from his voice as he clasped his hands on either side of Alice Prewitt's face.

Never before has her name ever sounded so wonderful, Crouch thought, as he leaned into her for another…

Was this… _love_? Was that why he found everything Alice Prewitt did so cute and endearing? Why whenever she was around him, he felt like there were goddamned lions in his chest. Was _that_ what this feeling was?

To care for her so deeply that it was physically _hurting_ him to relinquish his grip on her right wrist.

Did he truly love Alice Prewitt? Had he loved her all this time and not known it? Was that why, even though this kiss was so incredibly warm and sensual, like nothing he had ever experienced before, the low moan he gave out was real, true, that he felt so lonely and empty and lost right now? Because she didn't love him.

She loved… _him_. _Frank_. That wretched whelp, that vicious son of a bitch.

He wanted to kiss her again, to continue the kiss, not giving a damn if it developed into something more passionate and dangerous. He would take her right here on the forest ground if he had to.

Though before he could, a startled yell from directly behind him interrupted the action, and completely broke Crouch out of the moment.

" **HEY**!" A woman's voice, startled and angered, rent the otherwise silent air, causing Crouch to break off the kiss and whirl his head to the left to see who it was that dared to interrupt his only moment alone, his first, with his sweet Alice.

Seventh-year Lily Evans stood next to Gryffindor Prefect, and another of Alice's friends, the Wolf himself, Remus Lupin, both of their wands pointed square at his chest. Crouch felt his face pale in anger and shock as he met the students' gaze.

Though it was not sweet, succulent Lily, Slughorn's personal favorite, that he was drawn to, but that of the _dog_ himself. Alice's other best friend, Remus John Lupin.

His eyes were a knife in Crouch's ribs, the sharp point digging deeper. Where there had been kindness and a semblance of respect, there was an emptiness, but not in any vulnerable sense. Uncomfortable with the void, he had filled it with an emotion he was more at ease with - raw anger.

The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing like he was fighting something back and losing. The young man's eyes flashed with indignance and anger, much like lightning on a pitch-black night.

Crouch couldn't recognize poor, tired Lupin anymore, the young man he thought he knew was gone. It was because of him.

Barty turned back around to say something to Alice, and he felt his face drain of shock as Alice's wide eyes were round and horrified, and when she staggered back towards her friends, there was a wild, unhinged look in her eyes.

As if…as if she did not know him at all.


	65. Friends

**CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE**

Lily hadn't wanted to believe it with her own eyes, surely thinking that her mind had somehow been playing tricks on her. She was sleep-deprived, that was it. But no. She blinked once, twice, three times, owlishly at the strange, nightmarish scene before her, and one glance at Remus was more than enough.

This was no dream. He was seeing the same as she was, and Rem was looking _just_ as disgusted, the edges of his lips curled upward in a twisted, monstrous grimace, and Lily swore she could Rem growl, courtesy of the Wolf's temper within him. Alice had stepped out of the Common Room away from the celebratory party, claiming she was getting a migraine, and never one to abandon her friends, Lily, along with Remus, who insisted on searching for Alice.

The moment Lily realized she had misinterpreted Crouch's actions towards her best friend, his words, his expressions. Lily had hoped more than anyone that the man himself could be changed. It was as if Crouch had been speaking Parseltongue or some language that was meant for Alice's ears only whenever the two would sit next to each other in Potions Class. The moment that Lily found her words had failed her was the moment her heart broke for sweet, poor, innocent Alice.

She had been completely willing to give the young Slytherin student benefit of the doubt, considering she herself had once been friends with Severus, but this…he had crossed a line. There was no going back from what he'd done.

"Oh, _Merlin_ ," she moaned, her light, inquisitive green eyes traveling to poor Alice's, whose eyes had reverted back to normal. No longer could she and Rem see the whites of Alice's eyes, and Lily hadn't wanted to dare to believe this. "What the hell have you _done_ to her, Crouch? You're _sick_! You foul, loathsome, evil son of a b…." Lily ground her teeth in anger, green eyes darkening, and she did not hesitate to keep her wand trained on him. " _Step_. _Back_. Get _away_ from her! Now! Don't make me jinx you, Crouch! I'm warning you! I—I've just about reached my limit, Barty! My fingers are _twitching_! Let go of Alice!" she shouted, her face paling in rage.

That a fellow classmate of theirs was capable of using one of the Unforgiveable Curses on one of their own, much less a kind, sweet, gentle, compassionate soul as Alice Prewitt was abhorrent. Oh, Frank was going to be _pissed_. But first. They had to deal with Crouch right here and now.

Lily silently seethed, tossing her wavy red shoulder-length hair over her shoulders and raised her wand, which she thought a miracle she could even hold her wand steady with how badly it was shaking.

Lupin's voice broke Lily out of her swirl of dark thoughts as she was just imagining what jinx to use on him. "A hundred and fifty points from Slytherin, Crouch. What on earth were you _thinking_? You could have _killed_ her, Barty! What if she has permanent brain damage from this? What have you _done_? Make no mistake, both Professor Slughorn _and_ the Headmaster will be made aware of what you have _done_ ," growled Remus, baring his canines as he watched Alice sway on the spot, her equilibrium still off. He was practically panting now in an effort to control his anger. "I would see you expelled for this, Crouch! Using an _Unforgiveable_ _Curse_ on a _student_?"

Red. Everything went red for Remus. His vision blurred as a flame curled deep in the pit of his churning stomach. His brain went on overdrive as it picked over every moment that Alice had spent alone with Crouch, visions of horrible things the Slytherin could have done to her danced through the forefront of his mind and refused to part from his thoughts. He ground his teeth in anger as he felt his heart turn ice cold.

"You make one more step towards Alice, Crouch, and I'll snap your neck," Remus growled, closing his eyes and allowing the Wolf within him to take control, listening to its savage, almost rabid growling as the Mad Beast foamed at the mouth in anger at seeing his dear friend like…. _this_.

The flames in his stomach rose up to his chest and crawled through his veins at a rapid pace, taking over the rest of his body. His fingers coiled into fists, causing his wand to emit a shower of red fiery sparks to Crouch.

His nails pierced the sensitive, soft skin of his palms, but Remus barely felt it. Alice was one of them. One of his closest friends along with James, Sirius, Peter, and Frank Longbottom, and to see her like this hurt.

It hurt as hell. Waves of fury rolled off of Remus as the blood rose to his cheeks as his mind struggled to process what Barty Crouch had done.

He'd used the Imperius Curse on Alice now. For days. _Months_ , even.

The term anger barely even touched the tip of the volcano that he so clearly was in that moment. Lupin didn't hesitate to rush towards Alice and wrapped a gentle hand around Alice, who let out a mewl of fear.

"Let. Her. _Go_!" The command escaped him as a deep, low, rumbling growl and Remus did not even give a _damn_ at this point if it was the Wolf within him speaking or not. Remus knew that he could not allow Barty Crouch Jr. to continue hurting those friends closest to him. He _couldn't_.

His chest practically vibrated from the sound. Still keeping a cautious eye on Crouch and ensuring Lily had her wand completely trained on the corrupt Slytherin seventh-year-student, Remus slowly shifted his attention towards Alice, and what he saw there broke his heart several times over. As he looked upon Alice's face, he was met with nothing but a horrible confusion as she slowly returned to normal.

Fear, terror, and heartbroken hurt were present in her eyes, and she was much too pale to be considered healthy. There was no color left in her cheeks. He let out a low growl and turned his head sharply to regard Barty Crouch Jr., and Remus was savagely pleased to see Crouch visibly flinch under the piercing stare of the Wolf, and for an instant, Crouch faltered.

A pitiful, almost muted noise broke Remus out of his hot spiral of rage burning within his veins, igniting his bloodstream hotter than dragon fire.

Remus decided to let go of his natural reserved shyness, his timidness.

Considering he and Lily were dealing with Crouch, the savage brute that he and Lily knew the man to be, it would do him no good here anyways. Faster than Barty Crouch Jr. thought possible of the werewolf, the young Gryffindor launched himself towards Crouch with a cry of rage.

Remus would not let any more harm come to Alice. She was one of them. Al had protected his secret for years now. She was Lily's best friend!

She had protected him. And now, it was his turn. Lupin would protect Alice, just as _she_ had protected _him_. Snarling and growling as he allowed the Beast within him to take control, he seized the column of Crouch's throat, his fingers wrapping around Barty's throat like the tendrils of Devil's Snare and he squeezed. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," he snarled, the edges of his lips curling upward as he bared his teeth.

He almost— _almost_ —wished that it were a full moon cycle, so that he could drag Crouch with him to the Shrieking Shack and let the Wolf come out and take control. Let the Mad Beast deal with Barty Crouch.

Remus tightened his grip around his throat slightly, and, summoning just a little bit of the Wolf's strength within himself, lifted Crouch off his feet, and he felt a surge of fierce, wolfish protectiveness soar through his chest as he saw Alice scramble away from Crouch and took shelter directly behind him. It was enough to know that Alice trusted Remus to protect her with his own life if need be.

"You will _never_ touch her again. You don't _look_ at Alice _ever_ _again_. If you so much as even glance her way again after what you've done to her, Crouch, so help me, I will take away every single point from Slytherin House right here and now if it pleases me to do so and watch as your entire House turns on you and rips you to shreds limb from limb and curses you like the scum you are. And I'll _enjoy_ it…"

" _Please_!" Crouch begged hoarsely, his nails clawing at Lupin's hand which was holding Barty's throat hostage, though his efforts were in vain. "I—I didn't hurt her! Put me down! Let me go! I—I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

But it wasn't enough. Remus let out a savage growl and leaned in so the tip of his nose was practically touching Crouch's. " _Leave_. _Her_. _Alone_."

Remus blinked as he felt a tiny hand touch at his right shoulder, gently applying just enough pressure to cause him to look at the owner.

He had half expected it to be Lily, but no, it was Alice gazing up at him, having to crane her neck upward to look at Remus given how much taller he was than her, her eyes silently pleading with him to stop this.

" _Don't_." Her sweet, shy voice was small, quiet, and incredibly cautious. It sounded as though Alice Prewitt were pleading with him.

Crouch collapsed to the ground and coughed, gasping, and heaving for breath, one hand on the column of his throat, the pads of his fingers grazing over the red marks from where Remus's fingers had wound around his throat. They would definitely bruise and leave markings.

Oh, _Merlin's_ _Beard_! Remus blinked owlishly at Alice and then back to Crouch, whose face was now practically purpling as he struggled to breathe. Lupin felt his ironclad grip on the man's throat relinquish and he dropped the vile young Slytherin student as though he'd been burned.

Remus quickly felt the panic well deep within the pit of his stomach and his chest. Oh, _Merlin_! What had he almost _done_?! The Beast, the Wolf within him had almost killed Crouch! And it had wanted to do it!

The monster had wanted to end a human life. Lupin swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat and took several unsteady, faltering steps backward, fear and disgust at what he was rising fast, and he could taste the bitter, acidic stomach bile coating the back of his throat.

He thought he was going to be physically sick. He really was a monster. "Remus?" Lupin felt something warm press up against his right side and gingerly wrap around his middle, and at first, he didn't want to look. Remus didn't deserve to look at either Alice _or_ Lily and call either woman his friend, not after what he'd almost allowed the Wolf to do!

Lupin glanced back towards Alice and he let out a hiss of anger. That one single tear that snaked its way down her ashen cheek in its trace was just enough for the Gryffindor Prefect to act. Barty Crouch was _hurting_ her! _Harming_ Alice! One of his closest friends! Perhaps one of the few people in his life aside from Lily and Frank and the rest of the Marauders did not revile him as some form of beast or monster or lone outcast.

"You're all right, Al, we won't harm you, we're not going to let him hurt you anymore, Alice," he soothed gently, though his voice shook at his own words, one of his strong hands on her waist, the other wrapped around her shoulder tightly as her equilibrium pitched forward. "We—we've got you. Come on. We'll take you back to the castle. _Come_. Y—you don't need to be here for this. Lily will handle Crouch. Let me take you to the Hospital Wing. Madame Pomfrey needs to take a look at you, you—you might be injured, Alice. Come on. I—I've got you."

His voice was urgent, his tone clipped and hard, to the point of hyperventilation to get Lily's best friend away from Crouch as soon as possible. Remus froze as he watched as a dark, looming shadow covered both their paths ahead of them in shadow and he whirled on the heel of his shoe just in time to see Crouch stride past Lily, ignoring the pointed tip of her wand holding the pale column of his throat hostage, grabbing her arm.

"No, Al, wait, I—I didn't mean for anything of this to happen! You have to believe me. I…I _love_ you!" Barty pleaded through red-rimmed eyes, completely ignoring Lupin's almost savage, animalistic snarls that represented the Mad Beast, that Wolf, that demon within Remus Lupin.

"You aren't _capable_ of love, Crouch," Lily piped up angrily. "You never _were_. You're sick. Delusional. You've been fooling yourself, Crouch."

Alice glanced upward, her mouth pursed but slightly open and loose. Her eyes were fixed as if she was looking at something a meter behind Crouch's head. He called her name, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice, but he just had to make her see that Frank wasn't _good_ for her.

She blinked, refocused. "Wh—what happened?" Alice moaned, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and turning her head, wondering why her head hurt so bad. A crushing pain had developed on the right side of her head that came and went in a horrible pattern.

One of her eyes watered and her nose had started bleeding. "What? Rem? I—I don't…understand…." Alice Prewitt turned back towards Crouch and looked up at Barty with those wide, doe-like fearful, almond-shaped eyes of hers, frowning. Words left the young brunette Gryffindor. She stared into those dark burning brown eyes flaming bright with something akin to heartbreak and a wave of fiery anger, and her heart fell silent.

"Answer me!" Crouch roared, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.

But Alice couldn't seem to will her lips to move, and her feet felt like concrete and they refused to move, even when she felt Moony tugging gently on her arm, whispering soothing remarks in her eye to attempt to entice her to come with him to the Hospital Wing of her own volition.

But _why_? Why did she need to visit the Hospital Wing? She wasn't sick! She had a nasty headache, but surely nothing a Pepperup Potion wouldn't take care of. But Rem and Lily were both looking at her as though they'd found her brutally raped and attacked in a ditch somewhere.

_Why_? What had happened to her out here? As if stuck underwater, everything was slow and warbled as Barty practically pointed a shaking finger in her pale face, and Alice was barely able to see the Slytherin student's angered, heartbroken expression as Remus had flung out an arm in front of him in an effort to prevent Crouch from taking another step forward towards her.

"Do you have _nothing_ to say, Al? I—I poured my heart out to you, now tell me what you're thinking!" Barty Crouch Jr. demanded angrily. But Alice's mind was blank and her eyes wide as she stared at the Slytherin seventh-year-student in horror.

His dark brown eyes were glistening with unshed moisture that at first Alice believed were tears, desperately searching hers…waiting for Alice to answer Crouch's question. Alice felt like she had to say something!

She wracked her brain for something reasonable to say but couldn't.

To her surprise, her heart answered for her. "I—I'm sorry, but…do I _know_ you?" she whispered, having to crane her neck, and having to duck underneath Moony's arm to get a truly good look at Barty Crouch's face.

Crouch refused to look away from Alice Prewitt, even as his lips trembled and his shoulders heaved with emotion at what he had done.

He had…he had never wanted this. But still, he was unwilling to back down. His dark lashes brimmed heavy with tears, his pale hands clenched into shaking fists, in a desperate battle against the grief, guilt, remorse.

A lone tear traced down his cheek as he watched Remus scowl in his general direction, and draping his arm around Alice's shoulder, turned their backs on him and the Wolf spoke to him in his soothing, gentle voice in too low a tone for Barty to make out what was being said, though it was evident by the way that Prewitt burst into tears and her hysterical sobs carried through the ground that Remus Lupin had told Alice the truth.

And just like that, the floodgates opened. He wept, tears streaming from his deep dark brown eyes, loud, heaving sobs tearing from his throat, and still, he did not look away from Alice Prewitt's retreating slender form.

Not until the sobs drove him to his knees did his determined gaze fall.

Not waiting for an opportunity for Crouch to make a run for it, Lily quickly pulled her shoulder-length wavy red hair up into a loose bun and continued to keep her wand trained squarely at Barty Crouch's chest.

" _You_ ," she snarled savagely, her wand hand shaking as she spoke, the anger and heartbreak practically dripping from her words, "are not going _anywhere_."

Poor sweet Alice had suffered enough as it was, only know to face the worst suffering of all. Being under influence of the Imperius Curse for months on end, and Lily did not know who she was angrier with now: Crouch for daring to do it to her in the first place, or herself for not being more attentive and keeping a closer eye on her only other best friend in this life aside from Remus. She seethed, her blood boiling hotly.

Clenching her teeth in anger, Lily Evans seized Barty Crouch Jr. to his feet, hauling him upwards by the scruff of his collared shirt underneath the sweater of his Hogwarts uniform and let out a vicious sounding growl.

Lily's fingers of her wand hand curled even tighter around her wand as she pointed the tip of it into Crouch's throat. "I would be well within my rights to _kill_ you right here what you stand for what you've done to Alice." The young redheaded Gryffindor seethed in barely controlled anger.

Crouch said nothing, though Lily was pleased to see the man tremble. "You're a _coward_ , Crouch," she spat venomously, as she waved her wand and a length of metal chains burst forth from the tip of her wand and the metal coils linked and snaked their way around his entire body.

Oh, it was a sweet, sweet sight. She would take him to Professor Dumbledore and Slughorn and let the two of them decide what to do with him. Expulsion, in her mind, for what he'd done to Al wasn't enough. No. Oh, _no_. Were it up to Lily, she would see him not only expelled from Hogwarts but sentenced to Azkaban for using the Imperius Curse on such a kind, innocent soul as Alice Prewitt, who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Lily ground her teeth in rage and narrowed her eyes as she clutched onto the length of chain in her hands and violently yanked him forward, a sick part of her personality relishing in the sweet sound of Crouch giving off a tiny yelp of pain as he stumbled forward and tripped over a tree root.

The young Gryffindor seventh-year-student did not look back at Crouch once as she led him back towards the castle. She was lucky she had gone out of the Common Room when she had, or she'd have completely missed seeing Crouch lead Alice down the secret passage.

The very same one that Rem used for his transformations monthly.

"I will _not_ kill you," Lily said slowly, and she let out a growl as she heard Crouch's audible sigh of relief. "No. I'll leave your fate up to Professor Dumbledore and Slughorn, though if we're _lucky_ ," she spat, her normally kind and sweet tone laced with hatred, "they'll send you to Azkaban Prison and let the Dementors have you. Maybe give you the Kiss…though given how foul you are, I'm not even sure they would want you, Barty," she taunted, and she did not bother hiding her frown as she heard Crouch give off a pitiful little mewl of fear at the mention of the foul creatures, one of the foulest creatures ever to roam Merlin's good earth.

Barty Crouch Jr. did not speak a single word to Lily as she silently escorted him back, bound in chains, completely at the young redhead's mercy, towards Hogwarts. Towards Dumbledore, and hopefully, his expulsion. After what he had done to Al, it was the _least_ that he deserved.

Though, in Lily's mind, which was swirling like mad with thoughts of revenge, he deserved so much more, though it was not her job to doll it.

In time, she could only hope that Barty Crouch would get what was coming to him. But it wasn't over, Lily knew, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Far from it. She could not quell the feeling of dread that crept down her spine, as though somehow, whatever Crouch had initiated, it had only just begun.

* * *

It wasn't over. Not for Alice. It never could be as time passed. It might pass, the murky memories of her mind under the influence of Crouch's Imperius Curse, but the recollections would never truly leave Prewitt.

Madame Pomfrey had given her something for the shock to calm her. Frank had visited his girlfriend earlier, brought his girl her favorite chocolates and a small stuffed bear to put on the night table next to her bed in the Hospital Wing to cheer up the dreary place a little bit for her.

Remus and Lily sat silently together at Alice's bedside, each of them holding one of Alice's hands as she slept, though it was Rem who'd first noticed Alice stirring in her sleep, somewhat fitfully, mumbling incoherently. Like Lily, Remus had been shocked into guilt-ridden despair and had spent most of the days following his and Lily's discovery of following Alice and Crouch out to the edges of the Forbidden Forest alone in the Gryffindor Common Room, silent and strangely tearless.

Lily knew Rem blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on his friend, though it was _not_ their fault. The blame lay entirely with Crouch, who, as she had hoped, had been promptly expelled from school for his behavior.

The evidence extracted from both Lily and Lupin's memories and shown to Professors Dumbledore and Slughorn at the horrific way they had discovered Crouch attempting to force himself on Alice was more than enough basis for Hogwarts' Headmaster to act and expel him, but…

_It's not enough_ , she thought bitterly, locking her jaw in anger. _It will never be enough_ , Lily mused, furrowing her ginger brows into a frown.

Lupin blinked, jolting upright in his chair as he noticed their dear friend begin to writhe and wriggle beneath her twisted, crumpled sheets.

Alice coughed and spluttered as her eyelids slowly fluttered open. Alice's sleep had been deep, but not exactly peaceful. Images of Crouch's face had flashed before her in a hazy fog, more like fragmented thoughts.

Some were vivid, memorable, and beginning, but most passed her by too quickly for the young brunette witch to even comprehend what was going in her troubling dreams. Seeing him smile, and there was a unicorn?

It left a deeply unsettling presence in her wake. Frank and Remus had told her that she had been under influence of the Imperius Curse for months at Crouch Jr.'s hand, and that thought left her panic-stricken.

What had she been forced to _do_ while under his whim and call?

"Alice? Al?" Remus asked, leaning over their friend as her eyes flickered shut briefly, and then opened, drowsy still with sleep, confused.

Alice was finally beginning to wake up after almost two days asleep, but her weakened body had been drugged with Sleeping Draughts and a Calming Draught to help her combat the physical and emotional trauma her body and mind had undergone after an extensive period of time under influence of the Imperius Curse, and Alice was content to lay in silence.

In a semi-conscious haze that neither Remus nor Lily was certain that they liked. They missed their friend, they just wanted Alice back.

Alice blinked owlishly once as she turned her head to the side slowly and coughed, struggling to focus her gaze more than a few feet in front of herself, wishing for nothing more than to look Remus and Lily in the eyes.

It felt as though she were teetering on the brink, that purgatory of sorts between the darkness, the abyss of her dreams, and the light of the real world. It was like being submerged underwater in dark, murky water. And just beneath the surface of that strange reality, Alice could see the faces of Rem and Lily, but their images were distant and distorted. A ripple that couldn't exactly penetrate the haze that stretched over her faint, medicated perception of the world, given her physical state now.

A thought swam towards Alice, fully formed and dangerous like one of the mermaids or the Giant Squid that lived in the Black Lake. It's a dream.

_Crouch doesn't exist. He's a figment of your imagination, you're not in the Hospital Wing, Rem and Lily aren't by your bedside right now. You're still lost in the Forbidden Forest_ , chimed a dark, familiar voice at the back of her head. Just for a fraction of second, this thought plastered a quiet vibration underneath her skin and lit up the darkness.

Alice had a vivid imagination; this was no lie. She'd imagined things before—singing along to a few songs from her favorite bands, seeing that beautiful white unicorn in the Forbidden Forest, those talks with Crouch.

As a matter of fact, she was having trouble now distinguishing the reality of what was really real in front of her and what was her fantasy.

Was the Hospital Wing just another cruel illusion? Another trick? Alarmed, Alice coughed and desperately clawed for the surface, and whatever might be waiting for her there, and she bolted upright in bed.

Her head felt as though someone had hit her with a Knockback Jinx, that would explain why it felt as though a hammer were crushing her skull. She groaned. This was not turning out to be her good day at all.

Not at all. Alice sat there a moment, for how long she did not know, but the pain had reduced in her head to merely a dull, aching throbbing.

At least it was tolerable now. Feeling incredibly lightheaded and nauseous, she placed her head on her blanket-covered knees and focused on regulating her breathing back to something that resembled normal. Jolting upright so fast like that was not the smartest move she could have made. An immense wave of nausea washed over her entire body and it caused her unsettled stomach to lurch. Her throat tightened and her mouth salivated enough to know she made the wrong choice in moving.

"Oh, Merlin," Lily moaned, as she saw what little color was left drain from poor Alice's already ashen face and she knew she had to find something quickly.

Glancing down at her feet, she saw an empty orange basin nearby and thought that sufficient enough, practically clawing at it and thrust it underneath Alice's chin just in time as she retched hard and loud into the bowl. Poor Alice gripped the twist of bedsheets tightly at her side, while Rem, Merlin bless her friend, steadied her as best he could.

Her palms were clammy with forthcoming sickness. Every throw of her churning stomach left a bitter burning inside and made the hammering against the back of her skull and her temples hurt even worse. Alice's entire body felt incredibly weak. Her muscles ached all over, and she could feel an independent throbbing pulsate all on its own in her head. Lily observed with hidden consternation that there were no contents entering the bowl as there was nothing in Alice's stomach to project and she knew it was because she hadn't eaten in Merlin knew how long.

Lily scrunched her nose in disgust and held the bowl to her best friend for a while after she had finally calmed and felt confident enough to remove it from underneath her. She rested it at her bedside, took a handkerchief from her jeans pocket, and wiped gently at Alice's mouth.

The young redhead held Alice's shoulders firmly as she leaned in, hoping to get a good look at her eyes, hoping they were still in focus.

There was no telling what kind of damage had been done to her, and this was the weakest she had ever seen Alice Prewitt in her life, and it frightened her. One look over at Rem was way more than enough for her.

He was scared too. It worried her, but Lily had to find some way to reach Al, she just had to make her listen and understand what happened.

It was for her own good. Lily blinked owlishly as Alice's gaze widened.

The first thing she focused on was Lily and Rem's faces. She had seen them just a few days ago, the two of them had walked to Herbology with her, and she had turned around and told Lily to quit arguing with James.

She hadn't said anything back, but then Lily was nothing more than a product of her feverish mind, surely. Rem and Lily weren't really here with her, were they? Alice laughed until she felt a tear trickle down her cheek, albeit with a rather lengthy, rattling coughing fit in between.

Alice didn't know if Rem and Lily were any more real this time. She was crying now; she could feel the wet moisture slide down her cheeks.

This was another hallucination. Another trick. Maybe it was her mind's way of letting her say goodbye. She was still lost in the Forest and was going to die from starvation or hypothermia or something. She was.

"Lily? Rem? I—is that you?" she whispered, and Alice visibly winced as she heard a tiny rasp that barely resembled her voice from the back of her throat, and it felt scratchy and dry, and she suddenly wanted water.

_If it's not, then I'll just give up and die right now_ , she thought tiredly. If her own mind was cruel enough to play such a horrible trick on her, then she would not find the resolve or strength to go on anymore.

Remus smiled and nodded, his light brown eyes gleaming with unshed moisture, though Alice knew he would never cry for her. "Do you want a drink, Al?" he asked. "You gave us all quite a turn. Especially…"

But his voice cracked, and he looked towards Lily as Alice nodded, meeting her gaze. Alice was slowly becoming more aware of her surroundings now as Lupin reached for a glass of ice water sitting on a bedside table as she glanced around, her eyes taking in way more light.

So, she _was_ in the Hospital Wing! This…this wasn't a _dream_ , then?

Alice blinked rapidly to clear her mind and allowed Lily to lean forward in her chair slightly to fluff the extra pillows and help her sit up straighter. Remus carefully approached Alice with the glass of water and using what little strength remained in her body already sapped of energy, somehow, by a miracle of Merlin, she was able to prop herself up straighter and allowed Lupin to press the glass against her cracked lips.

The ice water was practically freezing and soothed her flamed throat.

It seemed real enough. When Alice had finished her drink, she whispered and beckoned for Lupin to come closer with a weak finger.

"Rem," she croaked hoarsely, "c—could you do something for me?"

He gave a nod.

"Pinch me." Alice requested quietly, her voice a hoarse croak. Her chest felt considerably lighter since waking up in the Hospital Wing, but it was still an effort to talk as she collapsed her head back on the soft pillow.

Remus hesitated for a moment, perhaps taken aback, and thrown off by his friend's request, though a quick nod from Lily was confirmation enough as the young redhead silently communicated with him to comply.

Then, Alice felt his warm fingers on her slender arm and a sharp, stinging needle of pain as she managed to squeeze the skin on her wrist.

Alice shuddered for a second, but the stinging sensation felt good.

It proved to her she wasn't bloody _dreaming_. She couldn't be imagining this; she must have made it out of the Forest in once piece.

"Guys," she sobbed, the tears welling in her eyes again, but this time for an entirely different purpose, out of sweet relief at being alive. "I thought…maybe…th—that I'd never see you again. What…what did I…?" _Do_ , is what she wanted to ask, though she wasn't given a chance as both Remus and Lily practically bolted from their respective chairs at her bedside and moved to sit on either side of the edge of her hospital bed. _What did Crouch make me do_?!

"It's all right, Al. You're safe now. We—we love you," Lupin murmured into the shell of her ear as he and Lily moved in jointly for a hug, feeling somewhat embarrassed as he heard himself speak the words.

They didn't quite sound right or true enough in his wobbling, breaking voice, but they felt like the words she needed to hear right now.

"We all do," Lily whispered. "Me and Rem. James, Sirius. Frank."

Alice snuggled into her friends' embrace, resting her chin against Lupin's hard chest, breathing in the scent of old pinewood, a scent that reminded her of autumn and the woods. It calmed her.

"You two are the only people I know that give indefinite hugs," Alice whispered hoarsely, weakly. "Both of you. Please don't ever change."

Lily snickered and just hearing her laugh lifted a weighted burden on Alice's chest. "Well, Al, we wouldn't be anywhere else. You're one of us."

At that moment, her and Remus's arms squeezed a fraction tighter, and Alice breathed more slowly, her body melting into her friends' as every muscle lost its tension to the chilled frigid air of the Hospital Wing. This was life, real life.

And she wouldn't trade it for anything. They pulled back from their group hug and all three of them smiled, relieved at seeing Alice awake and coherent. She was just going to be just fine. She let out a content sigh and Lupin seemed to harbor no ill will towards Alice choosing to take comfort in his embrace as she rested her head against his shoulder and even though she was still filled with warmth from her friends' hug, Alice could feel herself start to shiver violently.

"Are you cold?" Lupin asked but didn't give the young brunette witch time to answer as he shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders and adjusted her blankets so that she'd be warm enough.

Alice did not know how long the three of them sat like that, with Alice in the middle of their embraces, but she didn't care.

Neither of them dared to say a single word, for it was too precious to ruin.


	66. Of Godfathers and White Lights

**CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX **

Tonks let out a squeak of surprise as she tripped for the umpteenth time over a twisted tree root, though if she was being honest with herself, it was more than likely her own damned foot, given how clumsy she was.

The roots in this damned bloody dark Forest had a mind of their own, and the young Auror hated that her mind strangely felt like lead in this place. She was _so_ tired of this place and wanted nothing more than to sleep. She was exhausted if she was being honest with herself. To sleep.

This marked the hundredth or so time in the last few hours that she'd tripped over herself and it certainly wasn't the first time it had happened.

Murmuring a few choice words under her breath, the young witch shakily pulled herself upright with the help of Sirius and staggered through the woods, following Scamander's lead as he led them to Ollie.

Tonks was tired of this Forest. Everything in here was confusing! Oh, she had known the Forbidden Forest in its own way was enchanted, but something certainly felt… _off_. Was that even the right word to describe it?

Yes. _Off_. In fact, Tonks was fairly confident she'd never experienced anything quite like this before in her entire life, and she wanted nothing more to leave, and she would never dare admit it to anyone, least of all Remus, but if it weren't for the fact that Ollie were out here alone, possibly injured, she more than likely would have taken Remus and left this place.

She and the others, Remus, Sirius, Mr. Scamander, had slowly been making their way through the Forbidden Forest at almost a snail's pace, and it seemed like the group of them had been wandering for _hours_!

Time didn't seem to flow so clearly here in the Forbidden Forest, and all the more reason for Tonks and the rest to find Ollie and get out of here.

Tonks had no idea what time of day it was. If it were morning or night, given the canopy above their heads was so thick that she couldn't see the moon or the sun. She had no idea if it was morning or night above.

As an Auror, and though her wand was still somewhere back at Crouch's estate, probably lying underneath a pile of rubble by this point, even without the use of her wand she considered herself known for her good sense of direction, and even with Lupin's added wolfish senses, his heightened sense of smell and sight as the full moon was but another two weeks away, give or take, according to her account, he too, was having trouble navigating through these woods, and if it weren't for the occasional back and forth bantering of Sirius and old Newt, she felt sure that the two of them would probably have lost their minds a long time ago. Because even though Remus would not come outright and say it, and he'd barely let go of her left hand even once since being reunited with her over the last hour or so, she could tell that the man was growing agitated.

Judging, by the way, his nostrils were flaring in growing anger and his ears practically perked up and twitched at every rustling leaf or twig, Lupin's wolfish senses were failing to point him in the right direction this time, and it did not take a genius like Dumbledore for Tonks to see just how frustrated the werewolf was becoming at his abilities failing him now.

Tonks had been sure that with Newt pointing the way towards Ollie's location (or so she hoped!) that the group of them would be able to find and make their way towards wherever he had accidentally Disapparated to, no problem, but now, Dora was highly doubting their abilities here.

Not that she was doubtful of her friends' magical abilities, not like that at all, but rather…this _place_. It was almost as if the Forbidden Forest wanted them to get lost, to turn on each other until they went insane.

A fact that Tonks found eerily unsettling, to say the very least. How could a forest purposefully be misleading them and allowing them to get lost within her confines? Tonks had been warned now by more than one person, the most recent being Mr. Scamander, that the Forbidden Forest was not to be taken lightly at any cost, and to treat her with care and respect, and to take the Forbidden Forest very seriously. But still….

She did not _understand_! How could a forest lose people like this?! Scamander spoke of the Forest as though she was a living, breathing entity. Tonks guessed that all they had to do was keep following the path.

Tonks let out a sigh of exasperation as she heard the sharp bark of Sirius's yell as for what had to be the third time, her cousin had it out for Newt Scamander, as he still hadn't forgiven him for accidentally impaling his arm when he'd blown up the path and revealed Tonks to Remus.

In an effort to quell the pit of unease currently churning with each staggering step that felt like it set her stomach rolling and twisted like a coil in her gut, she swallowed the acidic bile creeping up her throat and called out to her cousin in an effort to steer the conversation towards something more pleasant. "Sirius?" she called out, somewhat weakly, clutching onto Lupin's arm for support, and did not have to wait long as her cousin, seeming to jump at the chance to get away from Scamander for a minute, practically bounded to her side in his haste to appear at Tonks's side.

Though he moved albeit rather awkwardly, given it had taken Remus upwards of five minutes to extract the splinter from Black's arm and bandage it. Sirius immediately moved to Tonks's left, with Remus on her right, so that effectively both men were protectively flanking her, and looked her way with his brows knitted together in a quandary, a light frown on his face.

"What's wrong? Are you sick? Do I need to tell the dirt licker up there to stop and take a break?" he growled, shooting a look of daggers towards Newt's way. Tonks blinked owlishly at her cousin, confused by Black's remark, but one glance over at Remus was more than enough as the man promptly shook his head. _Don't ask_ , his eyes seemed to silently communicate to her.

She shook her head to clear her mind and refocused her attention towards Sirius and bit down on her cracked, bottom lip, hard enough to bleed. "I—I know Remus and I haven't really…discussed this yet, but…I—I was thinking that, if you were agreeable to it, I…we want you to be the godfather," Tonks whispered, still biting her lip and flitting her gaze to her fiancé's, who had such a look of shock on his face she almost regretted asking, but the moment his handsome, lined features relaxed into a gentle smile as Lupin silently nodded his agreement, Tonks exhaled in relief. Sirius blinked in response to the weighted gravity of what Tonks and Remus were asking of him, looking utterly surprised. Though he recovered and nodded. "I— _me_?" he stammered, looking beside himself.

"Yes, _you_ ," Remus spoke up, chiming in with his two cents and giving Tonks's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Dora and I can think of no one better."

Sirius was regarding his best friend with wide, unblinking eyes, that almost for a moment made Tonks and Lupin both wonder what his answer to their request would be. "You can say no, Sirius," Tonks coaxed.

Though she sincerely hoped that he wouldn't. Lupin was right. The two of them could think of no one better to act as godfather to their baby.

"I—blimey, I—I don't know what to say," he began hesitantly, looking towards Remus for confirmation, who offered Sirius a gentle, soft smile.

"Say _yes_ ," he encouraged, giving Padfoot a clap on the back before gently pulling Tonks forward and motioned for Sirius to follow them.

"I—I'd be honored, Moony, but…" Sirius stammered, glancing down and fidgeting with his fingers, moving the digits in between his knuckles. "A—are you sure you want _me_? What about—what about Harry, Tonks?"

Tonks made an odd little strangled sound at the back of her throat and would have nearly bowled into Newt Scamander had Remus not shot out an arm to catch her and pull her back into his embrace, stopping to pause and rest his chin on her shoulder. "Um, n—no," Tonks whispered.

She didn't quite know how to break the news to Harry Potter's godfather that she thought the boy was short of a few marbles and somewhat dim-witted, though the look on her cousin's face was suggesting that he expected from Tonks and Remus an answer now.

"He's…" Tonks heard her voice trail off as she struggled to formulate an apt response, an appropriate enough one that Sirius would be able to accept. After a rather awkward silence that lasted too long, at last, she found her voice, though not before she coughed once to clear her throat, though it was more of a gesture made to mask her nervousness. "He's too much of a target, Black. As long as Lord Voldemort is after him, I—I wouldn't feel comfortable having him be godfather to our baby, Sirius. I want our daughter or son to grow up in a stable, loving home surrounded by people. I—I know Harry is probably more than capable," she began hesitantly, though her conscience was screaming at her this wasn't true.

_Lies, lies, you can't trust that boy with your child! He can barely manage to look after himself if what the stories Hermione and Ginny told you are true! No, your baby is better off with someone like Sirius._

"But?" prodded Sirius, seemingly not satisfied with her response yet.

" _But_ ," Tonks continued, breathing out a slightly shaking breath and nervously fidgeted with the simple yellow gold wedding ring she wore proudly on her left ring finger, thinking that if she had it her way, she'd never take this off again, "Harry is, like it or not, a _target_ , and I don't want to burden Potter with the added responsibility of caring for our child if someone should happen to Rem or me. He…he has enough on his mind. And…if I'm being brutally honest here for a second, Sirius, I—I know that Harry is your best friends' son, but he's…he's…Harry is dim-witted! If I wanted my son or daughter to have a stupid godfather, I'd ask Harry! You could transfigure him into the size of a mouse and stick him into a maze and the boy wouldn't be able to find his way out! Not without Granger's help!" she shouted, stomping her foot in a moment of frustration.

Tonks cringed as she realized that she had accidentally just sort of more or less _yelled_ it at Sirius, and bit down on her bottom lip. She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that.

 _Oh, damn_. It had just sort of…happened. Tonks swallowed nervously and waited. She wasn't even aware she'd drawn in a breath and held it until Tonks heard herself exhale it rather shakily through her nose as Sirius finally seemed to accept her answer as to why she wanted to pick him.

Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose and continued. "I'm not at all sorry for what I said, Black. You search deep down inside yourself; you _know_ it's true!" she retorted hotly, her hand on her hips. "If I wanted our son or daughter to have a dim-witted godfather, I'd pick him."

Sirius bristled at her quip, though her cousin made no remark on her assessment of Harry, for which Tonks felt immensely grateful, relieved for.

"What about your parents?" Sirius asked, though Tonks could detect no ill intent towards his question as Tonks felt her blood boil and the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up at the mention of her parents.

Even Sirius visibly flinched as Tonks's gray orbs flashed and became steely as she slowly swiveled her head to regard her cousin. "My parents, my mum more so than Dad, made it perfectly clear how she feels about us. My mother would _never_ support our choices. _Does_ not," she corrected herself, shaking her head as she heard the low growl in her normally kind voice. "I know for a fact that she would _never_ treat our child as family. Which brings us to our point. _You_ are our logical and only choice. Say _yes_."

"I—yes, of course," Sirius stammered, his cheeks flushing pink with color. Her cousin glimpsed the hardened look on her features and chose not to comment, mumbling something instead about wanting to catch up to Newt so the old codger didn't leave them stumbling around on their own. Tonks swallowed past the lump in her throat as she watched Sirius's shape become a mere silhouette as the man caught up to Mr. Scamander.

Shoving aside thoughts of her mum, for now, Tonks forced her attention to return to get out of the Forest alive and finding Ollie.

She had been confident that they'd be fine. But she wasn't. None of them were if they didn't get back on track. This damned bloody Forest made no sense at all to the young witch, and she felt like they were lost.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and sighed, clutching onto Lupin's hand even tighter. If her suspicions were true, and they really were lost, then she couldn't be more frustrated than she was right now.

Just being lost on its own was annoying enough, but in the Forbidden Forest, if you were lost, it was practically a death sentence, and no Tracking Spell or map could help you here. All you could do was pray.

Pray to Merlin and His Light above that nothing found you before you could run and search for a way out of this wretched, accursed forest.

Ever since she had Disapparated here and gotten separated from Ollie, it felt as though these damned woods had done _nothing_ but lose her.

It was confusing her, and all of the others, twisting their sense of direction completely around, making the group think they saw one thing when in actuality was something completely different, or walked one way.

When they'd really walked in a completely different direction. This wasn't the first time she'd experienced this. More than once in the last half hour or so, she'd be walking behind Remus or Sirius, and then, as though time had barely passed her by at all, she'd blank out for a split second, and then her senses would jolt her awake and find she was behind Scamander.

And then, almost with no warning at all, when it happened a second time and she came to, she found herself behind no one at all, for no reason.

Tonks couldn't remember ever getting separated from Remus, nor did she recall Lupin walking past her at any given point in time, really.

"Rem, did we get turned around again?" Tonks mused, biting the wall of her cheek as she talked to herself more to Remus in the moment, letting out an exasperated, tired sigh as she reached out and clutched onto his arm. "I—I thought we'd already gone by that tree with the initials all carved into it. At least three times, I recognize it! It's the _same_ damn tree!"

"All of the trees' branches in this forest are twisted, Miss Tonks," came Newt Scamander's warbling, quiet and somewhat reserved voice.

Tonks furrowed her brows at the old man's answer, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the famed Magizoologist in question and confusion.

"B—but you were behind me just now!" she stammered. "You were over there!" she pointed, extending a slightly shaking finger to her right.

"No, I wasn't, dear," Newt calmly reassured her, and now his voice sounded distant, and when Tonks turned her head sharply back around front, she was almost dismayed to see the aging man was a good twenty or so feet ahead of her, when only just a second ago, he was beside her.

Tonks felt her gray eyes widen in shock as she slowly angled her head upwards, hoping to spot any kind of light peeking through the thick canopy of trees, and much to her chagrin, as she thought… Nothing.

"Stay calm, Dora." Remus's serious, solemn tone spoke up now, the edges of his voice hardened, and Tonks recognized he was losing patience.

Though not with her, but with his own wolfish senses failing him when perhaps he needed them to work the very most. Tonks sighed.

"Don't worry about which one of us is walking where. Let's just concentrate on finding Ollie and getting out of the Forest in one piece."

"Wha….? How…?" Tonks started to ask but decided against it and stopped herself. She shook her head vehemently back and forth to clear it.

This was getting utterly _ridiculous_. Tonks had been about to ask Remus where he had come from when he'd been holding her hand but not even half a millisecond ago but didn't want to aggravate his already frustrated state of mind as his senses were on heightened alert right now.

Besides, Tonks had a feeling that the Forbidden Forest made as little sense to Remus or Sirius or even Newt as it did to Tonks right now, really.

She doubted that Remus would have been able to explain how he'd managed all the way over there when just a second ago, he was by her.

So, Tonks clamped her mouth shut, biting down on her tongue, and walked forward in silence, obediently trailing behind Remus without any sort of protesting or fussing on her part, and then she was leading the way.

 _When did that happen?_ Tonks felt her frown deepen and a deep groove form near the edges of her mouth as she furrowed her brows.

Tonks, against her better judgment, felt her feet continue to propel herself forward, hopefully leading them east, towards Ollie's location. Her feet hurt within her black boots, and she felt exceptionally tired and still sick to her stomach, but she hoped those feelings would pass soon. Tonks huffed in frustration and narrowed her eyes as she squinted her eyes towards the path in front of her, trying to see. "Is that a light?"

It was dim and faint, seem to be clouded by some kind of mist in front of the path, but it did seem to be there, far off further into the woods.

Tonks chose to take a half-step forward towards it, feeling a small spark of hope ignited within the confines of her chest. Little more than a flickering ember flame of fire, but very much present. Light meant Ollie.

Light meant the end of this damned Forest, maybe someone's fire.

 _Centaurs_? She thought and repressed a chill as she thought of the one who had violently and unceremoniously shoved a knife towards her throat earlier, and how if it hadn't been for pure adrenaline and instinct kicking in when it had, she was confident the beast would have killed her.

But was what she was seeing even a light? What if this was another trick of Crouch's intent on luring her away from the rest of her group?

Could she afford to take that chance? Tonks stared at it, frowning, at the small, soft pearly white ball of light glowing in the distance beneath the trees. It was still there, though if this damned bloody forest was tricking her, then it was hellbent and persistent on doing so, but _why_?

Tonks growled in frustration and resisted the urge to lash out at something in anger and kicked aside a fallen tree limb with her boot. What had _she_ ever done to this place to warrant it getting her lost?

Though something about watching the little ball of light glow, twinkling even in the distance like this, gave the young Auror pause. This didn't _seem_ like a trick. Or if it was, it was a damned good one. It was right there in front of her eyes, as plain as the nose on her face, and if she were to turn around and show it to Remus or Sirius, Tonks felt fairly confident that the men would be able to see it with their own eyes too.

Yes. There was no doubt in her mind now. It was a light, a real, honest-to-Merlin white ball of light. Small and faint, but very much there.

It _had_ to be. That was their ticket out of here. _Hang on, Ollie_ , she silently pleaded, not even sure anymore if she'd spoken her plea out loud.

But she was well past the point of caring at this point and felt her feet move of their own volition, like lead, towards the destination of that light.

It was a lead, and she had to follow up on it. Maybe it's Ollie sending you a message, she thought hopefully, and could only pray that was the case. The little white ball of light emitted a soft pearly glow, growing brighter and almost blindingly so the closer her steps brought her to it.

It troubled the young witch and Auror that she could not quite make out what it was. If this was supposed to be Ollie's Patronus, which she knew it couldn't be, his Patronus was a hawk if memory served her correctly, then it was a poor attempt at one, though that idea only reinforced her theory that wherever Ollie was being held, he was _hurt_.

"But what _are_ you?" she whispered, drawing in a sharp breath of cold fall air that pained her lungs. Was it sunlight? Campfire from one of the centaur's encampments? Just that thought was enough to send a shiver down her spine. Fireflies? Whatever it was, she could only hope that it wasn't just another one of Crouch's traps to try to lure her away from him.

Tonks barely heard herself growl in frustration and she tugged on a lock of her pixie, not even aware that its color had changed from dark pink to a light ginger color streaked with golden butterscotch highlights in it.

 _Oh, my Merlin, what if it's trolls_?! Tonks gulped as she felt a mounting surplus of panic well within her chest as beads of sweat formed on her brow. Her nonverbal magic skills weren't quite up to par as they ought to be, and without her wand, if it was trolls, then she didn't hold a chance. That, she supposed, or another herd of centaurs would be the worst-case scenario, though at least the men still had their wands.

Though why anybody would want to make a home for themselves here in this dark, the accursed cursed place was beyond Tonks's ability to comprehend and held no logical at all to the confused young witch.

"Hello?" she whispered, careful to keep her voice low, praying that it was Ollie, though if it weren't, she'd risk alerting…whatever that was, to her presence. There was no answer from the little glowing ball of white light. Tonks huffed in frustration and swiped her bangs off her forehead.

 _Guess it's just the sunlight or moonlight, then_ , she thought, disappointed. Though she could have sworn she saw a flash of black dart from behind one of the tree trunks. _A face? Is that—is that Ollie_?!

"Ollie!" Tonks called out, cupping her hands around her mouth as she strained forward, hoping to spot any signs of the black-shrouded figure.

She interrupted herself with a pained and panicked gasp as she saw the briefest flash of black dart out from behind the trees again, and when Tonks turned around to call out to Newt and Remus, they weren't there.

No one was behind her. The men were gone, all of them. Tonks swallowed and looked to the left and to the right and saw nothing and heard nothing. No disgruntled commentary coming from Sirius, no soothing remarks from Remus, and no spells uttered or quips about Nifflers or Bowtruckles from Mr. Scamander. She heard not a sound.

She was well and truly left alone. Tonks breathed in and out deep, rattled, shaking breaths as she forced her body to try and relax, remaining silent as her sharp and keenly-trained eyes of an Auror scanned the trees and the thick, forest brush around her. No sign of Ollie, or anyone else.

Everything in this forest felt as though time itself had become suspended. Tonks did not possess wolfish hearing like Remus did, but she could hear no insects, not the rustling wind of the leaves in the trees.

No Sirius, no Remus or Newt… nothing. Everything was still. _Silent_.

Tonks felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and goosebumps erupt on her arms and she shivered, thinking that the sudden coldness she felt had nothing whatsoever to do with the chilled late air of October.

It seemed even darker now than it had before too, which Tonks did not particularly like. Given she was without a wand, and a quick rummage through the brown knapsack on her pack that Ollie had given her confirmed her suspicions that there were no matches packed in a crevice or zippered compartment of this stupid pack with which to light her way. Was this newfound darkness also a trick of her frightened mind?

Tonks's eyes followed that familiar, darting black blur as it zipped between the tree lines again, and her attention was drawn towards a single red and orange leaf as it tumbled off of its branch and tumbled slowly to join its fallen brethren on the ground from the branch above.

It seemed to take several minutes for the delicate little leave to make its way to the forest floor, once again confirming Tonks's suspicions that somehow, when you were here in the Forbidden Forest, time was slower.

Tonks felt rather mesmerized as she watched the single little leaf and blinked owlishly at it and once, she realized what she was allowed to happen, she blinked and vehemently shook her head back and forth.

 _Constant vigilance, girlie_ , she could almost hear Moody's voice in her head. And Moody, oh _Moody_! Did Mad-Eye even know she was alive?!

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and made a mental note to send some kind of a message to Moody the second they got out of the forest. In all honesty, she needed to seek him out anyways. Given that her parents were not exactly a hundred percent supportive of her and Remus's pending marriage and their soon to be statuses as parents, she was hoping that Alastor would be the one to walk her down the aisle.

She hoped the grizzled old Auror would say yes. Tonks frowned, smacking her forehead with her palm, and dragging her hand down alongside her cheek, groaning in frustration and silently chastising herself.

 _Get a grip of yourself, T_ , she scolded. Focus on finding Ollie and now the others. _Get out of this forest alive, and then ask Moody a little later_.

"Hello?" Tonks managed to call out, hating hearing the crack and dip in her voice and how uncertain she sounded. Where were the others? "Rem? Sirius? M—Mr. Scamander? Can any of you hear me? _Hello_?!"

A light chittering reached her eardrums, very nearly causing Tonks to cry out in surprise, a hand over her racing heart in shock as whatever it was that was making that high-pitched squeaking sound was near her ear!

She slowly swiveled her head to her right shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief as Ptelea had hopped down onto her shoulder to join her. "Oh. It's only you," she breathed, exhaling a shaking sigh of relief as the tiny little leafy green Bowtruckle chirped in annoyance and nodded.

 _Who else were you expecting_? His narrowed, black beady eyes seemed to ask. He blew a raspberry at his owner in annoyance and made a rather dramatic show of silently slipped into the front pocket of her red shirt. Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown. "Ptelea, don't _scare_ me like this again!" she scolded, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as the leafy little creature snuggled and nestled into her pocket, making himself at home.

Tonks sighed once her Bowtruckle was nestled comfortably and straightened her posture and looked around. No other signs of life that she could see. No Sirius, no Newt, no Remus, and the ball of white light? Gone.

"Rem? A—are you there? Ollie? Sirius? Newt? Can any of you hear me?" All Tonks could hear in response to her calls was the echoing of her own breaths, with the young Auror thinking that they sounded too slow.

Entirely too slow for it to be considered normal, and Tonks believed that if she had noticed one of the others breathing so slowly like this, she would have immediately started worrying for their health, thinking something was wrong with them and wondering why they were so slow.

Tonks figured she was going to die if she couldn't get more air into her lungs. Her lungs needed more than just one breath per minute.

The way her shoulders and lunged heaved as she gasped for breath suggested to the young witch that she was hyperventilating, but the sound of her breaths and the occasional concerned chirp from Ptelea as he dared to poke his little leafy out of her shirt pocket to check on his master were so incredibly slow, that she felt as though time were suspended here.

Was someone in this damned forest messing around with a Time-Turner somehow, is that why she was feeling so trapped in this moment?

" _Remus_! **OLLIE**!" Tonks yelled out again, suddenly no longer caring who—or what—heard her cries for help. She _wanted_ someone to find her.

She winced as she felt the strength give out in her legs, falling to her knees and wildly clawing at her chest, and groaned as her stomach lurched. The damned tea she'd drank earlier was still causing a coil in her gut to twist, and it felt as though someone had plunged their hand into her stomach and was taking sick, sadistic pleasure in churning her intestines.

"I…I can't…" she wheezed, turning her head to the side and coughing, sucking in more selfish breaths of air, what little good it was doing her.

Tonks did not understand. Woods, especially this place, could do strange things to you and mess with your mind, but this was unbelievable. Was she _really_ going to die here because she couldn't get enough air into her lungs, that she had, what, somehow forgotten how to breathe? "Rem! Ollie! I—I don't know if I'm breathing anymore," she whispered, looking frantically to the left and right for any signs of life.

A flash. A dart of movement. There it was again, that strange black blur. Tonks felt her jaw tighten and lock up in nervous anticipation, afraid. She couldn't quite shake the feeling of dread as it crawled down her spine like a spider leaving a careful trail of silk, feeling her feet on her skin. Was the forest playing tricks on her mind? Was it going to kill her?

 _I—I guess there's a reason it's called the Forbidden Forest_ , Tonks thought wildly, thinking that her breaths coming to her lungs were so few.

And yet, her lungs burned like fire, desperately begging with her for more air, though she could practically feel her shoulders shake as she drew in short spurts of gasping, panicked breaths, beseeching her lungs to calm down and try to regulate her breathing back to something that resembled normal. She recognized that she was panicking. Need to breathe…can't… "Remus! Newt! Ollie!" Tonks knew they weren't there.

But she was desperate. No one was hearing her, within earshot of her frantic, panicked calls for help. Tonks struggled to focus her gaze more than a few feet in front of herself and froze as the black shrouded figure came into her line of sight.

Whoever or whatever it was, was tall, towering, and when the figure stepped from the mist and into the same clearing that Tonks was now curled up in a ball against the trunk of a tree, she froze. The only announcement of Barty Crouch Jr.'s arrival was a slight drop in the air temperature and the descent of absolute silence.

And then, a deep baritone voice spoke and rent the otherwise silent air. "Hello, little dove. Found you."

Without even having to crane her neck upward, Tonks realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that Crouch was there, pale in the shadows of the mist that shrouded the Forest's clearing, save for his coat. Dressed in a black leather overcoat that fell to his knees, Tonks's reeling mind was quickly able to piece together his coat must have been the flash of movements that she saw when he was toying with her mind.

His lethal stare as Crouch slowly, methodically stalked towards Tonks felt painful and piercing, as if his glare alone were tearing apart her heart. Tonks swallowed nervously as she looked up at Crouch again, this time with widened eyes. A final glance at his fuming expression confirmed her possible outcome. He had found her at last and was going to kill her.

And this time, she was on her own. No one was coming to save her.


	67. Your Actions Have Consequences

**CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN **

Tonks felt as though Time itself had stopped. She couldn't find it within herself to move, much less let alone breathe, too frozen in fear.

"I found you, little dove." When Crouch spoke, his voice was hoarse as he knelt down to Tonks's level and offered her a charmingly white grin that sent her blood aflame. "You've caused your poor friend no small amount of trouble, Alice." He clucked his tongue in mock disappointment and shook his head. "I'd have not thought it possible of you. Allowing your wretched Obscurus to _die_ for you. Where do you think you're off to, sweetheart?"

His voice came out, higher-pitched than usual, cold, and quite calculating. Tonks swallowed, scrambling back away from Barty Crouch Jr. as far as she could possibly until she felt the sharp prick of a piece of bark press into her back, and she felt her heart thrum and hammer against her chest as she realized Crouch now had her cornered.

Tonks wanted nothing more than to take in the bastard's face, to commit every single detail of his face to memory so she never forgot. She would never forget how his coarse, rough tongue licked at her skin when he would come to her room after dark, fingers raking in her hair.

Every time Tonks would close her eyes, Crouch would bash her head back against the cobblestoned floor of the bedroom he'd forced her into, demanding that she open them and look at him, that she _loves_ him. Tonks had not wanted to, so she closed her eyes, over and over again, anything rather than watch Crouch's face light up with power and lust.

And then he would become angry, his force less controlled, the last time had been the worst when she felt the blood run from the back of her head and onto the cobblestone floor beneath her head and she had lolled.

He had finished with her. And Tonks could not find her inner resolve to tell Remus what had happened. She just _couldn't_! It would kill him!

She did not want Remus to suffer any more on her account, and so this secret she would take with her to her grave when she was old and gray. Hate and enmity for the man holding her hostage welled up in her heart, fury itself burning her veins from the inside out in a hot wildfire.

It burned in her heart so deep that Tonks thought by this point, she wouldn't be surprised if her hatred for Crouch Jr. was ingrained in the tissue. How he had allowed her to think that he had _murdered_ Remus. His assaults every single night. How she would fight him to no avail, and she supposed she should be grateful that, by rote luck, the Forest had somehow magically separated her from Remus.

As much as she despised Crouch, currently still kneeling into a literal crouch in front of her, Crouch was not worth Remus losing his innocence over. Sirius had confided in her that the man had never once killed, preferring to incapacitate over the hard choice of taking another man's life. She envied Remus for that.

Her fiancée did not need Crouch's death, his blood, on his hands. It would destroy him. Cripple him, rip him apart from the inside out, and Tonks absolutely refused to be the one to give him the amount of rope it would take to hang himself. No. She couldn't, and she would never do it.

Tonks would rather condemn herself a life in the seven hells by attempting to fight off Barty on her own and injuring the man in the process than to just stand by and do nothing while she allowed this monster in front of her to kill yet even more of the people she loved.

She did not think she would ever be able to forgive herself for it. Remus meant entirely too much to her for her to just allow him to kill another human being, even a vile one as Crouch, though he more than anyone else Tonks had ever known through her life (except for perhaps Lord Voldemort!) deserved death most of all, and a long, slow, painful one.

If she were to die by Crouch's hand, then so be it, but she sure as hell wasn't going to go down without a hell of a good fight. Tonks let out a squeak of muffled fear, hoping that her eyes did not betray just how terrified she was of this man as his strong arm gripped around her arm.

Tonks was pulled violently to her feet, and she felt the knife pressed at her throat before she saw it. " _Why_?" she croaked, her voice hoarse.

It was all she could ask. The knife sat precariously on her skin, soft enough not to pierce her neck, but hard enough to enforce his intended message. The harsh metal should have been cold and raw against the bare skin of her throat, but Tonks's numb body could feel nothing, except for the excruciating pains in her stomach and the hammering of her heart.

Her throat and heart held in a glistening silver grasp, and all Tonks could do was offer up a pitiful little mewl and stare lifelessly at the brown eyes that held the blade, a crude Muggle weapon and much more bloody than the use of his wand, and a terrifying coldness she'd never seen before.

Tonks, in the short time she had been suffered to endure the man's company, had always thought the man's irises a deep, rich brown like chocolate, but now she knew that was not the case with Crouch's eyes.

Crouch looked at her just then, his now-blackened eyes burning bright with animosity and hatred for her practically drilling into hers. She couldn't help but think, she'd never seen such dark eyes with so much anger intermingled with tinges of melancholia before in her life.

Trembling, she flinched as his strong hand came up to cup her chin and tipped it into the sharpened edge, almost as if he were tempting himself to end Tonks's anguish, the look on his face half-hoping he would. A small stream of blood trickled from the feeble cut Tonks could not feel, and Crouch Jr. did not flinch once or ever remove his eyes from hers. A cruel smile stretched out unnaturally wide across gaunt features. Tonks felt her frozen heart shift at the sight of Barty Crouch Jr.'s merciless gaze, her legs almost failing beneath her. His steadfast grip on the polished weapon shifted, causing the more crimson liquid to flow from the raw wound.

"Just what do you think you're _doing_ , little Alice, out _alone_. Pretty little thing like you shouldn't wander the Forest _alone_. Never know the types of men that you'll run into, little dove, can't be too careful," Crouch whispered into the shell of her left ear just as he wrenched her arm behind her back. "What to _do_ with you, Al. You thought you could _run_?"

Tonks swallowed nervously, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she felt the tip of his knife press a little deeper into the column of her throat.

Through a swirl of sickening fears came Ollie's voice, faint but present. _Kill him, T. He's…hurt…me…spider…bite…dying…_ he managed.

The fear at hearing her best friend's words ruminating in her mind and refusing to part from her thoughts, and the wave of cold washed over her body and the fear traveled like wildfire in Nymphadora's veins, but never quite made it to her facial muscles, and she felt her eyes glisten.

"You thought you could _run_ , Alice?" whisper-hissed Crouch through gritted teeth. "You mistook me for a _fool_ , Prewitt," he snarled, leaning in, and resting his chin on her right, already bruised and injured shoulder.

Just the weight of his head upon her battered appendage was enough to almost cause her to cry out in pain, though she ground her teeth with the effort to remain silent. She was _not_ going to give him the satisfaction.

When Tonks did not respond to his goading, in a further attempt to elicit a response, he continued, and the coldness that lingered in the deranged man's tones was bone-chilling and rendered her blood to ice.

" _So_ ," Crouch growled, his voice dangerously low and quiet as he silently seethed, a muscle in his strongly defined jaw and behind his eye giving off the occasional twitch. "Here we are again, Prewitt. Once again you are…unfaithful to me. This is rather embarrassing for me as it is for you, little dove," he snarled coldly, though he made no move to relinquish his grip on her arm, and his gaze drifted down to her left ring finger.

Barty felt himself bristle upon seeing the beautifully elegant simple gold wedding ring that was not the one that he had given his sweet Alice.

She was _his_ , no one else's, and certainly not the wretched half-breed Wolf's. "You know I cannot let this go _unpunished_ , Prewitt, though if you come with me now of your own volition, I might be…lenient on you, dear. Oh, and…I think your wretched little Obscurus is going to want to _watch_."

With an expression on his face that suggested he was otherwise bored, and Tonks wondered how she could have missed it before, he gave a harsh yank of what sounded like a length of chains rattling, and Tonks blearily lifted her gaze through tear-filled eyes, and her heart froze.

As Ollie Brennan was forced to come into the light, Tonks could see what her ears were telling her already. Her best friend was limping, the gait that had been smooth only earlier this evening was faltering, uneven.

His pale face was contorted into a pained grimace that contorted with the effort as the Obscurus ground his teeth, black mists poured from his curled fists, which were bound magically together from the manacles.

"T…Tonks…get… _out_ …of…here…" Ollie whispered, attempting to speak to her, his barely audible voice little more than a whisper cracking and breaking as Tonks's widened, horrified gray eyes took in the gore that was her best friend and the very man who had saved her life twice now.

Tonks let out a muffled whine as Crouch gave one final jerk of the man's chains and kicked out at Ollie's hamstring with the heel of his black leather boot, grinding his teeth in anger as the younger man's strength failed him and he was forced into a kneeling position on his knees, directly in front of Tonks. Crouch was looking smug, rather pleased with himself.

" _No_ ," Tonks moaned, as the beaten, broken battered form of Ollie Brennan came into view, being violently tugged along by Crouch, magically bound by a length of chain, and she almost didn't recognize him.

He was grotesque. Already, his left eye was practically swollen shut and bloody spit drooled from his slack jaws. On each of his arms, what little of them she could see, at least the tops of his hands since those weren't covered by his set of thick black woolen robes, there were great purple welts that would only deepen over the coming week.

Against Ollie's pale, ghostly skin, they were grotesque, and Tonks wondered if by the shambling way he walked, if he had any broken bones. Several, by the looks of it. Crouch noticed and scrunched his nose in disgust.

"He's rather _disgusting_ , darling, isn't he?" he taunted, shifting slightly, and cupping her chin in his hand, forcing Tonks to look her dying friend in the eye. "Your Obscurus is now as revolting as he should be. Finally, the outside reflects the man within him, love. I don't think I've shown you what it looks like when the _spiders_ have been at a body, sweetheart, have I?" he teased.

There was a shadow, a brief flash of movement, and Tonks froze. It was there amid the branches stretched outward by tall and confident oak trees that the spider scuttled down the trunk of the tree.

He was as black as night and about the size of a small pony. A baby Acromantula, from the sized of the damned cursed thing.

"No…" she whispered. " **NO**! No, _no_ , _no_ , _please_ don't do this, Crouch!" she begged, biting down on her bottom lip and blinking back briny tears, feeling her throat close up and it was as if there was a gag on her tongue, as it felt thick in her mouth when she attempted to speak.

"Oh, _yes_ ," Crouch taunted cruelly as he continued to stand in front of the two friends, the edge of his face pushed up, scrunching his one eye up, making the brown appear a pitiless, soulless black. His lips parted a centimeter, making it seductive to many who didn't even know better.

Yet the faked smile on his pristine and handsome face made Crouch Jr. appear all too arrogant, just like any Casanova or Gilderoy Lockhart. At hearing Crouch's words, Tonks felt her stomach gave a painful lurch and it heaved and the bitter, acidic stomach bile crept up her throat. Tonks covered her mouth as swells of nausea clawed at her throat, and she tried to force it back down, but it was already too late for that.

Her poor churning stomach contracted so violently that by some miracle of Merlin, she managed to wrench her arm free from Crouch and crawl away from the man as whatever she had eaten this morning for breakfast spewed out of her coughing, choking mouth.

She lurched forward and sank to her knees as the pungent stench invaded her nostrils. Though there was nothing left to go. Shaking, she wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, wishing she had a handkerchief or a towel.

Tonks let out a tiny whimper of fear as she felt Crouch's strong hand cup at her chin, tilting it upward and forcing the Auror to meet his gaze. "The devil take that damned old hag," Crouch spat, his strong hand practically crushing Tonks's chin in his ironclad grip, sounding thoroughly revolted by something, though what that thing or things might be, only he knew for certain. His dark brown eyes narrowed in revulsion as he looked towards Ollie and then his gaze flitted back to Tonks, his eyes mere slits. "Her wretched little plan did not work. That herb was supposed to do the trick," he growled, speaking more to himself than to Tonks at the moment.

_What_ ….? Tonks blinked, her gaze darting between Ollie, who was struggling to open his eyes and look Tonks square in the eyes. _Ollie_? If Ollie knew what the insane Death Eater was referring to, the poor man was much too weak to comment on it, even by means of Occlumency. _Ollie, do you know anything about this?_

Ollie blearily opened his one good eye and struggled to focus his attention strictly on his best friend. _U...Umbridge_. Tonks flinched and felt her face drain of color. _Overheard her talking to a Healer. Slipped something into your tea._

Tonks felt her jaw drop open in shock and her gray eyes flash as steel as she recollected back to the tea that Peter Pettigrew had brought her. Umbridge? That...that couldn't be right. Umbridge was supposed to be _helping_ her, not _hurting_ her! Was this another trick? Another lie of Crouch's? But _why_? Why would he lie to her? But one look over at Ollie's face told her that her best friend was not lying to her. Ollie had never once lied to her, and she did not think he was about to start now.

But Crouch proceeded to continue on as though he had not noticed Tonks's furrowed brows and look of utter confusion evident on her face.

"You leave me no other choice, Al. I did not want it to come to _this_ , you know how I… _loathe_ violence, especially you seeing something like this, but…this is for your _own_ _good_ , sweetheart. I _did_ warn you; you know."

Tonks blearily blinked through her haze of foggy vision and tried to focus her gaze more than a few feet from herself. She had no idea what Crouch was talking about. The man was certifiably _insane_ and needed to be locked up in the highest security ward of Azkaban Prison there was.

Merlin, but she felt so _sick_. It felt like she was radiating heat like a brick removed right from the oven coals of a wood-fired oven. Her entire body ached, cheeks feeling like they were burning with the flush of a sudden fever. She would have cried out for help, to beg and plead with Crouch not to do whatever it was that he was planning, to take her.

Ollie could not be allowed to die a second time if she could help it.

But there was no strength left in her voice, just a faint whisper lost on the cool autumnal breeze as soon as the pitiful whimper left her cracked and almost bleeding lips in the form of a soft, half-choked desperate sob.

Her breaths quivered in short, quick gasps every time she inhaled, her lungs having no other alternative but to take in the chilled air painfully and rigidly around her. Tonks couldn't seem to stop shaking, either, and she trembled and tried to focus her attention on Ollie.

Crouch, for his part, ignored the accursed wretch of a whelp that had caused him so much grief over the last eight months alone of keeping the young adult Obscurus in captivity, and he did not notice as the man rose to his feet, nor did he heed any attention to the monster's low threatening growl in his throat, his chained hands balling and clenching into fists.

Tonks let out a muffled squeak as she violently shook her head no as one of the first things she noticed at Ollie's newfound resolve and strength to stand up was the horrible, thick black mist emanating from his aura.

Barty Crouch Jr. would have more than likely missed the yelp his sweet Alice gave off had the Death Eater not already been hanging onto the young witch's every movement, with his eyes as sharp as a hawk's.

Crouch narrowed his dark eyes and his grip on Tonks's wrist tightened, and she squirmed underneath Barty's touch but didn't cry out.

The deranged, dark-haired Death Eater silently seethed, a muscle in his jaw jumping as his dark eyes narrowed even more until they resembled that of a pit viper's slit-like pupils, one of his hands coming up to grip onto the back of her hair, finding purchase in her short strands.

He let out a heavy sigh and cupped Tonks's chin in his hand, violently yanking her head back, exposing the pale column of her throat as he seized a fistful of her hair and tugged on it, relishing in her cries of pain.

Barty had been good at first, growing up. Nobody suspected a thing, and he was everything that his parents could have ever asked a son to be.

But when he gained your trust, when you had a bond so deep that you could not run away, that's when the Monster within him appeared. He did not need any weapons to hurt you, though the Muggle knives were his favorite. Cruder, yes, but simpler and much more effective.

As a young lad, he'd had to hide his penchant for causing pain. His mother had suspected it. Once, when he was eight, she'd found the small creatures he'd pinned out while he dissected them. His mum had hoped they'd been dead for that part, and of course, they never had been, really.

For him, the moment the light left their eyes was the greatest thrill of all. His mother had worried her only son was headed for a life in Azkaban Prison, but she need not have. He was now a member of the Death Eaters.

They very much, the Dark Lord _especially_ , appreciated his talents. He would have done it for free, of course, and as he ran his hand over the cold metal of his favorite dagger and let a giggle slip, soon followed by a snort, he could feel his sweet, succulent Alice shiver beneath his touch.

Crouch clucked his tongue in mock disappointment at the signs of weakness his sweet future bride was displaying in full view for him to see.

He had hoped she would be tougher than this, though there was the sick, sadistic part of him that relished in the way the young witch's face paled as if hit by a blizzard, and her lips were agape, devoid of any words.

Barty allowed his inquisitive, sharp gaze to dart back and forth between that of his angel's and that of the monstrous, broken man, whose expression, given how bloody swollen his eye was during their scuffle mid-Apparition before the boy had foolishly let go of his sweet prize here, remained unreadable, almost impassive, though Crouch was not fooled.

The broken, battered Brennan boy standing shakily on his feet in a last-ditch attempt to openly defy his Master for the last time was furious. Crouch felt his attention wander and he spotted a large, fallen branch and thought that a much more efficient method of getting his point across.

Slower, more brutal, and bloodier than a simple Unforgiveable Curse. He strode towards the fallen bough branch and picked it up with both hands, holding the end out in front of him as a Muggle man would a baseball, or a Beater's bat of a professional Quidditch match. Ollie hissed.

The broken man knew it was coming and his muscles tensed as much as they could. The knowing still did not soften the blow. The damned branch was as hard as it looked, and poor Ollie's leg was no Bludger.

Ollie clenched his eyes shut and threw his head back to the darkened sky above their heads as he could feel the bones in his right leg split into an untold number of fragments as his mind became inoperable, and he struggled and failed to drown out Dora's frantic pleading screams to stop.

The pain took him not that far away, but deep inside herself to some primitive place that knew how to cope with the kind of pain that preceded death. His vision was blotched with violent colors that moved and merged without any kind of pattern or design, and he wished he were dead already. He wanted nothing more than for Master Crouch to just _end_ it.

The wall of pain still crippled him, but Crouch swam back into view. His face was just as Ollie would imagine it as if Master were waiting for the Knight Bus. And then he smiled in that horrible Cheshire-cat like way before continuing the narration of his end. "Brennan, it's just no fun if you don't see it coming, kid." Then the branch fell onto his other leg, shattering it. Crouch heaved a heavy, tired sigh and pinched at his temples, and then the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

" _Get off of him_!" Tonks screamed hoarsely, amazed she even still had a voice with how much she had just screamed bloody murder in the last five seconds alone. In her intense silence, she somehow screamed with her whole body. Her gray eyes wide with horror, tears streaming down her cheeks, her mouth rigid and open, her chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and her nails digging deeply into the palms of her hands, feeling the sweat trapped beneath.

Crouch furrowed his brows into a frown and shot her a dark, stony glower. "I am…sorry that it has to be this way, darling. I truly am. But I _did_ warn you, little dove, what would happen to you if you _ever_ ran away. And now, _you_ are the one who pays the ultimate price for your own stupidity. I'd rather _not_ ruin your beautiful face and make you one ugly _witch_ , though it would certainly reflect on what you've _done_ , Alice. Still…"

He paused to draw in a breath and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of dark brown hair and fixed Alice with a cold and pointed glower.

"I rather like you pretty. So, I suppose I'll just have to get my message across some other way, I'm afraid," he sighed, almost sounding bored.

Tonks felt her face drain of color and terror prick at her heart as bile settled once again on her tongue and she thought she might vomit all over Crouch's precious leather boots as she realized what was about to happen.

" **NO**!" she screamed, the heart-wrenching cry of agony ripped from her chest and lips before she could stop herself. "No, no, no, Crouch, please don't hurt him! Don't do this, just—just let him _go_! Take _me_ instead, punish _me_ , but let Ollie _go_!" Tonks screamed, tears pouring down her face.

She scrambled an arm outstretched and extended towards Ollie, desperate to grab onto the length of metal chain and yank him away from such a gruesome fate and from Crouch, though she was prevented from rushing to her best friend's side by Barty, whose hands wrapped around her waist in a tight, possessive vice grip. She wasn't going anywhere.

Crouch shifted slightly at the waist and turned his head to the left to silently regard Tonks, and his dark expression only intensified as his gaze drifted down towards Ollie Brennan, whose temper was rapidly swelling.

If he did not do something to quell this boy's abilities, he would surely take down the entirety of the Forbidden Forest and them along with it.

And that… he could not allow happening. But then, his Alice's voice broke out of his dark swirling vortex of thoughts, and he blinked as his mind struggled to process what her sweet, reserved voice was asking him.

" _Please_ …" Tonks begged, tears pouring down relentlessly from her lids, her voice cracking and breaking as Crouch's hands around her waist was the only barrier that was currently preventing her from reaching Ollie and saving her former partner and best friend from a second death.

When he did not respond, she tried again. "Please don't do this…" She swallowed, tasting bile on her tongue. "I'll…come back with you, Crouch, whatever you want, Merlin's beard, but just let him _go_! Don't hurt him!"

She screamed the request rather than begged it, practically hysterically at this point. But Barty Crouch Jr. did not seem to be in the mood for talking. He was past the point of no return and such niceties were no longer an option. Alice Prewitt had defied him for the last time.

He let out a low growl that came as a deep rumble from within his chest. "I warned you, Alice. I tried to tell you what would happen, and you did not hear me. Now you've left me with no other choice, and this?" he growled, gesturing towards Ollie's kneeling form. " _This is on you_ , darling."

Crouch's voice sounded numb and flat, and when the man turned to look Tonks square in the eye, she could not help but let out a low moan.

Deliberation was over. He had judged her already, and in his eyes, she only saw a cold hatred. His eyes were a knife in Tonks's bruised ribcage, the sharp point digging deeper.

Tonks felt her blood run cold and turn to ice into veins as he knelt down so that he was practically eye level with Ollie, and spoke to the mid-sized baby Acromantula spider that had been aggressively waiting, clicking its pinchers and making odd hissing noises of agitation, hungry for a little meal before it retired for the night, though given the sheer massive size of the monster, Ollie Brennan was little more than a snack for it.

She froze as Crouch practically knelt at the spider's level and gave the black monstrosity an almost affectionate pat on the head, stroking it.

"It won't hurt me. They obey those that are loyal to them. I saved one of his children once, and the father knows not to have his kin attack me. It truly is a shame that things have to be this way, Al."

Again, Barty sounded as though he were almost teasing Tonks and immensely enjoying it. "Your _friend_ ," Here, he spat the word as though it were poison on his mouth and gave Ollie a swift kick in the gut, hearing him cry out a muffled surprised pained gasp and Ollie curled in on himself in the fetal position. "He was very brave in my…questioning of where you dropped you off. Refused to tell me anything. Crouch sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

He shook his head in disbelief, as though he could not quite believe it.

"I mean, why is everyone _so_ ready and willing to _die_ for you, Alice?"

His voice was cold and listless, and Tonks didn't know what to do, what to think. Her hands trembled at her side and she barely registered the sound as she heard the scuttling of the spider's many long legs, and the hissing that it gave off, almost like a threatening whisper in her ears.

Until she realized that the noise was coming from Crouch as he spoke to it. " _Rip_. _Him_." Tonks's blood turned sour in her veins as the spider launched itself at Ollie and sank its pincers deep into his arm, and then his throat. The details of his grisly demise again played like a repeat of a song.

Though this time, the murderer was not she but that of a spider, painting a horrible image of blood, chunks of flesh being ripped from him.

It seemed to take an eternity before Crouch called off the Acromantula. " _Stop_." The command left his lips as a listless, low hiss.

The spider obeyed and scuttled off into the darkness, though not before clicking its pincers threateningly at Tonks and letting out a squeal.

Crouch stepped back and taunted his prize even further, past her point of utter humiliation as he allowed her to get a full view of the consequences of her actions. Tonks scrambled towards Ollie, crying.

The blood from the wound on his arm and near his neck did not gush in a constant flow, though if she couldn't find something to stop the flow of the poison, then it would surely kill him, but in time with the beating of Ollie's heart as she pressed her ear to his slowly rising and falling chest.

Tonks felt the blood move over her hand as she gingerly pressed her palms to his throat, the thick fluid no warmer or cooler than her own skin.

The pulses became slower, weaker. "Oh, don't do this to me, Ollie, not again..." she whispered, tears streaming down her face as she cradled his limp form in her arms. " _Get_ _up_ ," she growled through gritted teeth. "Ol, you _have_ to get up. I—I command you to get up. You—you _swore_ to protect me. Save me _now_ by fighting this. Don't _die_ on me, Ol. Don't _do_ this to me again…"

"Tonks…" Ollie hoarsely whispered, and it was a miracle her best friend could still even speak, given the amount of blood that he'd lost.

Tonks swallowed and blinked back briny, salty tears and choked on her own tears. "Ol, _don't_ ," she croaked hoarsely, begging with him, pleading for him to stay with her, raking her fingers through what little was left of his hair.

"It's…. maybe it's…it's better this way," Ollie whispered, the faintest ghost of a smile flitting across his features and then he smiled at her.

"I… I…" stammered Tonks, unable to find the right words to form a response. "Don't talk like that to me, Ollie. You'll…you'll be all right. Everything's…everything's going to be fine, you'll see. I can't let you die."

"Y—you _have_ to," Ollie protested weakly, his voice faint and almost lost on the autumnal breeze, and Tonks would have missed it had she not already been hanging onto her every word. "Better this way, T. Better."

" _No, it's not_!" sobbed Tonks, curling her hands into fists and in a fit of anger, kicked aside the very same branch that Crouch had used to break both of his legs and shatter the bone into an untold number of fragments.

There was no amount of horror that could ever prepare her for seeing the life force ebb from another, the hopelessness, the tearing at the soul that was the departing of the other. His breathing would stop for a time only to reemerge like a drowning victim coming up for one last breath, though in her best friend's case, he was choking to death on his own blood and whatever venomous poison the mid-sized Acromantula had bitten him with was spreading fast.

He wasn't going to make it. Surely there had to be something, some kind of weed, a plant that could counteract the effects?

But almost the second she thought this, another painful lick of white-hot lightning seemed to wrack its way through her stomach, causing her to cry out and double over. She could barely sit up, let alone walk and search the damned cursed woods for a plan that would save his life.

Tonks cried like there was too much raw pain inside her to be contained. She cried like her spirit needed to break loose from her skin, desperate to release an elemental rage on the world. She was beyond all reason, beyond all-natural methods of calming.

"No, Ol, don't do this to me, Ol, don't do this to me. Wh—what do we do with him? I—I can't just leave him here!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her ashen cheeks in unceasing tracts, cradling her best friend's limp form in her arms, not minding the blood that stained through his black woolen cloak. Crouch's voice rent through her hysterical wails.

"Feed him to the wolves, Alice. He's good meat."

The last taunting words of Barty Crouch reached her eardrums, and all she heard was a horrible ringing in her ears as it began to screech incessantly. It felt as though her heart was almost bursting against her very ribcage.

She was feeling it—a drop of rage forming and fevering her very bloodstream and spreading like a wave of hot, fiery anger she had never felt before. Hotter than anything a Chinese Fireball could flame.

_Oh, no. Not again_. She clenched her eyes shut and willed herself not to revert to her Animagus form, but it was already too late. Her breaths increased and became half-mad, a low growl escaping from her throat, falling completely beyond the scope of her control. A strange itching sensation erupted on her jaws and she could almost feel herself foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

The last thing Tonks remembered was how her teeth gnashed in a wild frenzy as she felt her pupils dilate, and though she could not see it, her eyes changed color, shifting from their usual light gray hue, to a piercing yellow, like glinting topaz pinpricks in the night and she let out a growl as she collapsed to the forest floor, skin feeling like it bubbled and her bones shifting into place as she gave herself over completely to her Animagus form, and soon, all that was in the place where she had once stood, was the Wolf.

From the Wolf's throat came a low, guttural growl as her teeth bared, coiled with ravenous hunger and hatred. She could hear the Man's screams, sweet, succulent music to her ears, and then jinxes, bright red and yellow darting, and firing in every direction. Then came the scream of Man. Of the Dark Man. Of Crouch.

And blood. Warm, sticky bloom skimming around her mouth as the Wolf sank her fangs in the neck of the Man—the Murderer of the Man whose familiar scent had long since faded, and the one laying on the floor, his pulses were slower. Very much faded, but still alive.

_Defend. Protect. Attack. Kill_. The instincts of the Wolf as Tonks allowed this persona to take overran through the Wolf's mind like a mantra, and the Wolf had to protect her Friend. _Kill. Rip. Tear. Bite. Feed_. The thick scent of terror intermingled with coppery blood filled the She-Wolf's nostrils. Terror. Fear.

How it smelled sweet and succulent. She had never known herself to be a savage She-Wolf whenever she transformed into her Animagus form, of which she had learned in her third year how to successfully transform. But now, given what the Man had _done_ to her Friend, the She-Wolf snarled and raged and ravished, bearing her blood-soaked fangs, tore at the Man's arm, lashed at Crouch's throat, snapped the Man's wand in two in between her powerful jaws, and went for the eyes.

Tonks's mind was ravaged with pure wrath and ire and she went lunging after Crouch, successfully snapping, and clamping onto his ankle, and had the man screaming in pain. A sudden, unexpected gash hollered on her left side.

An arrow whizzed past her right ear and the Wolf yelped as she crumpled next to a tattered mess of ripped cloth and torn flesh, crimson with thick blood. The dissipating mist reflected on Tonks's eyes as she felt the savagery of the She-Wolf leave her spirit and body as she felt the transformation wearing off.

When at least, her heartbeats slowed to something that resembled normalcy again and no longer sounded like they thrummed against her chest so damn loud that she could not focus on anything else but them, Tonks blinked blearily and sat up and perceived the carnage around her, eyes gazing at the horrors.

Crouch's mutilated carcass was still warm and sticky with the man's own lifeforce, Barty Crouch's empty eye socket, shards of skin, and flesh from Crouch. Though the damned insufferable man was somehow still alive! _How_?!

How was it fair that Crouch still drew in breath while her best friend lay next to her dying?! How in the name of Merlin was that fair?! It wasn't!

" _Help_ …" she whispered hoarsely. "Save…save Ollie…pulse…. weak…" Ollie's face was the last thing Tonks focused on before her consciousness began to ebb at the sound of frantic footfalls and scuffling coming to her aid.

There was a familiar voice, was that Remus? And… And…a woman's? But _whose_?

Not one that she recognized. But even in the embrace of that sweet abyss of darkness and the relief of her pains, a dull ache and pain began festering from her womb, and the strange voice was the last thing she heard before she succumbed herself to sleep.


	68. A Mysterious Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My werewolf OC Character Norah is really starting to grow on me both in this story and in Mad Beast. If you're interested in seeing what she looks like (in my mind, at least) you can head over here to check it out (and yes, in my imagination, that IS the Sword of Gryffindor that Norah is wielding, which may or may not* be making an appearance in this story at some point) :D 
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/pixielight91/art/In-the-Forest-854558294

**CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT**

The Forbidden Forest was perhaps the most frustrating thing Remus had ever experienced. He had thought venturing in here with Sirius and Tonks was more than enough and did never for a second think he'd be wandering into it a _second_ time, much less with Tonks, Sirius, and Mr. Newt Scamander, on the hunt for a dangerous young male adult Obscurus, who for all intents and purposes, might already be dead.

He ground his teeth in agitation and let out the tiniest of snarls, courtesy of the Wolf within the confines of his chest growling his displeasure at being lost and making sure that his mate was safe.

To make matters even _worse_ , his heightened senses were failing him. It was incredibly disorienting for Lupin to be almost blinded by the darkness of the Forbidden Forest but given the sharp hearing and ears of the Wolf within him, not to mention the smells. Even the soft susurration of the branches swaying in the light breeze felt thick and heavy in his ears.

Remus's sense of smell was sensitized, the loam in the earth and the decomposing leaves made the atmosphere around him close and dense.

The blackness nurtured within him a sense of claustrophobia inside her even though the woodland stretched unbroken for miles.

The narrow path at their feet, which was made uneven by the knotted roots that crossed it, which were what Dora had continuously been tripping over, branched at intervals. A very easy way to trip and break your neck.

To the best of his knowledge, no such map of the Forbidden Forest existed, and Remus knew Dumbledore had his reasons for not creating one, but even if such a map existed, the perpetual dark aura of the forest would prevent you from using it.

It was twisting and turning every which way, making them all confused as to their sense of direction, and lost.

Trekking through this forest alone even in broad daylight would have been frustrating enough, but here he was, Sirius, Dora, and Newt tagging along to find Mr. Brennan and pray the younger man wasn't injured, and therefore, Remus felt it was _his_ responsibility to keep track of all of them.

Though if Professor Dumbledore had given him a choice, Lupin would have adamantly preferred to make this walk by himself, if for no other reason than to constantly have to be worrying about Dora and the rest. Keeping track of Tonks was difficult enough for him normally, as his fiancée had a habit of allowing her mind to wander, and then she would literally sometimes wander off without even becoming aware of her surroundings, or what was happening as if she had been hit by a spell.

Sirius and Newt it felt like to Remus were constantly getting distracted, and Tonks was so petite and somewhat on the average side in terms of height, though in Lupin's mind she was dwarfed whenever she stood next to him, given his tall height of 6'3, that Dora could have easily snuck past in an attempt to lead the way or gotten distracted while Newt and Sirius were conversing with one another in low, murmuring tones.

But now, keeping track of all three of them, not including himself, seemed almost virtually impossible, as Lupin solely believed it was the Forbidden Forest's malicious intent to ensure they all stayed quite lost.

Over the last half hour or so, Remus had taken it upon himself to do a mental headcount in his mind in order to check everyone was still here.

It had been a while since he did the last one, so he figured it was now time to check again, just to make sure no one had gotten distracted or lost.

First, he looked ahead in front of him to where Sirius and Newt were walking. Sirius was dragging his feet, hands in the pockets of his maroon jacket, looking thoroughly disgruntled and cross about something trivial. Newt, on the other hand, was practically leading the way, quite spry for an older man, and his enthusiastic but gentle energy for all things magical creatures reminded Remus somewhat of his own father, Lyall.

"Keep your wits about you, Mr. Scamander," Remus cautioned.

Newt nodded, though he turned towards Lupin with a somewhat furtive, guilty look on his face. "Aye," he agreed, and it was with no small measure of amusement in his eyes that he noticed the tiny little Bowtruckle that was riding on top of Mr. Scamander's left shoulder.

He almost snorted and rolled his eyes as the twiglike creature narrowed its beady eyes and blew a raspberry in Remus's general direction. Lupin was immediately reminded of Dora's Ptelea and felt comforted that it had, after almost a few months now in his company, taking a liking to him after all this time and had ceased the habit of blowing raspberries in his face. Lupin chuckled and, in an attempt, to make conversation, asked after Scamander's Bowtruckle, which was a spritely little thing, though it looked incredibly old, its green leaves starting to brown and droop a little. He wondered just how long these creatures lived.

"And who is this?" Lupin asked casually as they trudged along. "My fiancée has a Bowtruckle as well. She calls it Ptelea. I've never seen anything quite like the relationship that Bowtruckle has with her. He's incredibly fierce and protective of my Dora. It's unheard of," he said.

Newt offered Remus a kind smile and held out his index finger to allow the Bowtruckle to hop on his finger. It chirped in contentment and stroked Newt's cheek with a leafy tendril and squealed in utter delight.

"Pickett. He's an old fellow, but if I had to hazard a guess if your fiancée found her Bowtruckle here on Hogwarts grounds, there's a good chance it's this one's grandson. I bring him back to his favorite elm tree once a year during their mating season," he chuckled, taking note of Lupin's surprised face, who blinked owlishly at the old Bowtruckle, though he made no further comment. He merely nodded and allowed Newt to pass. "They have incredibly complex social lives, did you know?"

Lupin shook his head. "Is it a constant thing with them, blowing raspberries at everyone they meet?" He couldn't help but ask it.

Newt nodded. "Bowtruckles are incredibly shy, somewhat defensive creatures. They're easy to mistrust humans, given we use the trees they nest in for their wand quality wood, but people like your fiancée, if her Bowtruckle is as loyal as you've said, she must be truly a remarkable woman if her Ptelea refuses to leave her side. She must take good care of him," he complimented warmly, to which Remus could only nod and smile.

Though Mr. Scamander could get easily distracted, Remus knew the famed Magizoologist had a good head of sense on his shoulders. He had, after all, found the pathway that Dora had been walking on, and if anybody could keep them going in the right direction, it was Scamander.

But… but…where was Dora? Lupin frowned and shook his head softly to himself, glancing down at his left hand and then to his immediate left.

No sign of Tonks. But…just not even two seconds she had been holding his hand and he hadn't let go. Remus frowned, trying to ignore the swelling panic mounting in his chest. He hadn't relinquished his grip at all on her hand, so how in the name of Merlin had she managed to disappear from his line of sight?

 _How_? What _was_ it about these dark woods that was causing all of them so much confusion? As a werewolf, he prided himself on his ability to normally use his heightened sense of smell to guide the way, but even that was failing him in this damned place. It was frustrating.

What made the air so thick and suffocating here, as though he couldn't breathe properly? If he had to guess, whatever manner of Dark creatures lived in these woods had enchanted the forest itself to keep unwanted intruders from infringing upon their home, their territories.

Whatever lived in here, Remus wouldn't put it past them, to make the entirety of the Forbidden Forest nearly impassable to any but who lived here. Lupin could feel the panic at not being able to locate Dora begin like a shower of red hot fire sparks in his abdomen. Tension grew in his face and limbs, his mind replaying the last few seconds he'd seen her.

She…she had been right here! Holding his hand! And now she was gone! His breathing became more rapid, shallow as he struggled for air.

His wolfish sight scanned the perimeter of the forest. Nothing. No Dora, nothing but trees and the occasional rustling of the tree limbs, and his panic grew even worse. An invisible hand clamped over his mouth, and an equally ghostly hypodermic of adrenaline surged through his veins and pierced at Lupin's heart, unloading in an instant at the fact she was gone.

He could feel his ribs heaving, as if bound by ropes, straining to inflate his lungs. Remus felt as though his head were spinning out of control, each fear in his mind pushing his mind into an abyss of nothing but blackness. He wanted to run, needed to find her.

She was pregnant and Merlin only knew what was lurking in the shadows of this wicked place with her. Sounds that were near now felt incredibly far away, like he was no longer in the body that stood rooted to his spot as he scanned the trees.

"Sirius!" called out Remus, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice as it hesitated. He didn't know where Tonks could have wandered off to, as his fiancée was relatively tiny and quiet, easy enough for her to accidentally slip by undetected by the others. "Sirius, have you seen Tonks?"

Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown and came to a halt, clutching onto the trunk of a tree for support, hardly aware his fingernails were forming claws and digging into the tree's bark in anguish as he raked his nails down the tree, still constantly scanning the forest path ahead of him.

No sign of Dora. Sirius shrugged his shoulders in response and glanced back over at Remus. "Not in a while. I thought she was with you."

Oh, Merlin above, help him. He couldn't breathe. Everything felt like it was spinning, and it was as if the frigid ground beneath his feet was melting. His breathing rate intensified and became more shallow, quick.

Remus could hear Sirius saying something, but he sounded distant and muffled. His stomach flipped as he thought of Dora alone and lost in this damned forest, and pregnant, with Merlin only knew what was in here with them. Poisonous spiders, giant ones, unfriendly centaurs…

Sometimes, it felt as though Tonks had ways of rendering herself invisible, only poking her head out from behind the trunk of a tree if someone called her name, and Lupin could not quite fathom how it was that she was able to go unnoticed for extended lengths of time, but somehow, his fiancée did, and the fact that she was pregnant with their baby only made his panic worsen. What if…what if something happened?

"Tonks?" No answer from his fiancée. He turned toward Sirius, whose dark brows were furrowed in a frown and Padfoot must have taken note of the clammy beads of sweat beginning to form on Lupin's brow, for Sirius took a hesitant half-step forward and calmly placed a hand on his shoulder. "She—she was right next to me holding my hand a second ago!"

Sirius nodded. "I remember, I think. I was behind Mr. Scamander." Sirius's frown deepened and he toyed with a lock of his dark hair in deep contemplation. "Wait…where did she get to then if she was with you?"

"I…I don't know, but we need to find her, Sirius. Are you sure you didn't see Tonks? Maybe she wandered up the path ahead of us, Black?"

But Sirius shook his head, a dark curl tumbling in front of his face as he did so, to which he moodily swiped it out of the way with one swift stroke of his thumb. "No. Newt and I were walking up ahead. Both of us would have seen her, but that would have been about ten minutes ago."

With a frustrated growl forming deep within the pit of his stomach, Remus turned away in agitation and narrowed his eyes, looking out once more into the thicket of nothing but bloody trees, and hearing nothing except the occasional chittering of an insect and the hoots of white owls.

He made a mental note when he did find Dora to tie a rope to his fiancée's waist and tether it to himself if it meant keeping an eye on her.

Remus supposed he ought to have anticipated that Nymphadora would inevitably get lost in the woods, and on a normal day, he wouldn't be quite as agitated or concerned over this, but given she possessed no wand with which to defend herself, was suffering from multiple bruises and lacerations from her fall when Ollie Brennan had accidentally dropped her and was also suffering from a mysterious ailment of the stomach that he hoped wasn't going to put their baby in any danger, and now, _this_?! Lupin wasn't sure how much more stress he could take.

"Tonks!" Remus called out into the trees, and he growled as all he heard back was the reverberation of his own voice into the tree line.

"I think she mentioned something about seeing a white light over that way," Newt piped up as he let out a yelp as he too almost tripped over a gnarled tree root that had been hidden underneath a pile of wet leaves.

Remus offered Mr. Scamander a curt nod of his head, resisting the urge to bare his teeth and snarl in frustration as the Wolf within him was threatening to break free of its confines and be free to roam, and if _that_ happened, then all hell was sure to break loose, and _then_ what happened?

Lupin turned and looked towards the twisted path ahead of them. The early morning fog loomed as far as Remus could see with even his wolfish sight. It was almost tangible, shrouding everything in a thick white veil, the light from above the forest canopy barely managing to penetrate the haze. The sounds of birdsong and the chirping of insects that should have been filling the woodland air around him all seemed to have vanished, even his own footsteps as he took a faltering, indecisive half-step forward were swallowed by the greedy beast that was this damned mist.

Remus sighed. He could barely see a few feet in front of himself. Since when was there fog in the Forbidden Forest? It hadn't been here during his and Tonks's last excursion here when they got rid of that stupid locket.

He hadn't noticed it before until this very moment…. He was hardly aware of Sirius coming to stand up next to him, and Remus stifled a startled shout of surprise as his best friend's hand came to rest on his shoulder. "I don't know _what_ light my little cousin was talking about," Sirius grumbled darkly to himself. "I _saw_ where Tonks was looking and I didn't see a damn light," he growled, taking a second to tie his hair back into something that Lupin could only describe as a stubby ponytail.

It felt like every time over the last hour or so, every time Black opened his mouth to complain or say something else unhelpful, usually to bicker with Mr. Scamander and offer snide and somewhat rude commentary, Remus felt himself growing angrier. At first, he would swallow his retort and move on, though he'd desperately wanted to chastise Sirius and tell him to be quiet, which only made things worse.

"Why didn't you tell Dora not to wander off?" demanded Remus angrily. Every word stung, only fueling the hot fire that burned inside of him. Every violated phrase was like oil on water, and his fists began to clench, and his jaw rooted tightly shut in agitation and sheer annoyance.

Remus wanted to feel frustration towards Sirius for not saying or doing something to prevent Tonks from wandering off, knowing full well it was dangerous for her to go further into the Forest alone while pregnant.

A burning rage hissed through his scarred body like a deathly poison, screeching a demanded release in the form of unwanted violence from the Mad Beast within. It was like a volcano erupting, his silent, seething fury sweeping off of him like ferocious waves. The wrath he felt for Black's lack of attentiveness for his own cousin consumed, engulfing his moralities.

 _Calm down, Rem_ , Lily's soothing, sweet tones offered. You'll find her.

 _Yeah_ , James piped up, sounding thoroughly disgruntled with the way his best friend and fellow Marauder was handling his fiancée's disappearance. _Don't take this out on Padfoot, Moony. It's not his fault_!

Remus forced himself to take a deep breath. In. And out. Repeat a few more times. In and out, until he felt the worst of his rage dissipate completely. He supposed he should have felt incredibly angry with Sirius, but he was already on a hair's trigger temper as it was upon learning Dora had mysteriously disappeared and he did not want to start a fight now.

The air was suffocating in these dark woods, and it was difficult to feel that either of them were responsible for the other's whereabouts at all times when the very forest itself seemed to want to keep them trapped.

Dora's disappearance was not Sirius's fault. "What?" Sirius piped up, still regarding Remus with a quizzical look and furrowed dark eyebrows.

Lupin narrowed his eyes and turned back around to face the direction that Mr. Scamander and Newt had been heading, to the west.

"You mentioned Dora said something about white light. What light?" he growled, lowering his voice an octave, and trying to remain calm, though it was becoming increasingly difficult to fight against the Wolf's chains and resist the urge to snarl and roar in utter frustration.

Remus strained his eyes, squinting as he struggled to see more than ten feet in front of him. He didn't see any white light. Only a thick mist.

If there had indeed been a light that had caught Tonks's attention, it was gone now. " _What_ _light_ , Sirius?" he snarled, the edges of his lips curling upwards as the Wolf within him came out and let out a deep growl. He recognized his fear at not knowing what happened to his fiancée was manifesting in the form of the Beast's temper, but he couldn't help it. And Remus had learned by this point in his adult life not to fight it.

Lupin shifted at the waist and made to turn back towards Padfoot, but when he turned all the way around, Mr. Scamander and Sirius were gone. Neither man was anywhere close to him, and this time, the Wolf within really did let out a yell of frustration as he tugged on a tuft of hair.

His holler of agitation and anguish reverberated in his own ears like a loud clap of thunder, more of a booming bark, the sound a dog would make, and he was honestly kind of surprised the entire Forbidden Forest didn't hear it, as his yell echoed between the tree lines, creeping under leaves and squeezing through holes made by animals in the gnarled bark of the tree trunks, traveling through the air like Lupin wasn't even there.

Remus closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep breaths, attempting to block out all unnecessary sounds and allow the Wolf to take control for a moment, to see if he could hear the shuffling of Sirius's feet.

Nothing. No Sirius and no Mr. Newt Scamander mumbling about salamander eyes and offering the occasional sweet comment about his wife, Tina, who Remus could see in the old man's eyes, that he doted on. Hearing the Wolf snarl and growl in frustration, Remus turned back towards the woods. He was hellbent on finding Dora, at the very least. He hated the idea of abandoning Sirius and Newt, but Lupin knew the men could handle themselves.

They both still had their wands, after all, whereas Dora's wand was still back at Crouch's estate, and as such, she was rendered effectively defenseless and at her most vulnerable, given her physical condition and she was carrying their child. He had to save her.

 _Let Sirius and Newt handle their own, Moony. Find Tonks. Save her_ , James said in an unusually uncharacteristic somber and quiet tone.

Remus could find Tonks, given that Sirius had indicated that Dora had been following a strange ball of the white light of the east, the direction he was already heading. If he found his fiancée, then at least, the two of them could be reunited for a second time in one day, and they would find their way out together.

Finding his fiancée and mother of his unborn child was more important than tracking down and locating Sirius and Newt.

He could not leave his future wife alone in the Forbidden Forest when he had made her a promise that he would protect her and stay by her side. " _Tonks_!" Remus heard the Wolf yell in a gruff and coarse voice as he stormed into the woods, wand held at the ready just in case he encountered something unfavorable along the way and needed to defend himself. Or her, his conscience offered unhelpfully, and with a vicious snarl that caused him to bare his teeth, he shook his head violently to clear it.

Lupin felt his footfalls become even heavier as he practically stomped his way through the thick brush and thicket of the forest, heading deeper into what he had a sinking feeling was the centaurs' territory, as he allowed himself to become even more separated from Newt and Sirius.

" _Tonks_!" he growled again. "If you can hear me, answer me, Dora!"

He was met with nothing but silence. Silence. Remus growled and clenched his free hand not clutching onto his wand in a tight vice-grip into a fist and balled it at his side in a vain effort to prevent himself from lashing out at something in anger. What kind of a damned forest _was_ this?

He continued walking the twisted path in a straight line, though he could see it veered off in at least four different directions, and he cringed.

Remus sincerely hoped that Dora's little white ball of misty light had led her in the direction he was currently traversing, because he had no idea, honest-to-Merlin if he was going in the right direction or not at all.

Gradually, Lupin felt his quickened pace beginning to slow as the sheer hopelessness of the situation felt like a weighted burden on his shoulders. Tonks hadn't even gone this way for all Remus knew! Sirius was a man who prided himself on being confident, most times to the point of coming across as a bit of a smug bastard, but back there he had seemed so…confused. It hadn't been like Black at all to be confused! This too had probably just been a trick of the forest on Black's mind.

Remus frowned, biting the inside wall of his cheek. It was a rather pitiful feeling, what he felt right now. An immense wave of regret and sickness that caused a coil in his stomach to twist and churn. Would he ever see Tonks again? This was now the second time in the span of three or four days that they had been separated. Fate, that cruel bastard, seemed intent on keeping the two of them apart. Was it to punish him?

It had to be. As he, a half-blooded werewolf, a curse, and a plague upon society with his lycanthropy, had dared to fall in love with a witch?

Regret washed over him like the long, slow waves on a shallow beach. Each wave was icy cold and sent shivers of regret and remorse down his spine. How he longed to go back and take a different path, not to yell at her, but now that was impossible. There was no way back. Only forward.

He should…he should not have yelled at her, but he should have been firmer and more insistent that Tonks return to the Hospital Wing with Sirius. If she _had_ , then maybe she would not have gotten lost in this place.

And if Remus couldn't even use his own wolfish senses to find himself out of this damned dark forest, then how could he be expected to retrieve his future wife? A truly _fine_ husband he would make. He couldn't even protect her! By Merlin's Beard, he did not even know where Tonks was!

And Tonks, oh, Dora! What would become of his fiancée? Would she eventually find her own way out? And what about the Obscurus, Ollie?

What had happened to _him_? Was he injured? Dead or dying, bleeding out in the ditch of a ravine somewhere deep in the forest that Merlin Himself only knew where the younger man might be hiding!

Would Tonks be rescued by someone other than him? Or would she be found by something more sinister like one of the centaurs or…worse?

Remus swallowed down hard past the swelling lump in his throat as he glowered angrily out into the thick white mist covering his path.

He did not want his Dora to meet such a cruel end. Not when the two of them had so much to live for. They were going to become _parents_ , for Merlin's sake!

He could not allow her to die in the Forest. Not when she had done so much for him and had saved Lupin's life on more than one occasion, though Tonks had no idea of the simple yet profound effect she'd had on him. She had pulled him out of that dark place of misery and woe.

Tonks had filled him with rejuvenated sense of purpose by daring to fall in love with him, and Tonks did not deserve to be lost and forgotten like this, though knowing that he had somewhat of a hand in causing this caused Lupin's heart to feel heavy, his footsteps like lead as his feet dragged him forward, and made him want to swear and shout at the top of his lungs. It caused him to wish he could _burn_ this entire forest to the ground for taking his fiancée and mother of their unborn child from him.

Just as he was about to start throwing things in anger and ripping apart the forest bit by bit until he found her, Remus heard something which alerted his wolfish hearing and caused his ears to perk up and he felt a muscle within his jaw and behind his right eyelid give a little twitch.

It was almost muted, a small sound, incredibly faint, like a whisper. So quiet, in fact, that Lupin wasn't even sure his wolfish hearing had heard it at all. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, listening closer. There it was.

Remus could hear it plainly now, no matter how quiet it was, and it wasn't just the swaying of the trees' limbs in the breeze or the rustling of the leaves of some animal. It sounded like some sort of whimpering or crying.

" _Dora_ ," he exclaimed, feeling his heart give a painful little lurch.

And then he heard someone scream and his blood turned to ice in his veins. It was the kind of scream that made his blood run cold, piercing his brain, and igniting the wolfish instinct to protect and defend within him.

Adrenaline surged through his veins, fight, or flight, stand or run, be a hero or a coward. As his fingers curled around the handle of his wand, his decision was made instinctively for him. He was a former Gryffindor, and he knew that scream well. Tonks was in danger. _Have to save her_!

The scream came again and tore through him like a great shard of glass. It made the hair stand straight up on the back of his neck. It was the loudest, most piercing scream Remus thought he had ever heard in his life. Hers sounded like a scream of wild panic intermingled with agony.

A scream of hysteria and disbelief, bordering on terror, and of pain.

Lupin felt the blood drain from his face, and before he was even aware of making a conscious decision, his legs were pounding furiously on the uneven muddy path ahead of him, his ears straining for more sounds.

More clues as to where Dora's scream had come from. A cry of pain, another shout, anything…

He had no _clue_ as to what he'd do when he got there, just that he had to get there and fast. He had to save his fiancée. Remus could barely see in the darkness, the light was so dim that his heartbeat thrummed that much faster, and he waved his wand and blasted a rather thick, thorny bush that was in his way, careful to step back this time so as to avoid a repeat of Sirius's fate of having his arm or any other body part impaled by the sharp-looking vicious, large thorns.

He heard himself exhale a tense relief as his gaze fell upon Dora, he had found her! Though tension immediately met his eyes and just as quickly as the good feeling of sweet, blissful relief had come at finding her, it was gone. Someone had already beaten him to Tonks, another Wolf-like him.

A She-Wolf. He could smell the pheromones emanating off her. He could smell her as his nostrils flared wildly in anger, like that of an enraged bull, though the sight before poor Lupin caused him to freeze in his tracks.

The scene that lay before him was a heart-wrenching one, and he felt his stomach gave a painful lurch as he rushed toward Tonks's side, who was practically curled up into a ball and clutching her stomach, eyes tightly closed in a grimace, and she seemed unable to pull her gaze away from Ollie, who was barely alive, though the steady rise and fall of his chest and a horrible, rasping sound coming from his throat was the only indicator the man was still alive.

He practically dropped to his knees in his haste to appear at Tonks's side, clutching her in his arms and using the back of a particularly wide and tall dark oak tree for support to hold her. Remus glanced upward and found that they were not alone. Directly in front of the pair of them stood the same She-Wolf that he had smelled but a fraction of a second ago, resembling more of a rabid beast than a young woman, who looked a few years younger than him, in her early thirties.

Her pretty, elfin-like features were contorted with rage as she seemed to tower over the threat and brand new problem that was now staring Remus and Tonks directly in the face, her nostrils flaring like a furious wild mustang. The petite blonde She-Wolf's gloved fists were clenched, and her head framed by golden wheat blonde hair cut short in a pixie cut, even shorter than Tonks's, was reared back in a defiant manner.

The She-Wolf had her wand directly pointed at something in front of her, though given the thick din of this mist, it was a wonder she could even see anything, though what she was afraid of, Remus couldn't say for sure.

The She-Wolf's unmistakable crouching body language made it quite clear to Lupin and whatever threat she was protecting the two of them from, that she was not planning on letting whatever it was getting any closer to Tonks, which Remus immensely appreciated, though he did not know this She-Wolf's name, or what she wanted with Tonks, if she had been the one to find her and Ollie like this.

At that moment, she gnashed her teeth, the edges of her lips curling upwards to reveal her gums and almost unnaturally sharp canines.

Lupin squinted into the vast blanket of white that hung heavy in the forest, struggling to see whatever it was that this She-Stranger, this other werewolf saw that he could not, and then it hit him. _Does she live here_?

If so, it would make sense why her senses were accustomed to living in the Forbidden Forest, whereas it felt as though his abilities struggled.

The fog suffocated every tree at their base, swallowing them as they vanished around every crevice and corner of the clearing they were in.

Lupin let out a low warning growl of his own as he watched the figures step from the shadows, two of them, one he recognized and his heart swelled with the briefest flickers of hope as Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped into view, while the other sent his mind and heart into a spiraling rage.

He felt the Mad Beast within the confines of his chest let out a snarl.

"Hello, dear. Thank _Merlin_ above the two of you are all right. We've been searching for you the better part of an hour and a half, at best," a high-pitched almost falsetto voice sounded, and a girlish giggle escaped the Stranger's lips.

Remus's eyes narrowed and the Wolf's growl within him intensified as the short, stout form of none other than Dolores Umbridge stepped from the shadows, and in her arrogant triumph, she smirked. Just a small pouting of the lips and a narrowing of her eyes as her gaze landed on Tonks's limp form currently cradled in Lupin's arms, and a slight tilting of her head. It was so subtle, and it was infuriating for Remus.

A grin spread over Dolores Umbridge's pudgy face, wide and open, showing her over-whitened, bleached teeth. At that moment, her motives were laid bare. She was a mocker, and she was here to take Dora away. She was one who enjoyed whatever torment she could inflict on others, her pink, honey-sweet aura practically radiated, emanating off of her in waves. Remus felt the Mad Beast let out a snarl as he growled.

The She-Wolf standing directly between Umbridge and him was now the only barrier standing between himself and the Senior Undersecretary, and Lupin felt a surge of hot fiery anger and adrenaline course through his veins, though he made no move to stand or relinquish his strong grip on Tonks's limp form in his arms.

He could not allow any more harm to come to Tonks. He wouldn't. Remus would rather die than allow Dora to be taken from him again. He would protect her, defend her.

Just as _she_ had protected _him_.


	69. Umbridge's Uglification

**CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE **

Norah Jameson snarled and growled like the vicious, savage She-Wolf she knew herself to be, digging the heels of her black boots firmly into the forest ground beneath her feet and firmly standing her ground.

She was _not_ going to allow this Auror and this He-Man, though he seemed kind, and judging by the familiar look in his eyes he shot the unconscious young witch and the He-Wolf behind him, he knew her.

But the other, the short, stout and somewhat pudgy witch clad entirely in pink who resembled that of a toad more so than a woman…

The She-Wolf knew this bitch. Recognized that false, honey-sweet smile that did not quite reach the aging witch's eyes. The Wolf silently seethed, teeth clenched shut in anger, her shaking hand clutching onto her wand barely able to hold her wand steady as her swirl of darkening thoughts clouded her mind, hazy with revenge.

_I wasn't a hero until you came after my boy. Then it was war. You crossed the line and I don't forget. I won't rest until you're beaten - and I don't mean just beaten down. I mean dead, you bitch. There isn't a place you can hide, I will find you, kill you. I don't much care how it happens, I don't need you to suffer, I just need you extinguished from this universe. I'm coming for you, Umbridge. Just know it._

She did not trust the sweet, simpering, fake smile plastered onto her made-up face. It felt as though Time itself had stopped, and Time here had a way of moving slower, a bit different in this enchanted forest than outside of her borders, though by the way the pink-clad witch waved her wand and scrunched her nose in disgust at the stirring, mauled figure of the Dark Man, who, much to Norah's disappointment was not all the way dead, though was now short an eye and missing a few of his fingers, watched in silence as a length of metal iron-wrought chains burst forth from the tip of the witch's wand and proceeded to snake their way around the man's torso and bound his arms in front of him, preventing his escape.

"At _last_ ," breathed the witch clad in pink in a girlish giggle as she gave a harsh tug of the length of a chain currently clutched in her hands, violently pulling the Man to his fist. "You've caused me no small amount of trouble, Mr. Crouch. Causing myself and Mr. Shacklebolt to trek through the entirety of the Forbidden Forest just to find you here causing no small amount of trouble. All those months of waiting have paid off and I am the victor here, Bartemius. I know _you_ were the individual responsible for the murders of all those poor innocent little girls and young women, dearie."

The Senior Undersecretary clucked her tongue in disappointment and shifted her gaze towards the other Wolf, and the young witch in his arms.

"I am sorry to be the one to inform you of this, Mr. Lupin, but it was Mr. Crouch here who forced the consumption of an herb known as silphium down your beloved intended's throat in her tea. I am afraid if you don't act and relatively quickly, she's going to _lose_ your baby," Dolores Jane Umbridge sighed, almost sounding remorseful, which, for reasons unknown to her, set Norah's blood aflame, as she did not think that it sounded sincere.

_No. No, no, no, no…._ Lupin felt his face drain of color and his grip tightened on his fiancée's waist, though one look at her face was enough.

She was sick, and losing their baby if he could not get her help, and fast.

Norah's ears perked up at the mention of the other werewolf's name. At least now she knew the Wolf's name. _Lupin_ , she thought, biting the inside wall of her cheek, and waited for the young witch to elaborate. _I know of this one_ , she thought wildly, running her tongue along the top wall of her teeth. _Is it really him?_

"It truly is a _shame_ , Mr. Lupin, that I had to be the one to break such news to you," she whisper hissed through gritted teeth, almost growling it as her beady eyes narrowed as she looked at the girl.

Norah blinked, feeling like she was coming down off her waves of hatred that was igniting her bloodstream in her veins hot as dragon fire.

The She-Wolf need only glance behind her to tell the woman a little bit younger than she was suffering. The poor witch was practically curled in on herself, her face squeezed tightly shut in a grimace, her already pale skin almost chalk-white, clammy. Every few minutes, the pink-haired She-Stranger would scream, not like someone being tortured, but even worse than that. It had a raw quality; the realness of a person being consumed by a pain that knew no end or limit.

Then she would go quiet, just panting, the only solace and comfort were that her mate murmurings soothing remarks into the shell of her ear, this Lupin who had stumbled in the clearing at just the right time, because if Norah held a prayer of saving the little wolf cub growing inside the young witch's belly, she'd need a second person to help her, for she could not be left alone unsupervised for this. No. She needed him now.

" _You_ ," Dolores Jane Umbridge growled to Crouch as Kingsley Shacklebolt kept his wand trained squarely at Barty Crouch Jr.'s chest, and she gave a harsh tug of his restraints, causing him to stumble forward, "are not going _anywhere_. I do believe our Minister of Magic would be delighted to see you back behind bars where you belong, Bartemius." Umbridge turned Crouch about so that Barty was forced to look upon the pair, practically forced the deranged Death Eater to look at Mr. Lupin clutching onto Miss Tonks's pale and unmoving, unresponsive form.

Tears had begun to flow down the wretched wolf's face as he cradled the young witch as if she were the most delicate thing in his existence.

" _Look_ at him!" The Senior Undersecretary ordered in a voice that she hoped did not betray her true intentions, giving Crouch a fierce shake as her grip tightened on the man's shoulders.

Crouch did not respond, an impassive expression on his face.

Umbridge continued, seemingly unfazed by his face devoid of all warmth or any emotion. "Does that not look like a man who has no idea what love is? Does this not look like a man who would not give anything to have her back? What have you _done_ , Bartemius?" she growled, though internally, she was smug and feeling quite pleased with herself. "I am placing you under arrest, Mr. Crouch, on at least ten counts of kidnapping and attempted murder, not to mention the rape and molestation of at least a _dozen_ Muggle women." She leaned in so that the tip of her nose was practically touching Crouch's and offered up a sneer.

When Crouch did not respond, his face stoic and impassive, Umbridge took that as her sign to continue. "You are thereby guilty of the treasonous crime of acting against your fellow wizard kind by the kidnapping of one of our own Ministry's Aurors. I think I should send an owl to Azkaban Prison, dear, wouldn't you agree? I think the Dementors will soon find themselves short a prisoner?" she simpered, glaring at him.

"I'll be welcomed back like a _hero_ ," Crouch spat through a mouthful of blood disgustedly and crinkled his nose in disgust, the empty hole where his right eye socket used to be commanding most of the She-Wolf's attention. Norah furrowed her brows as the Dark Wizard turned his head to the side and coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood and revealing blood-stained teeth, his wide, unnatural Cheshire-Cat smile sending a shiver down her spine. "If I am to be escorted back to Azkaban, then let it be known for the records that _you_ , Madame Undersecretary, were the one provided me with the herb to cause Alice to miscarry the wretch. You will not pin that on me. More of your lies, Madame Umbridge." As best he could, he dug into the pocket of his trench coat, fumbling a crumpled piece of paper, balling it in his bleeding hands, now short a few fingers and trembling maddeningly and tossing it at Umbridge, where it landed at her feet. "Whom will you bring _that_?" he spat.

Remus felt quite certain that once again, his wolfish hearing had deceived him. He felt his ears prick up at Barty Crouch's confession.

This…this could _not_ be true. Umbridge had caused this?! _How_?! He…he _had_ to be lying! It was what Crouch _did_.

"You _lie_!" he growled, not even aware that his voice had risen in anger. Before he could even fathom what he was doing, as gingerly as he could, set Tonks's form down on the forest floor, careful to mind her head, and Lupin felt his eyes narrow in utter disgust and hatred at the insane, deranged former Slytherin student, who he and Lily had caught all those years ago in this same forest with Alice Prewitt before they graduated.

Lupin felt pleased to see that Crouch was now looking upon Remus with such unbridled fear, such terror in his eyes as Lupin stalked towards him, that he knew the bound and chained prisoner was seeing the shadow of the Wolf within him dart across his handsome and lined features.

A deep, yet low growl left the confines of his throat as Crouch immediately shrank away, though the feat was difficult given how bound tight and coiled into his iron-wrought chains that he was trapped. Remus reached out a strong hand and grasped the man by a length of chain, pulling him close and closing off the gap of space so that his nose practically touched that of Crouch's, thrusting his face into Barty's.

" _You_. _Lie_." Remus did not flinch when he felt Crouch's body thud against the trunk of the tree that Lupin had effectively cornered Barty against, and his fingers wound even tighter around the man's throat. When Crouch did not respond, he felt the Mad Beast within roar and snarl his disapproval. "Tell me what you know. I _detect_ when you _lie_ …" Lupin felt his light brown eyes darken and glint with what felt like unsurmountable stress, and he didn't care that Crouch or Umbridge was seeing him in his most desperate of stances and his desperation swelled.

"She…did it…gave me….the herb…Umbridge…her fault…" was all Crouch could manage to rasp out, his lips practically turning blue the tighter Remus's grip around Crouch's throat wound up, like poison ivy tendrils snaking their way down the pillar of an old building. "Umbridge…did it."

Lupin let out an animalistic snarl and squeezed even harder. He was _not_ going to tolerate Crouch's _lies_. No more tricks or roundabout answers.

" _Remus_. Stop this. He's not worth the trouble, Remus. Stop. _Look_." A deep baritone voice, low and rumbling, reached his ears, a familiar voice, and it took him a second to realize Kingsley was speaking to him.

" _What_?" he barked angrily, his tone dark and light brown eyes almost black in color he was so upset. If this were true, what Crouch was saying, then by Merlin's Beard, he did not care what happened to him at all.

The Wolf would kill them _both_. Lupin swiveled his head sharply to the left and felt his eyes widen in shock and surprise. Tonks had somehow miraculously regained consciousness and was barely able to stand up.

Without even thinking, he relinquished his grip on the Death Eater's throat and immediately shoved him back hard against the tree trunk, not so much as bothering to spare the dark-haired man a second glance as Lupin heard his chained frame collide heavily against the splintering wood. _Good_. He didn't give a _damn_ about Crouch at this point and time.

Not when his entire world looked like she was about to collapse in on herself. It was even a miracle Dora could stand upright, though she swayed on the spot as she clutched at her stomach with one hand, the other hand currently wrapped around the trunk of a tree to support herself, and she would have fallen had it not been for him shooting an arm to grab at her waist and catch her when she started to sway on the spot.

"Careful," Norah piped up gently as Remus draped an arm over her shoulder to better support her weight. "Be sure to support her, Lupin."

Remus coldly met the She-Wolf's gaze, this female Stranger whose name he did not even know, nor did he understand why this werewolf had chosen to protect his mate and shot the young blonde a cold, stony glare. "I would _never_ harm her, _Wolf_!" he snarled angrily, spitting her title as though it were poison on his tongue, baring his teeth, and let out a growl, to which the She-Wolf responded in kind with a hardened glare and a vicious snarl of her own, though to her credit, she didn't flinch.

Tonks's face was entirely too pale to be considered healthy, and she struggled to take a half step forward. Her gaze was fixated on Crouch.

Her glistening gray orbs flickered between that of Barty and Dolores Umbridge for several long minutes, before a half-choked little sob escaped the confines of her chest and lips as her gaze drifted down to Ollie, and Remus could not imagine the overwhelming sense of relief that she felt at seeing the barely noticeable rise and fall of Ollie Brennan's mauled chest.

He was alive. But only just, and if he did not receive immediate medical attention, then he wasn't going to make it. Judging from the puncture wounds on his arms and neck, it looked as though he had been attacked by an Acromantula, though not a fully grown adult. He cringed.

Remus flinched when Tonks spoke, her attention now fixed solely on Kingsley Shacklebolt, the only other person in the vicinity aside from himself that she could currently trust wholly. "Kingsley, he—he's telling the truth," she croaked out hoarsely in a voice that sounded cautious. With somewhat fumbling, shaking fingers, she pointed towards Ollie's still unresponsive form. He had yet to regain consciousness. "My best friend is a natural-born Legilimens and made sure to tell me the truth only just now. I—I don't know how, given his current state, but he needs medical attention immediately. You need to take him to Severus Snape. _Please_. Save him."

Remus blinked, feeling quite certain he'd misheard her, and his lips parted open slightly in shock. He had known that the two of them did not get along or often see eye-to-eye on matters, though the flashing steel in her gray orbs and the way she firmly dug her boot heels into the ground, despite grinding her teeth with the effort to keep from crying out in pain, told Lupin everything he needed to know: that his fiancée was serious.

"Take him to Snape," she continued, ignoring Lupin's stupefied expression as Kingsley quickly nodded his agreement and knelt at Ollie's side to help the battered, broken man to his feet. "H—he was a—attacked by an Acromantula, not an adult, thank Merlin, b—but Snape should know how to counteract the—the poison," she gasped, clutching her side.

Kingsley rose with Ollie, who was barely cognizant and not aware of his surroundings, much less even the fact that he was alive, and glared at Umbridge. "I will take him," he promised solemnly, his deep, booming voice soothing and comforting to Remus's wolfish hearing. He glared at Umbridge. "If what Mr. Brennan's evidence against you holds true, Madame Undersecretary, then I have no other choice available to me but to hold you accountable for this heinous crime," he growled, his deep baritone sounding like a roll of thunder as he almost shouted at Dolores. "By order of the Ministry of Magic, under the guidance of Minister Rufus Scrimgeour, I hereby place the both of you under arrest for the crime—"

But Kingsley did not get a chance to finish his statement as a welly-crafted arrow made from the bark of a willow tree whizzed past his ear, narrowly missing the man's golden hoop earring he wore in his ear.

Dolores Umbridge, out of a knee-jerk reaction, raised her wand and sent a well-aimed Stunning Spell from where the strike had come from.

Then, there the spell cracked against the bark of a tree, practically splintering the wood and the sounds of horse hooves pounding on the ground came thundering and reverberated in Remus's ears as he stared.

Both Tonks and Lupin looked towards the source of the noise, and Remus heard Tonks's muffled gasp of pained surprise as not one, but four centaurs emerged from the clearing, their arrows pointed directly at her.

Umbridge's face was pale as if hit by a blizzard, and her lips agape in shock and she swallowed nervously, her wand raised directly in their path.

Kingsley Shacklebolt's wand was kept trained on Umbridge, one hand supporting Ollie, and the hand also clutching his wand held tightly to the length of magically enchanted iron-wrought chains, holding Crouch captive. All of them watched as Dolores Jane Umbridge's lip quivered.

The stout witch clad in pink raised a shaking finger and pointed it at the head centaur, who appeared to be this particular herd's leader.

"Y—you have _no_ business here, centaurs!" Umbridge shouted, though her voice cracked and wavered, and Remus could tell the Senior Undersecretary's tone lacked the conviction to sell the argument she really wanted to make. "This is a Ministry of Magic official investigation!"

The lead centaur, a powerful beast with a brilliant azure coat and a thick, braided black mane did not heed Umbridge's warning, and snorted in frustration, pulling an arrow from the quiver worn slung on his back.

"Lower your weapons!" came the shaking command of Umbridge. "I—I'm warning you! Under the law, as beasts, creatures of near-human intelligence, I—" But she let out a yelp as one of the other centaurs reared back on its hind legs and let out a frustrated snort, and the arrow the leader had loaded was promptly released and fired directly at Umbridge for the insult. She let out a squeak of fear and promptly darted behind Remus, who felt a surge of anger in his veins and stepped aside.

"You, _wolf_!" she spat venomously as the thundering of hooves split the silence as the pack of centaurs drew even closer, closing off the distance through the bleak landscape, cries of outrage escaping their mouths, "tell these filthy half-breed _monsters_ that I mean them no harm! _Lupin!_ "

Learning from Tonks that Umbridge was the sole person behind Tonks's misery, why she might be the very cause that Tonks was now in danger of miscarrying their baby, why she could barely stand up, was the breaking point of Lupin's patience. At that moment, Remus was blinded by a five-course serving of rage that tasted bitter, yet surprisingly good.

Umbridge was causing Tonks to lose their baby. This…was _her_ fault. _All her fault. Make her pay. Suffer. Rip. Kill. Tear her apart_. The Wolf within him was raging, and this time, Remus did not bother silencing its growls. He felt his face become rigid, jaw clamped tightly shut, teeth grinding, eyes locked on the herd of wrathful looking centaurs as they approached.

Fires of fury and hatred were smoldering in his light brown eyes as he heard Tonks give off a tiny groan of pain and doubled over, clutching at her stomach, and she would have fallen if he hadn't been steadily maintaining his tight grip on her waist. He weighed the pros and cons of the various and creative means available to him for exacting revenge.

And finally, he found his voice, recollecting what Harry had told him and Sirius of something Umbridge had forced him to write as lines while serving detention in his own blood with an enchanted black quill of hers. "I'm sorry, Madame Undersecretary," he spat, equally coldly as he swiftly sidestepped out of the way, pulling Tonks with him as gently as he could to allow the centaurs to advance fully upon Umbridge's cowering form. "But you know better than anyone here, Dolores," he snarled, baring his teeth and keeping his grip firmly on Tonks's waist to support her. "What was that you used to tell Harry Potter, Umbridge. Ah. I think I remember it now. I must not tell _lies_ …" he hissed through gritted teeth, and as Lupin took a half step forward towards Dolores and the herd of centaurs, he was pleased to see the unbridled fear the stout pink-clad witch held of him as the shadow of the Wolf darted and flitted across his features, coming and going the angrier Remus allowed himself to get over this.

The look of utmost fear on her ashen face was _worth_ his cold words.

"No!" she screamed, violently tugging her arm back as the leader of this particular herd of centaurs, along with another one of his kind grabbed at her arms and began to pull her back away, deeper into the Forbidden Forest. "Help me!" Umbridge protested wildly, spittle flying from her lips.

"No, I don't think I _will_ , Madame Undersecretary," Remus spat, hearing the anger practically dripping from his words. "You deserve whatever they plan to do, Dolores, and more than that. You've as good as _murdered_ our unborn baby, tried to _murder_ my wife, and put her through unspeakable torment that no living human being should ever have to suffer. I consider myself a _merciful_ man, Madame Undersecretary, but even _I_ have my limits, and you have gone too far with this. Do not look to _me_ or anyone _else_ here to help you. You'd better start praying to Merlin and ask _Him_ for a favor because that's the _only_ help you're going to get. I will not kill you, but I don't have to _save_ you, Umbridge," he snarled, feeling the edges of his lips curl upwards, sneering. Remus watched in immense satisfaction as the small herd of centaurs carried Umbridge's pink-clad form off deeper into the Forbidden Forest and let out a growl.

He waited until the stout witch's screams had become all but non-existent, and he, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Crouch, and the She-Wolf were all left to stare after the space where the centaurs had stood moments ago.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was the first to break the awkward silence. "Well. That could have gone _worse_ than I expected," he grumbled, though he was looking at Remus with no small amount of respect in his glistening orbs. "You might not want to admit it to yourself, Remus, but I don't think even you can deny this about yourself, that you've got style," he complimented. He paused and gave a tug of Crouch's chains in his hand, jerking the man forward, ignoring the Death Eater's startled yelp of surprise as the man with the viciously mauled face that looked as though he'd been attacked by a savage wolf or a dog almost stumbled on a nearby tree root. "We cannot stay here. _Both_ of you," Kingsley added, jerking his head towards Tonks, who was still being supported by Remus, barely able to stand, and then his gaze flitted towards Ollie Brennan, who was beginning to stir, "need medical attention and a place to heal and rest, and _this_ ," he growled, spitting his words more than speaking them, giving another harsh tug upon the chain that bound Barty Crouch Jr., shooting the dark-haired handsome man a withering glower, "needs to be sent to Azkaban."

"W—we have to go back. We c—can't leave… Umbridge alone…" a soft voice spoke up, shattering the tension between the three wizards.

Remus felt his head whiplash sharply upwards as he turned to regard Tonks, feeling quite certain that it was not his Dora who'd spoken just now.

But no. There was a fierce determination, a surge, and flash of steel in her glistening gray eyes, still fresh with tears even as she clutched at her stomach, and was forced into a kneeling position by Remus as he sat with her on the ground, rubbing small circles in her back and blinking back tears of his own at the thought of what Umbridge had done to her.

The fact that they might _lose_ their baby, because of _her_ , was too much. And now, here Tonks was, in so much pain and suffering, and somehow, she was still finding courage within herself to admit that she did not want to leave Umbridge to her unknown fate in the centaurs' camps?

"Love, let Professor Dumbledore deal with Umbridge," Remus soothed, his voice cracking and faltering as his gaze drifted towards the She-Strange, the petite She-Wolf with the short blonde pixie cut, who was currently regarding Tonks with a look quantifiable to pity in her eyes.

"B—but…" But Tonks's voice broke and trailed off as Lupin shot her an uncharacteristically wolfish glower and she mutely nodded. "Okay."

It seemed to take him an eternity to find his voice again, and when he did, he looked towards the blonde She-Stranger, wanting to know her name. "Thank you," he managed at last, albeit with some great difficulty. "I could tell by your stance that you were trying to protect her, but why?"

"Because I cannot allow her to lose the wolf cub," the She-Wolf answered, though she seemed surprised by Remus asking her a question. She sighed and tucked back a stray wisp of blonde hair behind her ear and squinted into the forest. "In fact, if you've any hope of saving your cub, I'm going to need a second pair of hands. I need to go and find a root those of us here in the forest like to call 'shadow weed.' It has many medicinal properties and if I can find some quick enough, it will save your little cub."

Lupin heard Tonks's half-choked sob of relief and he felt fresh tears spring to his eyes. "Y—you would help us? Without even knowing us?"

The She-Wolf nodded as she had bounded forward on the soles of her boots, hellbent on finding this weed before Tonks could lose her baby. "Yes," she answered simply, and when she turned back to regard Remus and Tonks from the spot on the forest floor resting against the trees, there was a look of such heartbreak and sadness, he did not think he could bear it.

"How?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"I know _of_ you, Mr. Lupin. Of what you have done in an attempt to make a better life for wolves. How you have advocated for our kind to live long and fulfilling lives. You advocate for us to marry, have jobs. I think that you can help us achieve that, and that is your answer as to your ' _why_.' _If_ I help you, if I _save_ _your_ _baby_ , would you speak to the Minister of Magic? Ask Minister Scrimgeour if he will repeal the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act. My tribe has lived in this Forest long enough."

Remus quickly nodded, as did Tonks, though he noticed she could barely keep her eyes open as he shifted her in his arms, so her head was resting against the crook of her elbow. If this woman would save their baby, he would do whatever it took to help this She-Wolf and her people.

"I will," he promised solemnly, feeling his voice grow stronger as the newfound flicker of hope, just a small ember flame, ignited in his chest at the slim chance that this She-Stranger would be able to save their baby.

The thirty-year-old blonde nodded and made to turn on her heel in order to leave and find the herb that she needed to save this woman's baby, though hearing Remus call out to her and the desperation in his tone, she stopped and paused, turning back around to look the man dead in the eye.

"Y—your name," he stammered quietly, feeling a surge of panic as he watched Tonks's face contort into a pained grimace. "What's your name?"

Norah Jameson hesitated, biting the inside wall of her cheek, but only for a fraction of a second. This was the longest that she had ever conversed with another of her kind, one who had defied what was considered the norm in their society of werewolves by attempting to reject what he was and live amongst the humans, other witches, and wizards, though this man, Remus Lupin, was something of a well-known figure in her clan further back in the encampment, though she never thought that she would one day meet him. Though he seemed quite kind.

It was that which she could detect no animosity or hatred in the man's tones that caused the faintest ghost of a smile to flit across her pale features, and she shot the distraught male werewolf what she hoped was a kind smile.

"Norah, Mr. Lupin. Norah Jameson," she said, at last, her kind, shy voice floating through the breeze as it reached his eardrums.

He nodded in response. "Remus," he answered by means of response. The man gave a sharp jerk of his head towards the woman in his arms. "And this is my…my partner, Nymphadora, though she prefers to go by Dora or her surname, Tonks," he whispered, his voice sounding hoarse.

Norah smiled. "Your mate really is quite something. She would make one hell of a She-Wolf, Mr. Lupin, if you don't mind my saying so. I saw the whole thing. She—she transformed into a Wolf, her Animagus form, I suspect, and attacked this man," she growled, letting out a savage snarl as she turned towards Crouch, who shrank back at seeing her sharp canines.

Remus blinked owlishly, feeling his face pale in shock, though Norah Jameson gave him no time to respond as her inquisitive blue eyes flitted back down to regard the young witch clutched in a vice grip in his arms.

"You must mean a great deal to her, Remus Lupin, You're very lucky."

Lupin felt his whole body stiffen in response, shocked by Norah's words, and he could not help but ask, somewhat cautiously, "Why?"

Norah smiled and shook her head as if disappointed he had not already figured it out for himself. "To have a mate that would risk her life for you."

Then the female werewolf turned on the heel of her boot and disappeared into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, leaving Remus too stunned for words, only able to pray she returned with the weed in time.

For he did not think that he could bear it if they lost their baby. Though as he watched Norah Jameson disappear further into the woods, hearing the crunch of the leaves beneath her black leather boots, he could not help but wonder if, in time, the female She-Wolf would prove herself to be someone invaluable in his life.

Someone that he and Tonks could one day maybe even call a friend.


	70. Forgiveness and Redemption

**CHAPTER SEVENTY**

Lupin let out a shaking breath as he put a hand on Tonks's shaking shoulder, and looked up toward Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had not made to leave yet with Crouch. Remus narrowed his eyes and assessed Tonks's condition.

Other than the fact that she was in immediate danger of miscarrying their baby, which frightened him more than anything else he could possibly think of, he could detect no lacerations or broken bones. Pains tore through her lower stomach, wracking her body with pitiful, mewling sobs, cramping her entire lower half as she practically curled into a fetal ball in an attempt to fight the wave of her pains.

"Love? Talk to me. I—I need you to stay awake for me. A—are you hurting? What—can I do, Dora? _Tell_ _me_ …" Remus begged, biting the inside wall of his cheek, watching as Tonks breathed in and out frantically. Poor Dora was practically clawing at his arms with her small hands as though she were afraid Remus might vanish again before her very eyes if Lupin didn't maintain his iron-like grip on her waist, the other hand finding purchase in her hair and smoothing back a few strands, which were damp with sweat, off of her forehead, a sheen of perspiration gathered on her browbone, and he did not like how pale she was looking.

There was a long but shallow cut on the left side of her neck, just above her collarbone. He couldn't be sure, but as he allowed the pads of his fingertips to barely graze and ghost over the surface of the wound, wincing as he heard her hiss of pain as she drew in a breath of air, that it looked like the tip of a dagger had made this marking. "Did _he_ do this?"

"Y—yes," she whispered. The sound her sweet voice made was barely audible, and in fact, if he'd not already been hanging onto Dora's every movement, then he would never have heard it. Her voice came hoarse and scratchy, cracking horribly as she tried to formulate her one-word response.

Remus felt his eyes widen in shock and horror at how much just _talking_ was expending her energy, not to mention the sheer willpower it must be causing her to force her body not to expel their child from her womb. A weak nod and Lupin felt his anger resurface again and his blood boiled in his veins as he lifted his head sharply upwards to regard Kingsley.

"Get him _out_ of here before I _rip_ his throat out with _my_ _own_ _teeth_ ," Lupin snarled viciously towards Kingsley, who nodded his agreement and had to shift Ollie's weight to better support the broken man's form better.

Kingsley Shacklebolt turned towards Barty Crouch Jr., whose face had remained stoic and impassive through the entire exchange thus far, and Lupin was shocked and astonished to see a sly, sinister grin creep onto the wizard's features as the distinguished Auror jerked on the chains.

"Of course, I could just _leave_ you out here for the other werewolves, Crouch. I'm sure Fenrir's clan would be _more_ than glad to dispose of you and _rip_ you apart _themselves_ for how you've treated them over the years. It's no more than you deserve, wouldn't you say, Barty?" Kingsley said.

The Auror and Dora's coworker and their friend fell silent, and Remus watched, as for perhaps the first time since he had known Crouch Jr., how his slender, bone-white fingers pressed into the skin of his palms, as well as they could with bound wrists from his chains, nails biting into his skin, drawing beads of blood. His whole body seemed to shake, bones rattling in the constant fear of the uncertain future that loomed before him. His heart pounded so loudly against his ribcage as his pulse pressed outward, jerking the veins within, that even Remus's heightened hearing heard it.

Crouch's heart twisted and sunk with nerves as he shook, his breaths coming in short panting gasps as he tried desperately to regain even a modicum of control, but nothing was working for him, Remus could tell.

" _No_!" he begged hoarsely, his voice sound gruff and coarse, his dark eyes glistening with unshed moisture that Lupin guessed were supposed to resemble tears. "Please! H—have _mercy_! The—the wolves will _kill_ me!"

" _Why_?" growled Kingsley coldly, though his baritone voice remained even. "Give me one reason why we _shouldn't_ , Crouch. You tortured the Longbottoms. You almost _murdered_ Tonks, and now her _unborn_ _child_."

"Because…we…we'd be no better than him…this…is _not_ our way."

Kingsley and Remus turned in surprise to regard the speaker, as Tonks had shifted herself in Lupin's arms, more so to the point where she was now practically sitting upright, albeit still clutching onto her stomach, shaking violently, and barely able to lift her chin to see through her hazy fog that was supposed to represent her vision as she looked at Kingsley.

Remus stifled a small groan of frustration and gently tried to placate Dora into laying back, but she shook her head slightly in protest, and shakily, refusing his hand, rose to her feet. Lupin's eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet, one hand hovering over her waist, ready to catch her.

"I can…I can _do_ this," she murmured, her voice faint as she whisper-hissed it through gritted teeth, as she took a fumbling step forward and groaned in pain. "I—I need to do this, _please_ ," she begged, crying silently.

Lupin had no idea what it was that Tonks wanted to do, but he was not about to allow her to undergo it herself. "You _need_ to let me _help_ you."

The words tumbled unchecked out his lips as a soft, quiet plea, and Tonks nodded. Remus heaved a small, exasperated sigh at the Auror's reluctance to stay still, but assisted her in taking two tiny steps forward.

Her equilibrium was still off-balance as proved forward when she relinquished her ironclad grip on Lupin's arm and her body shot forward.

"Here!" he murmured, darting forward to catch her, and in order to better keep her balance, without even waiting for Tonks to say anything, he wrapped her arms around his neck, hoping she didn't choke him too hard as white-hot pain spasms wracked up and down her spine, not to mention whatever she might be feeling in her stomach right now as her body fought and clenched, teeth grinding with the effort not to expel their unborn child.

He shot a desperate, pleading glance behind his shoulder.

He hoped that Norah Jameson would return with that 'shadow weed' soon. The only thing Lupin could do in this instance was ensuring her arms remained wrapped around his neck, finding that, until Norah returned and saved their baby and Tonks would begin to recover, that he did not want her to do more than was absolutely necessary. Her voice, thank Merlin, Remus was pleased to hear, had sounded stronger, firm, more resolute, just now, when she had spoken to Kingsley about Crouch.

A little bit of color had returned to her complexion, and her gray eyes were glistening with a fierce intensity as she struggled to stand upright.

Kingsley pursed his lips into a thin, rigid line and scowled, though he too, just as Remus had been, was just as shocked, and Shacklebolt shook his head wildly to clear it, all the while shooting another dark glower at the chained and bound Death Eater, bound to return to Azkaban Prison.

"It really does not concern _me_ ," he retorted bitterly, and the anger and resentment dripping from the distinguished Auror's tones were spat more than spoken as he let out a tired sigh, thinking that he had no choice in the matter, though were it up to him and him alone, he'd leave him here.

He glanced toward Tonks and offered the bright young witch a soft smile and hoping the reassurance reached his eyes.

"I'm not the one who he almost _killed_ tonight," Kingsley Shacklebolt snapped, his gaze lingering on Tonks. "Now, if it pleases you, I need to get Mr. Brennan to Professor Snape and _this_ ," he snarled, giving another violent jerk forward on Crouch's chains, "is due back in Azkaban Prison at the first opportunity. I'm sure the Dementors are just _longing_ to see you," he taunted, and all three were pleased to see a flickering of fear dart across vile Barty Crouch Jr.'s pale, ashen features.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a confused frown as she watched Kingsley Shacklebolt start to lead Ollie and Crouch towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, a safe distance enough for them all to Apparate.

As she looked on, albeit with great difficulty, as her vision still came to her in ebbs and flows and she ground her teeth as a painful spasm wracked its way through her stomach, something unfamiliar to her tugged at the back of her mind, and she did not think it had anything to do with her current injuries at present.

No. This was something _different_.

Crouch, as she looked upon the towering, intimidating figure, now short one eye and missing three of his fingers, two on his left, one on the right, and sporting a nasty-looking purpling bruise just underneath his left browbone, another underneath his right eye, he looked almost… _scared_.

Pitiable. Utterly defeated. Even bound in chains, he looked frail. Weak. Lost. And despite what Barty Crouch Jr. had done to her, the assaults, the unwanted physical contact, allying with Dolores Jane Umbridge of the Ministry in an attempt to prevent her relationship with Remus, and even going as far as to cause her to try to miscarry their baby, Tonks found that deep within the recesses of her heart, she pitied him.

This was a man who throughout the entirety of his life, not only as a Crouch but as a Death Eater because he saw no other path available to him, presumably following the rejection of Alice Prewitt before she married Frank, Tonks pitied Crouch. In his own twisted psyche, she suspected that there truly was a part of Barty's black, twisted heart that genuinely loved Alice Prewitt, and when he could not have the young witch in the way that he truly wanted, he lost a part of his humanity.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and glanced down at the simple yellow gold wedding band she wore on her left ring finger, and she furrowed her brows in intense concentration, scrunching her nose as she felt her dark pink pixie cut to revert to the dark chocolate brown color that had so closely resembled Alice's Prewitt's. She did not know what, but Tonks felt compelled to try to do something for Barty Crouch Jr.

Anything at all. This vicious cycle of murders and lust and madness could not be allowed to continue as it was. It had to stop somewhere.

And it had to stop tonight. Tonks let out a muffled whine as she took a faltering step forward, with Remus practically matching her movements as her intended refused to relinquish his grip on her waist. She sighed.

" _What are you doing, Dora_?" he demanded, almost growling his question as his gaze flitted from Tonks to Crouch and then to Kingsley.

" _Please_ ," she whispered pleadingly, biting her bottom lip. "Let me."

"I…" Lupin stammered, but when Tonks turned to look at him, her gray eyes had dulled slightly and still shimmered with glistening, unshed tears, solemn and quite serious, and she bit down on her lip in anticipation. There was another emotion behind those gray orbs of hers other than heartbreak and immense pain at what her body was currently undergoing, though what that emotion was, Remus could not identify it.

Remus felt his voice crack and falter as his gaze drifted towards Kingsley and Ollie, who was, by some miracle of Merlin, beginning to stir.

Thinking quickly, Remus drew his wand and produced a non-corporeal Patronus and sent a message off to Merlin knew where in the Forest, and hopefully the message would reach Siris and Newt Scamander in time to let them know that Kingsley Shacklebolt was bringing Ollie Brennan to Severus Snape's office back up at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore and Newt should meet the young Obscurus there. He could only pray it would.

He felt hesitant, reluctant to relinquish his grip on her waist, afraid that if he did, the damned Forest would take her away from him. _Again_.

And even more so than that, he did not want Nymphadora going anywhere _near_ Crouch, given her emotionally fragile and physical condition as her body was practically fighting to the death to keep their unborn child inside of her until the She-Wolf Norah returned with what she called the 'shadow weed.'

Crouch, after what he had _done_ to her, was the _last_ person that Remus wanted around his fiancée even remotely close to right now, and he could feel the Wolf within his chest let out a growl. Though the split second that Lupin blinked and was forced back to the present reality of the situation and he met Dora's gaze, there was such a fierce determination flashing like that of the finest coat of steel through her grey eyes that he knew he would be an utter _fool_ to deny Tonks this.

Remus felt his heart give a flutter and constrict, feeling like his throat hollowed and constricted as it cut off air to his passageways, though he fought it as Tonks took another fumbling step forward, and he with her.

He was _not_ going to allow Crouch to lay so much as another _finger_ on her again, not after what the man had attempted to do to her and their baby. Yet never once had he considered himself able to deny Dora what was within his power to give, so it was with a heavy heart, he relented.

"Fine," he growled, making sure the immense displeasure seeped into his quiet, reserved tone, and by the way Tonks flinched, he knew she heard it, and it was with the utmost care and gentle nature that his hand gripped tighter on her waist, careful to be mindful of any unseen injuries.

Together, they slowly approached the spot where Kingsley stood with Crouch and Ollie. Ollie's eyes barely fluttered open and he mumbled something incoherent, though Nymphadora only had eyes for Barty as they approached, all the while the Wolf within his chest snarling and growling its disapproval, and Remus was sure, yes, he was sure, that a vicious snarl of his own escaped his own lips as he met Crouch's cold gaze.

When they were but a mere few feet apart from the Death Eater, Remus shot the dark-haired man a distrusting glower before firmly placing both of his hands on Dora's shoulders, forcing her to stand upright.

But Merlin's Beard, he wished that she would _sit_ _down_ , she could barely stand upright as it was, his poor fiancée was practically trembling and grinding her teeth with the effort of just standing here in front of him.

Crouch said nothing, a cold, impassive expression on his handsome, pale features, and Remus and Kingsley could only watch as the Death Eater and the Auror stared at one another, neither one making the first move towards the other, and yet neither of them backed away first.

Lupin did not know _what_ exactly was happening here, but his gut instinct was telling him to trust the future mother of his child, so he did.

Tonks's short pixie had reverted to its dark chocolate brown color, rich and vibrant, and Remus was astonished to see Barty Crouch Jr. promptly dip his head and turn away, almost as if ashamed to look upon the young witch who reminded him undoubtedly so much of Alice.

Though Crouch's gaze momentarily flitted upward as he dared to summon a modicum of courage to meet Nymphadora's eyes, and merely proceeded to look at her with something that Remus could only describe as an indifferent expression, his dark brown eyes no longer burning bright with rage, but had dulled to a mere ember flame and now looked listless.

Tonks, for her part, had mastered throughout her years of training as an Auror for the Ministry a look of perfect impassiveness, though Remus was not at all fooled, given by the way her entire body was shaking, one hand curled tightly around her abdomen as it fought off a wave of pain, and the other balled into a clammy fist at her side as it shook violently.

Remus had a feeling her impassiveness was less of shoving her emotions to the back of her mind and putting them away completely, and more about trying to maintain them and keep them under her control.

But Merlin, what she must be feeling for him. Remus drew in a breath and held it, watching silently, and waiting to see what his fiancée did.

"Crouch. _Look_ _at_ _me_." Tonks's command was clipped and hard, though soft, and barely audible, and Remus would have missed it had he not already been hanging onto her every single word. Crouch looked.

Crouch lifted his head and reluctantly looked against his better judgment, and Remus blinked owlishly at the top-ranking Death Eater in Lord Voldemort's ranks as he met Tonks's gaze, and settled on her face.

He knew what he was seeing. The dark hair, the same jawline, and facial structure. Tonks really did bear a striking resemblance to Alice. _Except for the eye color_ , Remus thought sadly and waited.

"I don't think this is the man that you wanted to become, Crouch, is it?" Tonks asked. "Is this the man that Merlin and your parents intended you to become? Is this life full of death and misery one that you _want_?"

Crouch's head whiplashed so sharply upward that Remus instinctively pulled Tonks back as gently as he could in order to avoid her head connecting with Barty's. Whatever he had been expecting Tonks to say to him, perhaps to scream or rant at him, maybe even physically hit him, this was most certainly not it. His brows furrowed together in quandary, the expression on his face now betrayed he was puzzled.

Tonks exhaled a shaking breath as a pressure of memories rolled within her mind at the horrible, unspeakable things Crouch did to her.

Despite this, she swallowed hard down past the growing lump in her throat and continued, shuddering as another painful spasm twisted a coil in her gut. She hoped the She-Wolf would return soon.

"Somehow, I do not believe it. I'm having trouble coming to terms with it. I don't think that you wanted this life for yourself, Crouch, and yet, regardless, you made your own choices, and this was the path that you forged for yourself. I don't think that I have it within my power to help you, and I have to admit," she growled, narrowing her eyes as she glared at him, "there is a huge part of me that does not want to forgive you. You've been keeping Ollie all along. _Torturing_ him, breaking him to the point where he can no longer control himself. You _tortured_ Frank and Alice Longbottom into insanity when it would have been a mercy and kindness simply just to end it." Her voice cracked and broke and she blinked back salty tears. "You kidnapped me, held me, prisoner, against my will. Forced me to drink an abortifacient that may or may terminate my…my…" Her voice trailed off and a half-choked sob escaped her lips, and she was barely aware of Lupin whispering something soothing into the shell of her ear.

"Come. Come away, come _away_ , you don't need to _do_ this," Remus was practically begging her, his fingers twitching as he tugged on her arm.

But Tonks shook her head no and gingerly managed to shrug her way out of Lupin's grasp. "I _have_ to do this, Rem," she whispered hoarsely.

Remus did not like it and growled in protest, though he said nothing. Lupin scowled and furrowed his brows into a frown as he studied Crouch's face. He could have sworn that he saw the briefest flickers of something unidentifiable dart through his former classmate's dark orbs.

But whatever that emotion was, as soon as it had come, it was gone.

Remus, however, had virtually time to reflect on this sudden shift in Crouch's behavior as Tonks had taken a rather shaking and tense breath and practically doubled over as another white-hot flare of pain ripped her stomach from the inside.

He heard her groan of pain and was amazed she hadn't screamed or cried once, though tears silently rolled down her cheeks. Lupin felt the familiar pang of a panic prick at his heartstrings as he gently rubbed small circles near the small of her back, helping her stand upright, hoping that in some way if she stood up straight, their baby would be safe as her body clenched and contracted to fight to expel it.

Lupin did what he could, whispering soothing remarks in the shell of her ear, gently tugging on her shoulder, trying to pull her away from him.

Tonks did not have to confront Crouch in this manner, and she shouldn't. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to tear her away from this situation, which was causing her body in its already fragile condition copious amounts of stress that might put her and their baby in further danger.

But it seemed to Remus that at this moment, given all that Crouch had put her and he supposed, to a lesser extent, her best friend, Ollie, in her own way, Dora was looking for some sort of closure at the moment, to fully be able to put what had happened to them behind her.

An end to a very long, agonizing, and brutal few weeks of torment.

Tonks shakily raised her head and squeezed Remus's hand, as if to silently convey to her partner that she would be all right, for the moment. When she spoke, she continued to keep her gaze fixated on Crouch.

"I…I don't think that I am able to help you. What little help that I could provide, I do not believe that it would ever be enough to redeem your soul for what you have _done_. You have damned yourself by choosing this way of life." She paused to draw in a frigid breath of cold fall air. "I…I don't forgive you for what you have done." Her gaze flitted to Ollie. "To Ollie. Or to me. I—I hope that in time, I can find it within myself to forgive you but now all I want is for this to _end_. The killings, the violence, to _stop_."

Crouch did not respond, favoring silence as an apt response, though there it was again, that unfamiliar look that did not fit his cold persona.

Almost… _envy_. For Tonks. For Remus. For the life, they had chosen by living in the light, forsaking the moonlight of night, declaring it cold and dark. Tonks continued as though she had not noticed the man's countenance. "I don't think there is anything I can do for you," she whispered, her voice shaking, and Lupin knew she fought back tears. "If it is in my power to do so, I am not confident in my ability that I would do it. I…I don't know, but…here…"

She paused, biting down on her bottom lip, and moved forward slightly, rummaging in her pocket for something and took a faltering step towards Crouch and pressed something into his flat, open palm. Remus craned his neck over Tonks's shoulder to see what the object was that she had given him.

Whatever it was, the thing was small. And then, something moved, and Remus froze. It was a photograph of Alice and Barty, during their seventh year at Hogwarts. And Alice was…smiling. And she looked…. genuinely _happy_. Tonks glanced back and upon noticing Remus's wide look of shock, she quietly explained.

"I—it was in her hand when I visited Alice and Frank that day in St. Mungo's," she whispered, her gray eyes filled to the brim with her tears. 

Lupin felt like his mind was reeling, and he himself almost faltered backward. Did that mean then that...Crouch and Alice really _had_ been friends, once? Was this another lie? He couldn't tell what was reality anymore of this man's life and what was fictitious, though he had no chance to ponder it as Tonks spoke up again.

She turned her attention back towards Crouch, who glanced down at the photograph and then back towards Tonks. "I don't think Alice would want this life for you, Crouch. If she were here, I think she'd be ashamed. Keep this in your cell at Azkaban Prison. Let it serve as a constant reminder that Alice would not want this life for you, Barty. And _change_."

Tonks left her words hanging in the air between them, and then Remus watched in awe as Barty Crouch Jr., a second-best lieutenant in Lord Voldemort's ranks as a Death Eater, the murderer of several dozen young children and women alike, closed his eyes and bowed his head.

It was perhaps the utmost form of respect this deranged man could give anyone, and Lupin felt his brows shoot so high up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his hairline. Kingsley was looking equally stunned, lips parted open in shock, and Tonks in her own right was seeming to look rather surprised, though she shook hers off first.

Tonks took the small sign of respect with the utmost tact and composure, taking a deep breath and took a faltering step back away from the chained Death Eater bound for Azkaban at Kingsley's earliest opportunity. It did not escape her attention that, to the best of his limited ability, given the restraints he was in, Barty Crouch held the simple photograph clutched in his hands with the utmost care and tenderness.

When Crouch lifted his chin and jutted it out slightly to better meet Tonks and Remus's gazes, Lupin could see perhaps for the first time a certain sense of vulnerability in the man's dark brown eyes as he nodded.

A fear in the man's eyes that Remus had never seen in him before.

He closed his eyes and emanated a tense exhale through his nose and shifted at the waist to regard Kingsley Shacklebolt, his chains restraining him rattling as he did so. Barty Crouch Jr. spoke for perhaps the first time their entire encounter since dealing with the Senior Undersecretary.

"Escort me back, Mr. Shacklebolt. Where I belong." Crouch's voice was so small and meek, that Remus felt sure that he had misheard the Death Eater's words.

Kingsley nodded in response, though not before giving his head a sharp, curt shake to bring himself back to reality, though Lupin himself was having immense trouble taking what they had just witnessed as real.

Auror Shacklebolt turned his head to the side and coughed once to mask his surprise at the unexpected turn of events, that Tonks, despite everything that Crouch had done for her, had found it within her to forgive the man for his heinous, unspeakable crimes against her and Ollie.

Kingsley glanced towards Remus and Tonks and then back to Ollie.

Remus could tell the man and fellow Order member was torn between two desires: to see Crouch back behind bars where he rightfully belonged, and to stay put with the two of them until help helped for her.

Tonks must have sensed what Shacklebolt was thinking, for she offered the tall man a pained smile that was more of a twisted grimace as beads of feverish sweat had gathered on her brow. " _Go_ ," she whispered. "I—I will be _fine_ , Shacklebolt. Rem is with me. We'll be _fine_ , Kingsley."

Kingsley nodded and turned towards Remus. "Mr. Scamander and Sirius will keep an eye on the boy back at the castle, and I'll inform Professor Dumbledore what's happened with Umbridge. You're _sure_ you'll be all right?" he questioned one final time in an attempt to placate Tonks.

Tonks nodded mutely, a throng of perspiration gleaming on her brow. " _Go_ , Kingsley." She encouraged, and reached instinctively for Remus's hand, and just in time too as the last of her strength in her legs failed her, and she would have fallen had Lupin not already been maintaining his grip on her waist and was able to cushion the worst of her fall and sat with her, adjusting her position so that she was resting against his chest for support.

Kingsley nodded, sensing the young Auror was not about to change her mind, gave another tug of Crouch's chains clutched in hand, albeit much more gently this time, with one hand, the other arm draped around Ollie Brennan's barely conscious form as he led them to a safe distance.

Tonks did not look away until she heard the distant, familiar _crack_! of Kingsley Disapparating back to Hogwarts with the others, thinking that the protective enchantments Professor Dumbledore had placed around the castle and its borders of the Hogwarts Grounds must still be lifted until their business within the Forbidden Forest was concluded for good.

She let out a shuddering sigh as she felt Lupin's strong hand on her shoulder and felt his chin rest upon her shoulder. Tonks parted her lips open to speak, though before she could get another word in edgewise, the rustling of the leaves behind them snapped nearby and Remus and Tonks whirled around, their defenses on alert.

Tonks practically burst into tears when it was just the blonde female werewolf, who held her wand clutched in her left hand and was holding a small vial containing a dark blue liquid. Her short blonde hair was slightly disheveled, and she was looking thoroughly disgruntled, though her face was relaxed and softened when she saw the terrified look on Tonks's face.

The She-Wolf did not waste a second in closing off the gap of space between where she stood and where Remus and Tonks stood next to Barty Crouch.

"Here," she murmured softly, holding out the vial containing the dark blue liquid. "Sorry I took so bloody long. It's almost impossible to find this damned weed in the forest, but I managed. It's the Shadow Weed of the forest mixed with a few other ingredients. Drink _all_ of it that right now, and your baby will be safe."

Tonks nodded, not needing to be told a second time. Remus took a half-step forward and gently accepted the vial from Norah Jameson, unstopping it and handing it to Tonks, who scrunched her nose at the rancid smell and had to pinch her nose just to down the disgusting liquid.

It burned her throat going down, though after a few minutes of feeling a spiraling, incredible heat course through her veins and spine, the cramps in her stomach slowly subsided, and Tonks promptly burst into tears and flung her arms around Norah Jameson's neck, who blinked.

The She-Wolf blinked owlishly and felt her body immediately stiffened, and she let out a hiss at the unexpected and unwanted physical contact, though sensing the young witch needed comfort, Norah Jameson let it go for now and instead merely proceeded to awkwardly pat Tonks on the back as the young witch clung to her frame, seizing fistfuls of the female werewolf's black leather jacket as grief and tears of relief wracked her slender, frail form.

"Thank you," Tonks croaked hoarsely. "For my…for our baby. Wh—what is your name?" Tonks whispered, pulling back slightly, wiping away the last of her tears with a well-practiced flick of her right index finger.

The She-Wolf looked stunned at being asked such a question and furrowed her brows in contemplative thought, a distrustful look in her eyes, though as her gaze flitted back to Remus and seeing him give her a silent nod, the female werewolf let out a tired sigh and relented. "Norah."

The She-Wolf furrowed her brows into a frown as she noticed the young witch, despite even having taken the bitter drink containing the Shadow Weed that would save her unborn baby growing in her belly, still seemed to have trouble breathing. "What happened, witch?" she asked, looking the young woman in the eyes as her partner tried to calm her down. "Why can't you breathe? After _all_ that I went to get that for you, you aren't going to die on me _now_ , are you?" she asked, rather gruffly.

Norah waited until the witch's tears subsided and awkwardly took a half-step back and moved to retreat to stand over by an old pinewood.

"T—Tonks," the pink-haired young witch managed to gasp out. Norah, her curiosity piqued, moved a little closer, and knelt into a crouch, just in front of the young witch and Remus Lupin to look her in the eyes. "My...my name is Tonks."

"Tonks, then," grumbled Norah in a somewhat offhanded way, and Remus frowned, though immediately had to remind himself that this She-Wolf was probably not accustomed having to deal with humans in the Forbidden Forest and that she had lived here all but her entire life.

It was only natural that she would be somewhat distrustful and apprehensive towards the first human that she had encountered in a bit.

Norah heaved a sigh and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "You're going to be all right, Tonks. You're panicking. Hyperventilating. Given what you've been through, human, it's only natural that you should feel skittish. Just try to _relax_. Deep breaths."

The young blonde witch and werewolf shot Remus an apprehensive glance as she rose to her feet and winced at the stiffness in her knees.

She grumbled to herself and shoved her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket. "I hope you brought a blanket or have a wand with you," Norah Jameson called out over her shoulder as she walked away. "It's going to be one long night. We'll go look for that pink-wearing _bitch_ in the morning," she hollered, and Remus imagined the She-Wolf rolling her eyes.

Though there was a hint of disgust in the female werewolf's tone that gave Remus pause, and wondered just exactly what kind of history this new acquaintance had with Dolores Jane Umbridge, and what the young blonde wanted with the likes of her.

Lupin was inclined to agree with her statement with just one look at Tonks.

It was going to be a very long night indeed.

* * *

**A/N: Ehh, this one might be one of my weakest chapters yet. I had to re-write it twice before I was even remotely satisfied with it. So, how did this chapter turn out? Well, I hope! Crouch will be living with the consequences to rot in a cell in Azkaban, now short an eye and several fingers, no worse than what he did to poor Ollie and Wormtail. I do have a further plan for BOTH Crouch and Umbridge as it happens, this isn't the last we see of either of them, so stay tuned my lovely readers! :)**

**Also, just to be clear, Tonks does NOT forgive Barty, not that I was expecting her to. To do that would be almost saint-like, and I didn't want to make my version of Tonks a saint. She can't. It's too fresh for her, putting her the physical and emotional abuse in allowing himself to kidnap her, assault her on the nightly, and allowing her to think Remus was dead. *Shudders* Not to mention all the stuff with Ollie. Tonks gave Crouch the photograph of her and Alice (which I'm leaving it up to reader interpretation if you think Alice and Crouch were friends or not) because she feels sorry for him, feels pity, and doesn't want the cycle of violence to continue. So she's being the stronger person in this regard and surrendering. And I made the Auror Office in this story have a code: It's not their way. They don't kill unless they're forced.**

**So, I think that's it as far as my chapter notes go! I hope you enjoyed it! :)**


	71. Of Rats and Tense Beginnings

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE**

Lupin kept his eyes focused on Tonks, who rested on the ground in front of him as the distraught wizard tried to get a good read on his fiancée, though spirals of incredible heat washed over his body as he was sure slick tears of relief would slip from his lids at any moment.

Thanks to the young She-Wolf, Norah, their baby was safe. Dora was safe. _Safe_.

It was the one word his mind kept repeating to himself like a mantra as if he himself still needed to be convinced of it, though Remus could not quite agitate the sense of deep unease from his animalistic, wolfish senses.

It seemed to Remus as though the Forbidden Forest had just done entirely more than allow Tonks to get lost and become separated from him. Again. Tonks, even after drinking the disgustingly bitter drink laced with whatever that 'Shadow Weed' was called that had saved their baby, still seemed to have trouble breathing, and this greatly troubled and worried poor Lupin. 

”Talk to me, Dora. What do you think is happening?" he demanded, glancing over with a scrutinizing look to examine her for injuries.

"I—I don't know," Tonks breathed, glancing at Remus with wide, fearful eyes. The poor witch was practically clawing at her throat, blinking back tears. "I—I didn't…eat anything th—that would cause a shortage of breath," she sobbed, "it—it just…out of nowhere, it—it feels like I can't breathe, Remus."

"But you _are_ breathing, Tonks," Remus reassured Dora, grabbing onto Tonks's hand in his own and pressing it to her chest so she could feel for herself that she was, in fact, breathing. "Feel it for yourself. You're having a panic attack," he said quietly, hoping that his eyes did not betray his nervousness. "You're going to cause your body an undue amount of stress and you might pass out if you can't manage to find a way to calm down, sweetheart," Lupin warned. "Miss Jameson was right," he added, feeling a surge of newfound respect and admiration for the young blonde She-Wolf, who was currently in the process of building a campfire several feet away from them, though occasionally shooting the pair of them slightly mistrustful and wary glances. "What you've been through, no one should have to go through, love. It's natural to feel this way."

Tonks saw where Remus was looking and followed his gaze and flinched when the young blonde-haired She-Wolf met her gaze, and she saw within the flecks of gold at the edges of the young female werewolf's inquisitive sky-blue eyes.

She could tell the young blonde, _Norah, her name is Norah_ , Tonks had to remind herself, before turning her head and looking away, sensing she was making the woman rather uncomfortable, did not particularly like her, though Tonks guessed she couldn't fault the werewolf, assuming she lived in the Forest.

For wizardkind had not exactly been gentle to people suffering from her affliction. Shunning them, disregarding their existence, treating them cruelly.

"Thank you," she called out, raising her voice high enough so that the werewolf could hear her, and Tonks was not disappointed when the She-Wolf's somewhat pointed ears, almost elfin-like, in a way, perked up and twitched.

Norah Jameson was looking as though she did not exactly know how to respond to her thanks, and Tonks wondered if this was the first time a human had ever thanked one of her kind before, much less attempted to engage in conversation. 

Briefly, Tonks could not help but wonder if she and Remus were the first humans this one had ever encountered, given how deep they were in the Forbidden Forest.

She seemed stunned and at a loss for words. She was looking as though her brain was stuttering for a long moment spent in silence, and her blue eyes took in more light from the campfire she was building and lighting with her wand than expected. Every part of her went on pause while her thoughts struggled to catch up.

After a wash of cold, she sighed and gingerly rose to her feet, stretching to ease the stiffness in her legs and arms. "You're welcome," she answered at last, albeit not without some difficulty, glancing around spotting a log nearby the fire she'd conjured and thought that more sufficient than sitting on the dirt and pulled the log closer to the fire.

It seemed an eternity before she spoke to Tonks again, as the She-Wolf seemed merely content to watch as Lupin helped Tonks to her feet and all the while kept one hand around her waist as he guided her near the fire to rest. When she _did_ speak to Tonks again, the werewolf's voice was much softer than before and somewhat more subdued.

"Just keeping breathing, deep breaths. The drink that I gave you saved your baby, but you might experience slight dizziness for the rest of the night, but minding your breaths helps. Nice and slow," she offered, at last, averting Remus and Tonks's gazes, instead choosing to focus her attention on the campfire in front of them, her eyes fixated on it. "You'll be fine. Your baby is safe." She glanced up towards Remus and offered a curt nod, and it did not escape Tonks's attention the unspoken words that passed between the two werewolves.

Tonks furrowed her brows in contemplation. Clearly, there was an unspoken arrangement between the two. Though she supposed it was not her place to ask. She suspected that, when either of them was ready, either Norah Jameson would come forward, or he would. 

Tonks kept her gaze fixated between Remus, whose pale face was illuminated by the red and orange light of the flickering flames, and she could see just how tired he looked. "You should rest, Rem," Tonks urged gently.

She could already tell that Lupin was vehemently going to protest, and as she suspected, was not at all surprised when he almost violently shook his head.

" _No_." The simple one-word answer escaped his lips as a low growl, almost a warning threat, and Tonks knew better than to push the issue with Remus.

Tonks was not _stupid_. She knew Remus would rather stay awake all night than allow something else to happen and cause the two of them to become separated again.

In all honesty, she was kind of surprised he hadn't pulled out his wand and summoned a length of chain or rope or something and tied it to their hands as a way to keep track of the other in case the Forbidden Forest tried to separate them again, though she supposed it was only a matter of time.

She nodded mutely by way of response and turned her attention to her new acquaintance, this female werewolf who had, for reasons that were unknown to her, had saved her life and that of their unborn baby. But…why?

Why had she done it? Norah Jameson, as a werewolf, owed them _nothing_. By rights, their kind wasn't even meant to _interact_ , at least, that was the way that the wizarding community would have it if Umbridge had it her way—

Oh, _Umbridge_! Tonks let out a tiny groan of frustration and brought her palm to her forehead and dragged it down alongside the right side of her face, a look of exasperation on her face and she swallowed hard past the lump in her throat and turned her head to the side once and coughed to clear her throat.

"You okay, Dora?" Remus asked, no small note of concern in his voice as he pulled her close and rubbed soothing, small circles in the small of her back.

"I…" Tonks stammered, not looking at Lupin, focusing her attention on the fire instead of his face. But Merlin's Beard, this was all her fault! _Her_ _fault_!

If it weren't for _her_ , Ollie wouldn't have gotten bitten by an Acromantula's offspring, and—and… ah, but _Merlin_ , why couldn't she have just _killed_ Crouch?

She swallowed down hard against the lump, though what little good it did. It felt as though her throat had hollowed and constricted and was closing off her passageways, cutting off any air supply to her lungs and rendering her dizzy.

"We…we _have_ to go _get_ her, Remus," Tonks croaked hoarsely. "Umbridge. We—we can't just _leave_ her fate to the centaurs," she whispered.

Tonks did not know exactly what she had been expecting from her fiancé, though unbridled rage was not quite it. She winced as she watched as the edges of his gums curl upwards and she heard the Wolf within Rem let out a growl.

"Let her rot in here," Remus growled in a dark voice that did not sound like the man who had stolen her heart before she'd even known it was gone. "After what she _did_ to you, Dora, it's no less than the Undersecretary deserves."

Tonks bit down on her bottom lip and stuck it out in a slight protest. "But we have to, Rem! We _have_ to!" she cried out, feeling an immense sense of dizziness overwhelm her as she seized on a lock of her short dark pink hair and tugged on it. "If we leave her out here, then we're no better than Crouch!"

Remus blinked owlishly at her words and slowly swiveled his head to regard his fiancée, though he said nothing, though the bright burning rage in his light brown eyes as they darkened and narrowed in animosity was evident.

He remained rooted to his spot on the log next to Tonks, unstirred and stoic and he shook his head at the young witch in disagreement.

"You're still injured, Dora. You're in _no_ condition to go traversing through the forest in search of Umbridge. We should let the centaurs keep her," he spat disgustedly.

Tonks bristled, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in agitation and slight fear. By Merlin's Light, she did not want to argue with Rem, not tonight. Not after everything that had happened to them tonight.

"We _need_ to go after her, Remus," Tonks persisted, trying one more time. "She needs to give testimony in front of the full Wizengamot Court for her actions. The Undersecretary needs to face justice for her crimes, Rem. I can't let this _go_. I'll testify, so will Ollie," she whispered, her voice cracking as she shot a silent prayer to the heavens above, hoping Kingsley got Ollie to Snape in time for the Potions Master to counteract the Acromantula' s venom. "But she cannot face justice for her crimes if she's _dead_ , Remus. If Ollie doesn't make it, and she dies out here, the truth dies with her. We have to. I'll go on my _own_ if I have to," she announced, raising her voice slightly.

Lupin's eyes widened in horror and he did not bother to keep it out of his tone.

" _Absolutely_ _not_!" he snarled, baring his canines in indignant anger, giving Dora an unusually firm look. "You will not go traipsing across the Forbidden Forest in your current condition! Not after what's happened! Not _alone_! It's not proper, Tonks!" he growled, straightening his posture, and glowering at Tonks. "Especially if you mean to venture as far as into the centaurs' territory! I hardly consider this idea _appropriate_ , Tonks. I _cannot_ condone this," Remus growled, swiveling his head to the left to regard the young female werewolf as if to look for confirmation that what his fiancée was suggesting was insane.

"Do you mean to stop me?" Tonks demanded hotly, folding her arms across her chest, and tapping her foot restlessly. 

She left her threat hanging in the air between the three of them and fell silent, waiting for Remus to respond.

The She-Wolf made a noise in the back of her throat that snorted like a snort, and Tonks whiplashed her head sharply upward to regard the woman. "Let them _have_ her," she spat her agreement in disgust, hearing the anger drip from her accent that was mostly German with a twinge of northern French as well. "The Madame Undersecretary can _rot_ in here for all I care, Miss Tonks."

Tonks furrowed her brows at the hostility in the female werewolf's voice, and folded her arms across her chest, frowning as she pondered her words.

At last, she found her voice. There was only one question that she wanted to ask, and it burned at the tip of her tongue and Tonks needed to ask it now. She had just to know for sure. "What will the centaurs do to her, Norah?"

The young blonde blinked, surprised at hearing her first name roll off the young witch's tongue, and it seemed to take a minute for her to recover her ability to speak.

When she lifted her head almost sanguinely and met Lupin and Tonks's inquisitive gaze, her cobalt blue orbs had darkened, almost cerulean in color and narrowed until they were mere slits, and she shook her head darkly.

"You _don't_ want to know, witch," she growled, crinkling her nose in disgust, and pulling a face, before turning away and folding her arms across her chest. "To go after her and venture into their encampments is a suicide mission, Miss Tonks. For once, I think that your mate is right. Let the _beasts_ keep the _bitch_."

Tonks flinched at the hostility in the werewolf's tone as her words were spat more than spoken, and there was a warm, prickling feeling in her chest, and she wondered if the two witches had some sort of a history with each other. 

Though before she could ponder it, Tonks felt a horrible constricting on her throat and a horrible, pounding aching on her skull. The young witch tried to force down the thick feeling of uncertainty at what they were about to embark on, to save the very woman who had tried to murder her and Rem's unborn baby, but the feeling of questioning her judgment and resolve on this decision kept returning to her in full force.

Tonks's anger towards Umbridge manifested as a fire in her veins and set a burning flame igniting in the churning pit of her stomach. An icy cold chill ran up and down her spine, feeling as though Remus had doused her in a bucket of ice-cold water, or a Freezing Charm. What…

What was happening to her? What was _wrong_ with her?! _Why_?

"Rem. I…" Tonks felt so dizzy, so very dizzy. Though she was already seated on the log next to Remus and just directly across from the blonde She-Wolf, who she was entirely sure she trusted fully yet, and she hated these feeling of cautiousness towards her, even as a wave of sympathy and guilt racked her body as she looked at Norah, who was eyeing her with something like distrust in her eyes.

Tonks knew it was her weariness talking from all the terrible stories she'd heard of other werewolves from Remus and other coworkers at the Ministry.

Norah kept her arms folded across her chest and crossed one leg over the other and picked at a scuff of dirt on the edge of her black leather combat boot.

Though Norah made no move to attempt to remove herself from her perch on the log to help Tonks. She merely continued to eye Tonks as though she were a fascinating specimen, an exotic animal behind cages in a zoo and silently held out a stick containing what looked to Tonks like a roasted rat.

"Food?" she said.

Tonks felt her stomach give a lurch at the idea of eating a rat, even one that was roasted rotisserie spit-style over a campfire, and she tasted bile at her throat. She mutely shook her head, feeling beads of sweat on her brow, too afraid to open her mouth, thinking that if she did, she might get sick again.

She could not help but think of visions of the short, stout man back at Crouch's estate. Of Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail, and wondered what happened to him, if the man was dead yet or if he was being held captive again by wolves.

"Um…N—no, thank you," she whispered, hating hearing how raspy her voice sounded, and suddenly, she wished for nothing more than a cold drink of water. Lupin murmured something in her ear, but whatever it was, sounded muffled.

Norah shrugged her shoulders by way of response and turned back to the campfire. 

"Suit yourself, Miss Tonks. Your loss," she murmured, feeling no need for pretentious manners, and grabbed at the rat, ripping a huge chunk off with her sharp teeth.

The sickening sight of seeing the blood drip down Norah's chin as her fangs dug into it as she devoured the mostly-raw rat with as much enthusiasm as though someone had just given her a freshly-made fried chicken wing was too much for poor Tonks, hearing the horrible squelching sound as the blonde werewolf ripped into the poor rat.

"Oh, _Merlin_ , oh, that's so _disgusting_ , why do you eat _rats_ , Miss Jameson?" she moaned, feeling her stomach heave and she turned away, hoping she wasn't going to vomit again.

Tonks stumbled away from the disgusting sight, and with each step, her stomach tightened and ached all the more. She kept swallowing, and her throat kept clenching as she fought back the acidic vomit.

Norah let out a wolfish, defensive growl in response and responded through a mouthful of rat, wiping at the blood with the back of her gloved palm. 

“Why do _your_ kind eat corned _beef_?" The female werewolf retorted by means of an answer. Norah Jameson scrunched her nose in disgust and pulled a face of revulsion.

Tonks didn't answer the She-Wolf. She couldn't at the moment. She felt dizzy, so very _dizzy_. The ground began to feel unsteady beneath her feet once more as she lurched to her feet and promptly turned around in a vain effort to get the unsightly image of the blonde She-Wolf devouring a dead but practically raw rat in front of her out of the forefront of her mind. _Merlin_ …

She felt as though she couldn't keep her balance as she felt her body lean to the left slightly and begin to pitch forward, though that could have been another tree root that she was about to trip over for the umpteenth time today.

Waves of heat coursed through her bloodstream, a cold sweat glistening on her gaunt features, and Tonks wondered, one of her last conscious thoughts was if this was some horrible side effect of the Shadow Weed that saved her baby.

Tonks raised a shaking hand to her browbone and when she peeled her fingers away, they came off as clammy as beads of sweat formed on her brow.

Oh, Merlin's _Beard_ , something was _definitely_ wrong with her.

"Dora—" Tonks turned and saw Remus's lips move but it was faint as if he were underwater, and then she couldn't hear his voice at all.

She could hear nothing save for a fatigued ringing in her ears as black spots danced in front of her vision, threatening to blind her. Her knees buckled and gave out before she could stop herself. She pitched forward and collapsed, barely feeling a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her middle. It was Lupin.

Tonks suddenly took on a pale look, as if she'd been painted with whitewash, even her lips were barely there.

Then with one step backward, she crumpled like a puppet suddenly released of their strings, with Remus's face the last thing she saw before she allowed her mind to completely collapse on itself.

" _Tonks_!" Remus, with speed he didn't even know he possessed, rushed forward, and caught her just as the young witch started to sway precariously on the spot and caught her before her head could hit the hard forest floor at all.

He inwardly cringed as he snapped his fingers in front of her face and shook her slightly, watching in dawning horror that flickered in his light brown eyes as he knelt to the ground, having been able to cushion the worst of her fall, his name still tearing from his lips. "Dora? Tonks? Love, can you hear me?"

Tonks's eyes were closed, though they gave a feeble twitch once or twice and her breathing, which had only seconds ago been coming to her in short, pained spurts as she had gasped for air that just seemingly was not coming to her, now had slowed to a barely noticeable pace and her face paled even more.

The She-Wolf, meanwhile, made no move to remove herself from her perch on the log and had slowed her chewing of the rat on the stick until she was practically nursing the last few bites, and polished off the bloody rodent's tail by slurping it down her throat as though in her mind, it was little more than a pasta noodle.

Remus cringed and ground his teeth in anger, and the comment was out of his mouth before he could stop himself as his head whiplashed sharply upward to regard the pale-skinned, fair-haired female werewolf in utter anger. "You—you did not have to provoke her like that! What is _wrong_ with you?! Eating… _that_ in front of her," he bellowed viciously, feeling his fingers of his wand hand curl instinctively into a fist around his wand, hardly aware that his arm was shaking, or that red sparks were pouring from the tip until he glanced down as a fiery spark pricked at his wrist and he hissed and recoiled in anger and lowered his wand, pocketing it for now.

"This is all _your_ fault! What if she _dies_ from this?!" he growled, feeling a stab of a panic prick at his heartstrings.

Norah Jameson proceeded to shrug her shoulders in a casual, nonchalant way and he heard her wolfish snort as the young blonde rolled her eyes at Remus's reaction. The young wolf huffed in frustration and folded her arms across her chest.

"She's _not_ going to _die_ from this, Mr. Lupin," she growled, hackles raised and sounding somewhat like she was going on the defensive. "You are overreacting."

Though Remus paid the She-Wolf no mind as his swirling vortex of emotions was beginning to catch up to himself towards first Crouch and Umbridge's treatment of poor Tonks, and now this—this accursed _werewolf_!

Lupin's head whiplashed sharply upward to regard Norah Jameson as the She-Wolf rose to her feet at last and moved to stand on the other side of Tonks, and poked at her arm with the tip of her wand in a curious manner as a small child would jab at a curious item with a stick, before stowing it in the pocket of her black leather jacket and began to feel her wrists for a pulse. "She's alive."

Despite the female Wolf's words, it did nothing for Remus to quell the rising panic within the confines of his chest and throat as the Mad Beast snarled and raved, seeing Dora in such a state.

She had already taxed herself to the point of exhaustion and even as he shifted her in his arms, allowing her head to loll back against the crook of his elbow, he couldn't help but think this was his fault somehow. He had no idea what was happening to her, how to help her.

"Mr. Lupin, you're going to want to stay _calm_." The She-Wolf's voice sounded far away and yet, there was a hint of hardened steel to Norah Jameson's voice that commanded his attention and told him to listen to her.

But Remus could not manage to find it within himself to tear his gaze away from Tonks's now ashen face.

An immense wave of guilt-wracked his body as he looked upon the barely moving form of his fiancée in his arms, though he was relieved, at the very least, that the steady rise and fall of her chest told him that she was still breathing. A relatively small modicum of comfort, but why did this happen?

What could have caused this? Was their baby going to be all right? Tonks needed to quit pushing her body beyond its capacity to handle immense levels of stress in her physical condition. She always pushed herself entirely too hard, even when her body told her to quit it. 

She'd already done more than enough today by trying to save Ollie's life by changing into an Animagus, and the tea that Umbridge had forced her to drink, though it was not by her own hand, it may as well have been, was she _trying_ to give him a heart attack?

Why wasn't he helping her? Why couldn't he move at all? Why?!

The one question that he could not answer and his mood was not at all improved when the blonde werewolf six years younger than him huffed in frustration and reached out a hand to rest it on Nymphadora's sweaty forehead.

She felt her arms as well, checking her wrist's pulse, looking, if Remus had to guess, for any signs of fever. Once the werewolf was satisfied there was none that she could detect, Norah Jameson stood upright and stomped, yes, quite literally stomped her way back to her spot on the log in front of the campfire.

The young blonde witch had shoved her white-knuckled fists into the pockets of her black leather jacket and promptly took a seat in front of the fire.

"She'll be _fine_ , Mr. Lupin," Norah called out in an agitated and yet somewhat calmer, more subdued voice than before. "Just trust me on this."

She was practically coaxing him at this point, trying and failing to get his attention, as it was easier said than done, for Remus had still not relinquished his grip on Dora's form as he waved his wand and conjured a pillow and blankets, hoping that a softer surface for her to lay on would help her to heal.

He scowled, furrowing his brows into a frown and shot the young werewolf a withering look as he could have sworn he heard Norah Jameson snort at the gesture of tenderness as he lifted Tonks into his arms and onto the blanket, fluffing the pillow he'd conjured slightly, checking to make sure it was soft first.

Remus whiplashed his head sharply upward, so fast that he winced as he felt a hot, spiraling pain shoot up his neck and over the curve of his left ear.

He'd definitely pulled a muscle with the sudden movement, and he'd be paying for that in the morning. He heard the She-Wolf inhale a sharp breath of cold night air that caused a puff of vapor to form in front of her mouth as she exhaled as he took a second to conjure up a second blanket and pillow for himself, and the third one for Norah, though the wolf had not asked him for one.

"How is this _fine_ , Miss Jameson?" Remus snapped, feeling his temper swell as his words came out sharper than he had meant it to, and he suddenly felt guilty as Norah flinched away in surprising hurt and surprise. Strange. So far, up to the point of saving their baby's life, she had come across as distant and cold.

Norah Jameson snarled, baring her sharp canines and incisors, and glowered at Remus, still unmoved from her spot on the log, her arms folded across her chest and hardened her expression in response to Lupin's aggression.

"Because her health is not in any danger, Mr. Lupin. I did warn her that one of the effects of the Shadow Weed I gave her to stop her from losing your cub would cause a bout of dizziness. She passed out from stress. That's it."

What did she mean that was _it_?! Stress. _Stress_ had caused _this_?! Remus bristled in response and ground his teeth in anger.

"That _you_ started!" he yelled, balling his hands into fists, not even caring if he woke Dora up, though judging by how Nymphadora had not even blinked a lid at the rise in his voice, she was out cold and probably would be for the next several hours, which he secretly hoped for. He needed to have a little _chat_ with this She-Wolf and her motives.

Remus strode towards the log upon which Norah Jameson was perched and not at all surprised when the female Wolf scooted away from him an inch.

He responded in kind by moving even closer, ignoring her snarls and animalistic hisses of protests at the unwanted close contact coming from him.

"I don't know _what_ you were thinking, eating that rat in front of my _pregnant_ fiancée, Miss Jameson, when she has a sensitive constitution to that kind of _disgusting_ display right now, but it's clear that you and I need to have a _talk_ ," he growled, careful to keep his voice low so as to not wake up Tonks.

Norah, to her credit, offered a curt response by way of jerking her head, and she did not move away this time when Lupin moved a fraction of an inch closer. She let out a defeated sigh and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, shoulders slumped in defeat, and sanguinely lifted her head. "I…I did not mean for that to happen," she confessed, her tone pained.

Lupin merely grunted in response, not fully quite convinced yet.

"I think that your mate is making a _mistake_ ," Norah growled, still actively averting Lupin's gaze, though as she dared to lift her chin and meet Remus's gaze, there was a burning animosity in her darkened cerulean orbs, and Lupin could not quite shake the feeling that somehow, Umbridge was the root cause of this She-Wolf's attitude, which was in dire need of an overhaul, and very soon. "We should not go. Let the centaurs keep her."

Not sure he wanted to know the answer, Remus merely proceeded to nod.

"Why?" he asked in spite of his trepidation and cautiousness towards this werewolf. He had to remind himself that this woman had lived alone in the Forbidden Forest with the rest of her people, for reasons he did not understand.

Surely, there were _better_ places to live. She could have her own _cottage_! But why here? What had driven her and the rest of her people to live in such a place that seemed hellbent on getting intruders into the forest lost at every turn and fork in the path? Why in the Forbidden Forest?

There _had_ to be more than the blonde young She-Wolf was letting on, and Remus was afraid that if the three of them could not come to a mutual understanding and start treating each other with an ounce of respect, then this was _not_ going to be a pleasant trek through the woods to retrieve Umbridge from the centaurs.

Lupin paused as the way Norah Jameson lifted her chin and jutted it out slightly defiantly to meet his gaze, the way her eyes squinted and glinted in the light briefly reminded him of Lord Voldemort's slit-like eyes, though an icy-cold glacier blues instead of red. The She-Wolf snorted and let out a vicious growl.

Remus exhaled tensely through his nose and cocked his head to the side, struggling to quell the Mad Beast's growling and snarling that was beginning as a rumble deep in his chest, though his anger was immediately off-put as the blonde threw back her head and regarded him in a stoic, calm manner.

"That pink-wearing _bitch_ deserves to rot in here," Norah Jameson growled through gritted teeth, letting out a snakelike hiss and baring her sharp incisors.

Remus was inclined to agree wholeheartedly with the young blonde She-Wolf's statement, though there was a cold sense of dread at hearing the listlessness in the female Wolf's voice that suggested she was keeping something from him, and whatever that thing might be, he suspected it had to do with her.

"I think I am beginning to understand now. You don't want us to go after her. You _hate_ her, Miss Jameson," he answered simply, by means of attempting to make conversation to come to an understanding with their new guide and acquaintance. "No, not _her_ ," he snapped, his annoyance returning as Norah's gaze flitted towards Tonks and he was surprised to see her shake her head no. " _Umbridge_ ," he clarified. "Our Senior Undersecretary to newly appointed Minister of Magic Scrimgeour. _Why_? Has Dolores done something to you?"

Remus did not flinch as Norah's blue eyes burning bright with anger were a knife in his ribs, the sharp point digging deeper. Where there had been what he could only describe as amusement was an emptiness, but not in any vulnerable sense. Uncomfortable with the void, she had filled it with an emotion she was more at ease with - raw anger. The unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing like she was fighting something back and losing.

She made it a habit of staring into the flames of the campfire as though she could not hear Lupin's question that Remus had just posed to her, though when she did speak as she slowly lifted her head to look him in the eye, her voice was much less rough than it had been a second ago, more subdued than before.

"Yes," she answered softly, glancing down at her hands resting in her lap and it was only then that Remus noticed she was fidgeting with a small silver wedding ring on her left finger, almost identical to the one he'd given Dora, except the color difference. " _I_ _hate_ _her_. I want her to _die_ in here for her crimes."

Norah Jameson whisper-hissed her words through gritted teeth, and her German-French accent was now so faint that, had Lupin not already been hanging onto her every word, he would have missed it completely. Remus thought he was slowly beginning to perhaps put the missing pieces together in his mind, but he wanted to hear it from the Wolf's mouth, as it were.

"What did she do to you?" Lupin persisted, trying again to reach her.

Norah did not immediately answer. Silence gnawed at her insides. Silence hung in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground. The silence was like a gaping void, needing to be filled with sounds, words, anything. The silence was poisonous in its nothingness, cruelly underscoring how vapid their conversation had become. The silence was eerily unnatural, like dawn devoid of birdsong. Silence clung to them like a poisonous cloud that at any moment could choke the life from them. Silence seeped into their every pore, like a poison slowly paralyzing them from either speech or movement.

When Norah did, at last, find her voice, it was so faint that Remus had to lean forward on his perch on the log next to Norah just to hear her better.

"It's a long story. Maybe later, I can...that old bitch took away the only good in a crap life I ever had, and I'd see her head on a spike for it," Norah growled, running her tongue over the pointed ends of her canines. "She…made me _watch_ as punishment for daring to speak out against the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act, and she… the _bitch_ , she _murdered_ my mate and our one-year-old _son_ in front of me."

Norah's voice cracked and faltered as her hardened exterior and her resolve failed her for a moment. When she lifted her tear-stained face to regard Remus's look of shock, she growled and angrily brushed away a teardrop that had escaped from her lid with an angry flick of her finger.

The moment Remus realized he'd misinterpreted the young She-Wolf's actions, Norah's words, her hostile expressions for the better part of a half-hour now... as if Miss Jameson been speaking a language that he couldn't understand... that moment his words stopped and failed him was the moment his heart broke... yet it was a good breaking... the type that leads to healing and new ways onward; sometimes, the loss of words says more.

"I'd see her head on a _spike_ in here. I want that _bitch_ before she dies to have my face be the last thing she sees before I drag her down to the seven hells with me, for what Dolores Umbridge _took_ from me. Your fiancée is _wrong_ by wanting to save her life, but I cannot stop either of you, so the least I can do since you're willing to talk to our new Minister for me is see you safely to the centaurs' encampments and back out of the Forest, Remus. That's your answer to your ' _why_ '," she growled, rising to her feet and brushing her hands on the seat of her black jeans. She turned her head to the side and coughed once.

Lupin did not know what to say to this. His mind felt like it was reeling. Norah offered him a sardonic smirk that looked more like a twisted grimace as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and strode off.

"I'm going to secure the perimeter. I don't fancy another visit like the one we had earlier." She glanced towards Tonks and offered Lupin a small half-smile. "I...apologize for my behavior. I did not mean it. She is the first human I've met aside from our Senior Undersecretary. I have never met a woman quite like this one. You are very lucky, to have someone like her who would risk her own life in exchange for yours. I've never seen anything quite like it. She's very resilient, your Tonks." She sighed and looked away for a moment. "We camp here tonight. The centaurs' encampments are on the other end of the Forest, I'm afraid, and it can be a maze in here, even to _me_ sometimes, if you don't know where to go, and you'll do us both no good tomorrow if you're stumbling over yourself because you didn't sleep. Get some rest.'

Remus nodded. "I hope you know where you're going, Miss Jameson," he groaned. "Because neither Dora nor I have the faintest idea of how to get out."

Norah nodded. " _Sleep_." Was all she said, and as she turned her back on him and walked away, hands in her pockets, it took Lupin several minutes to realize that this was the first instance where the young werewolf had called him by his first name.


	72. To Try to Start Over

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO **

Tonks awoke the following morning to the unmistakable crackling of what sounded like the campfire still going strong from last night and an almost suffocating feeling of warmth greeted the young witch as she groggily opened her eyes and slowly felt herself returning to the strange situation of their unpleasant, current reality.

That she, along with Rem and a female werewolf acting as their guide, was really going to traipse the entire length of the Forbidden Forest to get back Dolores Jane Umbridge, who, by all accounts and purposes, was a bitch. A bitch, a liar, and every bit a criminal, and deserved to _rot_ in Azkaban.

And yet, _despite_ all that both Crouch and Umbridge had done to her and Remus, Tonks could _not_ , in good faith, as an Auror, leave the Senior Undersecretary to a gruesome fate as a captive of the centaurs, even if she did deserve it.

_That's not our way_. She could swear she heard Moody's voice. Tonks let out a tiny groan as she forced her eyelids to open wider, which did not seem to want to cooperate with her this morning as she attempted to free her lashes from the 'sand', as she had used to call it as a little girl, that had accumulated on her lids during the night, that her father called it. She could hear the chirping of a few birds as a ray of sunlight streamed down and hit her in the face.

She must have been asleep for quite a while if Tonks had to guess, and she wore no watch to tell the time, and Rem's was missing. He'd relinquished it to Greyback to complete the illusion that he was otherwise dead when his plan to come and rescue her from Crouch changed.

Tonks stifled a moan as she slowly raised a shaking hand and wiped the rest of the crust that had gathered on her eyes during sleep away with the back of her hand, and as she slowly sat up and blinked once, twice, three times, to take in her surroundings, and she realized with a sinking pit in her churning stomach that the events of last night had not, in fact, been a nightmare, as she was hoping they had been.

That she and Rem and this She-Wolf were really here, in the Forbidden Forest, and were really going after Umbridge soon.

_Speaking of the Wolf_ , she thought, furrowing her brows in contemplation as she groaned as she rose to her feet, raking her fingers through her hair in order to smooth the stray strands and fly away hairs, wishing she had a change of clothes, though what she had on was going to have to suffice enough for now.

The young blonde-She Wolf not that much older than her, maybe thirty or thirty-one, if Tonks had to hazard a guess, was seated near the same campfire she'd conjured last night, and Tonks shuddered as she remembered the rat.

Though in the moment, her stomach snarled and howled like a ravenous wolf, and from it came the not-so-subtle undertone of pain. It came in waves and seemed as though her stomach was slowly digesting itself. Tonks clutched at it in an attempt to silence it but to no avail. It cried even louder, earning her a quirked eyebrow from the female werewolf. It was a slow pain, eating away at her stomach, and leaving her feeling drained and empty, and quite starving. Tonks let out a tiny cough to clear her throat to let Norah and Remus know that she finally awoke, and almost in unison, both swiveled their heads up at the disturbance.

"Dora," breathed Lupin, sounding immensely relieved, and Tonks shot out an arm as he moved from his perch on the log to stand up and join her. "Glad to see you're awake, sweetheart. You're looking _much_ better this morning. Are you still feeling sick?" he asked, a concerned look on his face. "Come. _Sit_ , you need to sit down and eat something, you've not eaten," he encouraged, and Tonks offered her fiancé a curt nod.

"You must have slept nicely," Norah offered, her first words to Tonks now that she was awake and in a much better physical and mental condition to hold a conversation, now that her body was no longer fighting for the life of her child. "Are you feeling any better?" she asked distantly, though she did not look at Tonks, instead of at an iron-wrought skillet which was hovering over the flames of the campfire, her wand held in hand as she supervised the cooking of four fried eggs.

She noticed Tonks eyeing the eggs and snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Don't worry, Miss Tonks," she grinned, flashing a razor-sharp smile her way. "I won't be repeating what happened last night. I should not have. Food in the Forest is hard to come by, and our kind has learned to live with what she provides us. But regardless…" She paused, as though not quite sure how to continue. "I didn't take into consideration your feelings last night. I hope that you can…that you…Forgive me?"

Tonks flinched as the female werewolf bit down on her bottom lip, and it was something of a miracle that her sharp canines didn't pierce the delicate skin of her lip and cause it to split, crack and bleed. She blinked owlishly at the young blonde She-Wolf as she rose from her perch on the log, somewhat hesitantly, and offered Tonks her hand to shake, and she was surprised to see that Norah Jameson's hand was softer than a baby's skin, which she thought odd considering the Wolf lived in the forest, she'd have expected it to be rougher.

Norah Jameson's face was one of utmost uncertainty, and Tonks figured whatever game this werewolf was playing with her, she wasn't accustomed to losing. She smiled like a long-lost sister as Tonks mutely nodded her acceptance of the Wolf's apology and shook Tonks's outstretched hand warmly with the perfect squeeze. Tonks reciprocated but wasn't entirely sure she could trust her.

As far as Tonks was concerned, for the more perfect her outward image, the greater danger underneath.

She did not _know_ this werewolf. Not really. Everyone has flaws and quirks, she knew this, but even if this She-Wolf's had been polished out right here in front of her and Remus, trusting entirely wasn't an option, though, on the _other_ hand, the Wolf _did_ seem sincere enough.

_And if Rem trusts her, that's good enough for now, I guess I can try to trust her, but…_ her conscience piped up, causing a stab of guilt to prick at her heart, and as Tonks offered a shy smile that twitched at the corners of her lips as she accepted the plate of eggs as Norah waved her wand and procured two small plates, one for her and Remus, she could not help but feel still somewhat apprehensive.

She _had_ saved their baby last night. But _why_? For what purpose? Surely, she had an ulterior motive for escorting her and Lupin further into the Forest.

Norah Jameson hadn't exactly made her feel like she could befriend her last night, if judging by the rather enthusiastic and wolfish way she'd ripped into that raw rat, and just the memory of that moment flitting through the front of her mind caused her stomach to give a painful little lurch, and she frowned.

Norah Jameson sensed her hesitation and her seemingly kind, white smile faltered, her brows coming together in a slight frown of her own, and Remus stepped forward and spoke, a concerned look on his face as he dared to step in between the two women.

"Miss Jameson has apologized for her behavior last night, Dora, wishing to make amends with the two of us. We need to _let_ her, Tonks," he began, sounding somewhat cautious, and Tonks could tell he wanted to keep the peace. "She means us no harm. She _saved_ our baby, Dora," he emphasized darkly through gritted teeth. "If she meant to kill us already, she's had plenty of chances to do so, and like it or not, Miss Jameson is our _only_ hope of getting through the rest of the Forest in one piece since I cannot deter you from this plan of yours to rescue Umbridge, though I still think that we should turn around and go back, leave it to Dumbledore to come and save her," he growled, a dark look flitting on his face.

Though when he looked at Tonks again, something in his expression shifted and it softened, even as Lupin pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and raked his hand through his thick tuft of light brown hair. "Though something tells me that even if I were to stop you going, you'd _still_ manage to find a way to sneak off and go without me," Remus growled darkly, and Tonks flinched.

Remus glanced towards Norah Jameson, who wore a strange expression of what Tonks could only describe as a content smugness on her pretty, waiflike features as her back was resting against the bark of a tree, waiting for the two to finish their conversation.

Tonks felt her face suddenly flush red in shame and anger. But not at Norah. At herself. She shook her head. This foolishness towards the female Wolf had to stop. This jealousy she held that pricked at her heartstrings towards Norah and the strange, unspoken words that existed between her and Remus. She wondered what had been said between them while she was asleep. That did not mean that Norah, that she…right?

Again, Tonks shook her head. This was utterly _ridiculous_! Remus was right. If they held a fool's prayer of getting out of this damned Forbidden Forest alive with Umbridge, then she needed to set aside this welling growing anger in her chest and learn to trust Norah.

For now, at least, as Norah Jameson had given Tonks no immediate reason to distrust her. Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat and she made a half-step forward and took Norah's hand in her own and shook her hand. She watched as Norah's shoulders slumped in what Tonks could only describe as a gesture of relief, and the tense sigh she emanated told her everything. That this She-Wolf was relieved that Tonks accepted her apology.

Norah waited to speak until Tonks got herself settled on the log and next to Remus and Lupin conjured two forks, one for each of them so they could eat. " _Eat_ ," Lupin insisted, furrowing his brows, noticing Tonks was practically picking at her eggs. "I promise you, you'll feel better, love. You're eating for two now, remember," he joked.

Tonks managed a weary half-smile, though she did not immediately laugh at him.

"Are you feeling any better?" The She-Wolf asked, making a show of picking at her own food, and she offered a rather sardonic smirk as Tonks scrunched her nose at what looked suspiciously like yet another rat. Norah frowned and noticed where she was looking and grinned wolfishly at Tonks. "Oh. _This_. No worries. I _cooked_ it this time, you sure you don't want any. Even…like _this_ , it tastes just like chicken, you should _try_ it sometime before you knock it, you might find that you like it, Miss Tonks. Remus," she added, throwing them both a grin.

When Tonks did not immediately respond, favoring a stiff silence in response and merely proceeded to turn her head away so as to not look while Norah ate her own breakfast to avoid vomiting, Norah, through a mouthful of rotisserie rat, tried again in an attempt to engage her in a conversation.

"Are you feeling better this morning, Tonks?" Norah asked, fixing Tonks with a pointed stare as she quickly polished off her breakfast of cooked and waved her wand, so her plate vanished and watched in silence as Lupin and Tonks worked their way through the eggs she'd cooked for them.

"Just _peachy_ ," Tonks snapped in a clipped and hardened tone, her voice brisker than usual and she folded her arms across her chest, though she seemed to melt into Remus's embrace a little as he silently pulled her closer and rubbed small circles into her back near her spine. "I usually sleep _great_ after almost suffering a miscarriage and having my life threatened," she growled angrily.

It didn't register with Tonks what she had said until she heard Norah's gasp of hurt surprise, and the young witch flinched as she sanguinely lifted her head to regard the She-Wolf's expression, suddenly feeling guilty for how the young blonde's smile fell and the young Wolf flinched visibly at the harsh barb.

Norah bowed her head in almost a submissive way and turned her head, glancing away, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as shame marred her bone-white face. Of course, what in the hell had she been _thinking_?! She ought to have known it was going to take more than one good night's sleep to make up for the awful way she'd reacted towards Tonks last night, eating the rat in front of her while she was pregnant.

This was a _witch_ , not a werewolf, Norah had to constantly remind herself. She did not share the same affinity for raw steaks and other meats as she and Remus Lupin did. This was a young woman who lived in a _home_ , probably! A cottage or a flat of her own. Able to cook and buy their own food from Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, one who did not have to hunt off the land of the Forbidden Forest just in order to survive day-by-day, one who was not forced to live in exile thanks to the very woman's Anti-Werewolf Legislation Law put into effect that they were, against Norah's better judgment, saving.

It was clear by now the way that she meant Norah no harm, and judging by the way that her own mate himself was a fully-fledged werewolf, and the two of them were expectant parents to a wolf cub baby in another nine months or so, she did not think that Nymphadora Tonks meant any prejudices towards her or any other wolves in this Forest. From what Norah had been able to tell, if she wouldn't have stumbled across the young witch when she had, she would have lost her baby and probably died from blood loss, had Norah not made the reactionary decision to save the young witch's life then.

Norah felt an incredible wave of guilt wrack her entire body as she looked towards Tonks at last, and felt the piercing stare of her mate, Remus, practically burning a hole in the back of her skull. Miss Tonks did not deserve to be treated in such a deplorable way.

A heavy, uncomfortable silence in the hair between the three of them and it did not escape Norah's attention that Lupin shot his mate a severe look of disappointment.

"I—I'm sorry." Tonks's soft and somewhat shy voice pierced the silence first, and Norah glanced upward as she rose from her perch on the log to witness the young pink-haired witch rubbing the back of her neck gingerly, looking severely uncomfortable.

Well. That made two of them. Norah bit the inside wall of her cheek and waited for Tonks to speak. "That…that was uncalled for, Miss Jameson. I'm usually not this curt and this much of a b…well. I won't say it," she sighed exasperatedly. Tonks scratched at an itch rather sheepishly behind her ear and her eyes narrowed in contemplative thought before Tonks continued. "I guess…everything that happened yesterday, happened so quickly, you know, and….I can see no reason to distrust you, and if you're _okay_ with it, I…I'd like to try again, and I'm not quite…back to my normal self, after yesterday…"

Norah sighed and her gaze briefly flitted towards Lupin before speaking. The man offered the young werewolf a curt nod of his head, and his light brown eyes silently conveyed to the She-Wolf that the nature of their conversation the two of them had exchanged last night would stay between the two of them. At least until such a time when Norah was ready to share why she _hated_ the Senior Undersecretary so much to Tonks.

"No harm was done," Norah offered Tonks at last when she'd finally found her voice. She felt the incredible spiraling heat of a light pink blush slowly creep its way onto her cheeks as she coughed and turned away, waving her wand at the pile of blankets and pillows, murmuring, " _Evanesco_!" and their sleeping arrangements from last night vanished. She coughed once again to clear her throat and turned her back on Tonks. "We should get going since it's morning now. If we hurry, we can make good time and maybe reach Astelos's encampment by nightfall, bloody nasty old Man-Horse," she grumbled.

Tonks made a muted noise in the back of her throat that sounded like she wasn't sure whether or not to laugh or not and as a result at her quip against the very same centaur that had held her throat at knifepoint yesterday, erupted into a wild coughing fit that caused Lupin to thump her once on the back. "Th—Thanks, Rem," she murmured.

He nodded and turned towards Norah, who was already leading the way, both hands shoved in the pocket of her black leather trench. "Was that the same one yesterday who ordered the capture of Umbridge?" He called out, feeling he already knew what her answer was going to be, and Remus had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as a coil in his gut twisted that they had not seen the last of that particular centaur. "Norah?"

Norah turned her head back around to regard the pair of them and offered a dry little chuckle.

"You got it. The one that fired the arrow at that old pink-loving _bitch_ was Astelos. He's stubborn and arrogant and thickheaded, but out of _all_ of them, he's the most reasonable, and if any _one_ of them is going to be able to hear me out and _maybe_ let her go, it's going to be _him_ ," Norah sighed, sounding exasperated as Tonks and Remus followed close behind the She-Wolf as the werewolf attempted to lead them closer to the centaurs' camps deep in the Forbidden Forest.

Among the many twisted and ancient trees that swayed in the wind and almost seemed to Lupin as if they were whispering to each other, there seemed to be kind of a path, which the three of them were currently using to navigate their way, though to Remus it felt like no path at all, just another trick of sorts.

Given that the Forbidden Forest had already separated him once from Tonks, Lupin decided that whatever they were walking on could have easily been a worn-down area of the Forest, perhaps not one that many creatures living in these dark woods traversed much, and nothing more than that. He knew for sure it wasn't the same one that he, Newt, and Sirius had been following earlier, that path had been clearer, and cleaner too.

This one, however, was questionable, covered in fallen leaves and twisted roots. Tonks forced herself to not let go of Remus's hand, trudging along and practically dragging her feet as she made sure to keep a close, hawk-like gaze on Remus and Norah.

After what happened last night with poor Ollie and Crouch, the last thing she wanted was to be lost again. _Oh, Ollie! Is he all right?! Did Kingsley get him to Snape_?

Lupin heard Tonks's barely anguished moan and one glance over at his fiancée was more than enough, the way her face paled and how Tonks was twisting her hands together nervously in front of her, casting wearied glances this way and that, that she was fretting over the ambiguity of not knowing Ollie's physical condition.

" _Relax_ , Dora. Worrying isn't going to help your friend. I'm sure he's just fine. But if it would help ease your mind, then I'll send a Patronus to check on him?"

When Tonks nodded silently that she'd prefer him to do that, Remus did not hesitate to pull his wand from his pocket and pointed it away from the direction they were heading. " _Expecto_ _Patronum_!" he called out, waving his wand and producing a non-corporeal Patronus, little more than a white ball of light, and Tonks fell silent as she and Remus watched in silence as the little white orb streaked off towards the northern path in the complete opposite direction as them.

"Do you think Snape managed to save him?" Tonks whispered in a voice that was barely audible, and perhaps for the first time since knowing the bright young witch, Remus could detect not even a trace of maliciousness in her voice when referring to him.

The question startled Remus, who had not been anticipating she would ask it, and he did not like how rapidly her face had paled, or that her entire body started to shake.

Badly. "Tonks, I…" Remus began, somewhat hesitantly, pausing in his tracks and reaching out with both hands to gently place them on either shoulder in an effort to steady herself. He was trying his damned hardest in some way, shape or form, to give his fiancée comfort, however small that might be, though right now, he found himself at a loss for words. Remus cringed, not knowing what to say or do that would put his love at ease. He was, perhaps for the second time in his life, at a complete loss for his words.

Lupin did not want to give Tonks false hope when it came to the condition of Ollie Brennan.

Though he remained quite confident in Professor Snape's abilities to treat the Acromantula venom, he was not sure if anything could be done to safely extract the Obscurus from its host without killing him, even with someone like Newt Scamander in charge of that prospect. It would be an immense undertaking. One he was not sure her former partner would survive. Or if he _did_ , he would likely never be the same again.

It was said to be a grueling and torturous process, the extraction. He cringed even just thinking about it, thinking that, at the very least, he was grateful that Tonks would not be present during it to witness it for herself. It, like the Dementor's Kiss, was said to be nearly _unbearable_ to witness, but something within the confines of his chest told Remus that Tonks was going to try her _damned_ hardest to be by Ollie's side during this.

Lupin swallowed as his heart tightened and constricted to the point it was almost unbearable and he could hardly breathe, so he opted instead to reach for Tonks' hand. Remus still _hated_ the fact that Ollie Brennan could cause such a reaction out of Dora, and he hated to see her this upset and worried over something she had no control over, though he cursed himself the moment he realized that that was just who Tonks was.

Aurors by nature of their demanding job were meticulous in everything they did, and constantly alert and aware of their surroundings and almost always in control. They had to be, or otherwise, in Moody's words, "Not paying attention gets you dead. _Fast_."

And this entire situation with traversing through almost the entire length of the Forbidden Forest and not being able to be by Ollie's side, perhaps during a time when the man needed a familiar and comforting face the most, was pure rancor and torture for her. And Remus further decided that he hated it. Remus paused, his brow furrowed in contemplative thought as he decided that a shift in their conversation was in order, but…

"I trust Severus to do what he can for Ollie, Tonks. I think…he'll be _fine_." Though even as he spoke the words, as they tumbled unchecked from his lips, even Remus was doubting his words, and he did not even have to look at Tonks to know she did not fully believe him herself, though she was going to have to learn how to have a little more faith.

Remus continuously kept his gaze fixated on the She-Wolf's back as she walked a bit of a distance ahead of them, allowing the couple their privacy, but close enough in proximity to come running if the three of them ran into a spot of trouble along the way.

"We were incredibly lucky that she ran into you when she did, Dora," Remus spoke up softly, feeling the heat creep to his cheeks as Tonks slowly swiveled her head to regard him in silence. No doubt she had noticed the look exchanged between the two of them and was curious as to the reason behind it, and while not his business to share what had happened to Norah's family, he could, at the very least, tell her of his deal he'd made.

It was the least he could do, after all, considering they had to trust one another.

Tonks nodded her agreement. "Miss Jameson had no obligation to help me. I was lucky she found me when she did. And…I don't know what was in that 'Shadow Weed,' but whatever it was, I can't believe it actually _worked_ ," she breathed, feeling one of her hands drift instinctively to her stomach and Lupin followed suit, his fingers curling over her waist as his hand grazed along the top of her still very flat abdomen and he smiled.

"We _owe_ Miss Jameson, Norah. I've…she…she has a…a _history_ with our Senior Undersecretary," he began, biting the wall of his cheek though he quickly shook off the feelings of trepidations. Remus could not explain it, but he had a feeling one way or another, Tonks would soon learn the truth from Norah herself over what had happened.

Tonks frowned, though not in an angered way, and quirked a brow his direction. "Oh?" she questioned, biting down on her bottom lip as she looped her arm around Remus's, not wanting to get lost again, and allowed Lupin to guide her through the path.

"It's…not my business to say," he continued hesitantly. "It's her business to tell you if she chooses to, but…I did promise her that in exchange for her helping us save our baby, that I would make an effort to talk to our Minister about repealing the Legislation Act." Here, he cringed, wondering if he had committed to too big a promise for Norah.

Tonks's frown deepened as she noticed Remus's trepidation. "This worries you?"

"I…" His voice trailed off as he thought of how best to phrase his answer.

In the end, he could not deceive the woman he was going to marry as soon as they got out of this damned, accursed forest, and the sooner the better.

"Yes. I don't think he will listen, given what I am. I haven't been too popular with our kind when they learn what I am."

Tonks, to his surprise, when Remus turned to regard his fiancée, had a soft, shy grin forming on her pretty face, and he did not even have to ask Tonks to elaborate why she was smiling at him like this.

"I think that you are too hard on yourself, Rem. You're a kind man with a _pure_ , _good_ heart. If I put in a good word with Scrimgeour, I think he'll agree to meet with you. After all of _this_ ," she growled, scrunching her nose in that adorable way that Lupin always found endearing as she wildly gestured to the forest around her, "saving one of his own employees who admittedly does not _deserve_ to be saved after what she's done, I'd be shocked if our Minister didn't give you an Order of Merlin for this," she retorted hotly, though Remus could tell there was no trace of joking in her voice. Or in her eyes. Maybe that was one of the many things about her that he loved.

Lupin felt the heat speckle along his cheeks and he promptly looked away. "Come on," he murmured, squeezing Tonks's hand a fraction of an inch tighter and pulling her forward slightly but not enough to cause her to trip. "We'd better catch up to Jameson."

Tonks nodded her agreement, letting out a tiny sigh and looking on as she continued, glancing down at her feet as she allowed Remus to drag her further along the woodland path. She furrowed her brows when it felt like they were going in circles again.

Regardless of the fact that she was sure, yes, she was sure, Norah was leading them forward. Towards the northeast. Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upward and she let out a muffled squeak as she attempted to move faster, unable to tear her gaze away from her feet the second she felt herself start to trip over a twisted, gnarled elm tree root.

If she kept moving backward like this, she was going to wind up lost and separated, and that would bloody do her no good, now, would it? Before she could call out for Remus to help her, she collided into something wet and hard. Tonks blinked and stumbled backward, only to realize the wet sensation she had felt just now was her colliding into Norah Jameson's backside and the thing that she felt was the young blonde's black leather jacket.

Tonks stifled a groan as Norah stumbled over herself and in her attempt to right herself, her arm shot out to the nearest thing she could latch onto to prevent her fall, and that thing just so happened to be Tonks's arm, and both women fell to the floor, a startled scream escaping both their lips and Tonks's fall was cushioned from the worst of it as Norah fell in such a way that she would bear the brunt of the impact.

Norah scrunched her eyes shut in a pained grimace, turning her head to the side, and spitting out a mouthful of dirt and leaves and glowered up at Tonks, who had unceremoniously and rather ungracefully fallen on top of her.

" _Slow the hell down_!" she barked angrily as she glanced up and out and groaned, seeing they were a tangled mess of limbs, their legs and arms entwined and looked rather suggestive if anyone would have happened to pass them by, this little incident surely would have raised eyebrows.

Lupin darted forward to help the pair of women up looking though as he wasn't sure whether or not to laugh at what had just happened and instead opted for silence.

Norah continued to shoot Tonks a venomous look of daggers as she brushed her hands on the seat of her black leather pants and narrowed her cerulean eyes at Tonks.

Tonks blushed, face flushing red like a tomato as she painfully wrung her hands together.

"Oh, Merlin's left…I am _so_ _sorry_! I—I didn't mean to! I'm dead clumsy! I…" she began hesitantly, confusion laced through her nervous voice and on her face as well. "I—I thought that I was walking backward, Jameson! I looked down for just a second, and…" She paused, knowing full well she sounded bloody ridiculous, but still, she felt compelled to explain her clumsiness to the young blonde werewolf, who was waiting.

The blonde She-Wolf merely grunted in response and shook her head, turning away and brushing a stray leaf off of her shoulder before turning back around and shoving both her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

Tonks flinched and bit the wall of her cheek as she heard Norah hiss out a curse under her breath and turned back around. She bit down on her tongue as she half-expected the She-Wolf to erupt into flames right here and now, to yell and scream at her, to tell her to watch her bloody step, to stop being such a dim-witted git, but she didn't.

Instead, Norah heaved an exasperated and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger before lowering her arm to her side.

"This forest can be maddening if you aren't used to it," she sighed and offered Tonks and Remus a small smile, both of whom visibly relaxed upon seeing the werewolf's anger dissipate. "Stay _close_ , though," she instructed, hardening her voice just ever so slightly. "And for Merlin's sake, _don't_ look down at your bloody _feet_ while you're walking. Just look straight ahead and keep your attention focused on following _me_ ," Norah said, though there was just a hint of teasing to her tone now. "I save your asses _again_ , I'm going to start keeping a _tally_ of all the many _favors_ you'll owe me," she grinned, flashing Tonks a slightly wolfish smile.

Tonks smiled nervously and began to follow the werewolf once the young blonde had turned her back on them, but quickly came to a halt and almost caused poor Lupin to barrel right over her when she stopped dead in her tracks and cocked her head to the side. "Do you hear that?" she whispered. "What is that? Is that…wind? A breeze?"

Norah paused, and Tonks could have sworn she saw one of the She-Wolf's slightly pointed ears give a twitch.

"It's just the breeze," Norah said at last and turned away again. "We'll keep to the edge of the Forbidden Forest for now. Will give us the element of surprise against the centaurs since their encampment is closer to the middle, they don't particularly patrol this side of the forest too terribly often, though they might send a scouting party of sorts. If we're _unlucky_ , we'll run into them, but I doubt that we will."

Tonks swallowed nervously at the mention of the centaurs again and shuddered, still thinking of the one who had held her throat hostage at knifepoint only just yesterday. It was _not_ an experience that she hoped to repeat ever if Tonks could help it.

Norah continued, either not noticing Tonks's growing discomfort, or the werewolf was totally oblivious to it. "We'll keep going around the edge of the forest if you lot are comfortable with it. It's the longest route, but the safest, though don't let your guard down," she added, hardening her voice slightly and fixed them both with a pointed stare.

"We won't," Lupin reassured her, to which Norah responded in kind with a nod, though did not seem entirely convinced as her narrowed gaze flitted towards poor Tonks.

Norah snorted and resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she heard Tonks's stomach give off a low grumble. "If we're going to make up by taking a long way around to get to the centaurs by sticking to the edge of the Forbidden Forest instead of going through it, then we're going to need to keep moving. We'll rest maybe four or five hours a night but walk the rest of the time. I hope you lot are in good shape. Looking at _you_ , Tonks…."

Tonks groaned, glancing down at her slender figure, and clutched at her stomach. She'd had one of the eggs, leaving the rest for Remus for breakfast this morning, given how peaky and pale the poor man was looking, she figured he needed it more than her.

"Will we stop to eat? What about lunch?" she couldn't help but ask it of her.

But Norah shook her head, to which Tonks stifled a moan. "Dinner's going to have to suffice, and we'll have our breakfasts in the morning. Should take us…mmm, maybe two days at best if we hustle. Eat what you can find. If you find anything edible that is."

A sly, sardonic grin crept over her features and Norah allowed a dark little chuckle to escape her lips. "I could always teach you how to hunt for rats," she joked darkly, which earned her a groan from Tonks and a wild, vehement shake of her head no.

Norah smirked and turned towards Remus, who shot her a withering look, and the moment was instantly ruined, and the female werewolf threw up her hands, a look of exasperation on her pallid features. "I was _joking_! Merlin's Beard. You, humans, have _hang-ups_!" She shook her head and turned away, not bothering to stifle the urge as a light chuckle escaped her lips.

"All right," Tonks sighed loudly, looking to her left and right. "Guess we'll find something then." _Damn. Should have eaten the second egg when Rem offered it to me_.

As they walked, she kept her eyes peeled for any sort of edible plants, or a stream nearby that might have some fish. She hoped she could find something soon, because the vicious, almost violent way her stomach was currently protesting told her she needed to eat, and soon. This whole skipping meals crap was almost _unheard_ of to Tonks, and she didn't like it one _bit_ and made her displeasure audibly known as she grumbled to herself.

Tonks was still grumbling and made to jog to catch up to Jameson when she felt Remus's strong hand grip onto her shoulder and pull her back slightly.

She paused and had to crane her neck up, about to ask him what he thought he was doing, though she didn't get a chance as the second their lips touched, and she felt his calloused but strong hand come up to grip the back of her hair, the other resting on the flat of her stomach, the Forbidden Forest around them vanished almost instantly, leaving just the two of them.

To wander the earth together, as it should be. Their kiss came out of nowhere, and unprompted, though Tonks wasn't about to complain when he took initiative. Though their moment was interrupted by what sounded like a harsh bark.

" **OI**!" and the interruption caused both of them to immediately break apart, their heads swiveling up and to their left to look for the source of the unwanted interruption.

Norah was glowering at them, one leg crossed over the other and her arms folded across her chest, a rather smug expression on her elfin like features, though her eyes were darkened, and she wore a look of otherwise utmost annoyance at their lagging behind. She snorted and rolled her eyes, scoffing as she uncrossed her arms and turned away, motioning for Remus and Tonks to continue following her down the forest pathway.

Though Norah briefly sent Tonks a subtle wink of encouragement and praise, that was so small and barely noticeable it could have passed for a simple twitch of her eyelid. "This is _very_ nice and _touching_ , but if you lot could just…hold it together until we go rescue that pink-wearing _bitch._

Here, she spat the last word as though it were poison on her tongue and she growled, baring her sharpened canines and incisors, "From Astelos's herd and save her from her deserving, impending doom, that would be _great_! Did you know that you can always go into early labor sucking face like that? Something for you to keep in mind when your time comes, Miss Tonks," Norah snorted evilly, smirking devilishly.

Tonks blushed and responded in kind by shooting the She-Wolf a rather rude hand gesture that would have made Sirius proud, and exchanged a brief glance with Lupin, who was looking just as embarrassed though more annoyed than anything else, though he remained professional, his face impassive and he nodded, though a muscle in the man's jaw twitched with ire.

Norah shot the pair of them a grin and waved again with her arm, shoving her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, before calling out to them in a teasing manner.

"Try to keep up, slowpokes!"

* * *

**A/N: Yay! Glad Norah and Tonks (sort of) made amends and in time the two women can open up to one another and start to learn to trust each other more, despite their initial misgivings and prejudices! Hopefully, this chapter was a little bit lighter than the last several! :)**


	73. Talent for Trouble

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE**

Tonks heaved a heavy groan of exasperation as she allowed herself to collapse overly dramatically onto the forest floor after what felt like Merlin only knew how many hours of walking. The blisters on the heels of her _feet_ had blisters!

She tightly squeezed her eyes shut and let out a contented moan as the bitter autumnal chilly breeze wafted the trio's way and of the cold, smooth stone underneath them as they'd found a dwelling to camp in for the evening. It wasn't necessarily a cave, per se, but it might as well _could_ have been, and Tonks's only consolation given they were trekking through this forest to save Umbridge was she supposed it was a good enough place as any to camp for the night and avoid detection by unsavory creatures. Tonks shuddered, clutching herself and wishing she had a jacket.

She could already tell it was going to be cold, considering Norah wasn't going to want to have an especially large fire going out here in the open like this. No telling what the flames or the crackling sounds of the fire might attract. Tonks bit the wall of her cheeks as she felt the stony, leaf-covered ground with the pads of her fingertips as she lay here a moment.

Finally, she and Lupin were afforded the opportunity to give their aching feet and legs a much-needed break, and it had only taken Tonks ten minutes of audibly loud, verbal complaining about Norah Jameson's patience for the thirty-year-old She-Wolf to become tested and finally relent.

The She-Wolf was incredibly agile and quick, light on her feet, and not exactly the easiest person in the world to keep up with, and given her body was still adjusting from its near miscarriage less than a few hours ago, Tonks was way more than just tired.

The three of them still hadn't found anything for dinner. Between them all, they'd split the stale loaf of hardened bread that felt like eating one of Hagrid's homemade Rock Cakes, and Norah, in a fit of frustration after nearly breaking one of her teeth, had chucked the remainder of the bread into the distance after barely managing half a bite.

While walking, Tonks could spot no streams, no brooks that might have fish, and the plants that did grow within the Forbidden Forest to the young Auror seemed questionable, at best, and considering she was now eating for two, she didn't want to risk ingesting something else that might cause harm to their baby. She frowned. Tonks did not know how this strange blonde She-Wolf managed it.

During the last hour, she had only confided in Tonks a little bit, revealing snippets of her past here and there, that she'd been a few years ahead of Tonks in Hogwarts, given their age difference. She was thirty, no family, though it did not escape Tonks's attention the young blonde witch wore a small silver wedding ring on her left ring finger, plain in design, though eerily similar to the yellow gold one Remus had proposed to her with. Tonks noticed the werewolf occasionally fidgeting with it and casting it almost sad glances, a tinge of melancholia laced in the Wolf's crystal sky-blue eyes, and she sighed.

It was dark by now, had been now for quite some time, and even the lighted tips of Remus and Norah's wands with the Wand-Lighting Charm had proved not very effective, and in the end, they gave up and walked by the light of the moon to guide them for longer than Tonks could guess. It felt as though it had been hours, maybe.

She was grateful, at the very least, that they'd stopped walking for a while. Her legs and feet were starting to feel numb, spreading a tingling sensation throughout her entire body, and not to mention, every so often her stomach would give a violent protest, painfully reminding Tonks that she was starving, and this didn't improve her mood. The young witch was constantly torn between two desires.

The desire to remain curled up in a ball and basking in the warmth as she felt Remus drape his heavy brown jacket over her for much-needed warmth, insisting she needed it more than he did as he waved his wand and conjured another for himself, to curl up into a content ball next to the campfire Norah had built for the three of them, as close as she possibly dared and sleep, or if she wanted to persist in her efforts to find something for herself to eat.

Given the werewolf was allowing them at best a four-to-five-hour interval break in between all the walking they were doing, Tonks thought she would barely have time to find enough provisions for all three of them to eat, cook it thoroughly, eat, and sleep.

Though she _really_ , _desperately_ wanted _food_. Ugh! More than _anything_!

Norah spoke up, shattering Tonks's mind of thoughts of sweet, delectable food. "I'll work on keeping this fire going," the werewolf offered, breaking the silence, glancing around at their surroundings in search of more kindling. "I'm afraid given the manner of creatures that live in the Forest, we'll have to keep our light to a minimum tonight. I know what lives in these woods, and I don't think either one of you cares to find out. I'm not confident you're going to find anything to eat, but you're welcome to try," she added, finding it difficult not to roll her eyes a bit as they all heard her stomach give another loud growl of anger. "But _only_ if you stay within earshot. I don't want you getting lost again, especially out scouting for food where you probably won't find any."

Tonks nodded and shifted the straps of her small brown knapsack on her shoulders, feeling grateful at least, that they still had some bottles of water to drink.

Though it would do nothing to quell the rumbling in her stomach, water was better than nothing, and you could go without food longer than you could without water before you'd starve. And as far as finding food went, maybe Tonks could fix that.

Assuming she searched hard enough. Even in these woods, there was bound to be some kind of plant, something that grew berries, maybe, that she could pick and eat.

Tonks sighed and sat up straighter, glancing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, glancing at all of the vegetation, more than she'd thought possible of this dark wood.

Norah followed the Auror's line of sight and noticed where the young witch was looking. "If you _do_ go into the Forest, Tonks, don't go in more than two meters or so," the young blonde werewolf warned the witch as she kept her gaze fixated on her. "Don't forget, you've been lost twice now. Don't underestimate the Forest, what she is capable of. We have to take her seriously if we hold the hope of reaching their camp. Don't go in there again unless you have to, and if you do venture to the middle, stay close to the bloody edge, and stay where Mr. Lupin and I can _hear_ you, Tonks, yes?"

Norah looked towards Remus for confirmation, who quickly nodded, though it did not escape both women's attention that the man was looking greatly uneasy, and before he even opened his mouth to speak, Tonks raised her hand and shot him down.

"It'll do me good to look for food, Rem. I promise I'll stay within earshot," she swore as she heaved a heavy groan and dragged her bruised body off the ground and stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "I just want to take a quick look around."

Norah nodded before Lupin could protest, flashing her a wolfish grin that, though Tonks would never admit it out loud to the werewolf, made her shudder and sent a tremor of fear down her spine as her glistening white sharp canines glinted in the light. "Good luck," she called out, offering Tonks what she guessed was supposed to be a light-hearted laugh and returned her attention towards cooking her own dinner: _rats_.

Tonks scrunched her nose in disgust and shuddered, thinking that was the second reason she wanted to get away for a bit. She didn't want to look or smell the rat cooking; she didn't think her somewhat nauseous stomach could handle the stench.

_What is it with her and rats?!_ Tonks wondered as she turned away, both hands clutching onto the straps of her knapsack, frowning as she kicked at a small pebble with the sole of her black leather boot, though then she felt suddenly, furtively guilty for it.

Norah Jameson, for all she knew of the She-Wolf, had lived her entire life in this Forest, and Dolores Jane Umbridge certainly hadn't made life for her and her kin easy.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as she thought of how hostile the young blonde werewolf's temperament became whenever she or Remus mentioned Dolores in passing conversation, and she could tell Jameson was not exactly a fan of rescuing her.

Though what reasons she held within regarding her animosity towards Umbridge, Norah Jameson kept them to herself, though she hoped in time, she'd share.

Tonks offered Remus and Norah a small wave. The young blonde responded in kind with a smile of her own, though Lupin looked less than pleased at the idea of Tonks wandering off on her own, considering what had happened to her thus far.

The young witch had no time to ponder it, however, as her stomach elicited another loud grumble, and she shifted her small brown knapsack more to the center of her back to better distribute its weight and began walking along the edge of the Forest.

Tonks had to practically squint her eyes until they were mere slits to try to see into the foliage as the young Auror attempted to search for any sort of berries that would be safe for her to eat and wouldn't harm her _or_ the baby growing inside her.

A few minutes of mindless meanderings and grumbling to herself under her breath of walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest, hearing her stomach pains grow louder and louder with each dragging step, and quite literally a fruitless search as there were no berries around that she could see, Dora stopped, huffed in frustration and stomped her foot, her hands on her hips in frustration as she craned her neck and glowered up into the Forbidden Forest's canopy.

"How in Merlin's left buttock can you support an entire herd of centaurs, a clan of fully-grown werewolves and have _no_ food?" she cried in exasperation. "Are you utterly _useless_ , Forest?" she said to the trees.

Tonks watched with no small amount of frustration in her steely gray eyes as the boughs of the trees seemed to collectively sway in the breeze, their limbs outstretched as if to grab her by the collar of her red shirt and hold her hostage. She could almost swear the trees of these dark woods whispered timorously to her, beckoning her.

"That's _ridiculous_ ," she growled, welly aware she was speaking to herself at this point. "Trees don't _talk_ , Dora. You're starting to imagine things. This place is messing with your mind. The sooner we find Umbridge and get out of here, the better!" She shook her head in frustration to clear it and turned around on the heel of her boot.

The young witch had been about to give up on her search completely and make to head back to the makeshift camping spot and just suffer in hungry silence for the rest of the night when something off in the foliage of the trees caught Tonks's keen eye.

Whatever it was, it was red and glinting in the practically nonexistent light. Which, in her mind, red usually meant some kind of a berry or fruit. Could it really be?

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as a pang of hope swelled in her chest, though she shot a quick peek over her shoulder at Norah and Remus, noting that neither one of them was really paying attention to her. Lupin was casting some sort of protective enchantment around their campsite, and Jameson, for her part, was in the midst of devouring one of her rats with far too much enthusiasm for Tonks's taste.

She bit her lower lip and furrowed her brows in disgust at the She-Wolf's over-eagerness for rats, though she supposed, she thought with a heavy sigh, if she were the one to grow up in this Forest, she'd have no choice but to live off whatever the Forbidden Forest provided, though, at the moment, she'd take one of Hagrid's rock or stout cakes over the day that she would ever, _ever_ , devour an almost live adult _rat_.

Almost as if on cue, poor Tonks's stomach gave another loud rumble, and she clutched at it in sheer agony, biting down harder on her bottom lip. Remus and Norah might be angry with her if she went off past the edge of the Forest into the line of trees after specifically being instructed by the werewolf, who, given she'd lived most of her entire adult life in this damned bloody cursed forest, knew better than most about how she breathed, how this forest operated, but she suspected they'd be happy if she brought them all back a small handful of fresh berries? It wouldn't be much, but better than anything, right?

… _Right_? Besides… Here, Tonks swiveled her head back around, thinking that that strange-looking bush that was practically glowing red at this point was not quite into the thicket of the Forest, though it was near it, and she'd just dart over.

Into the woods. In and out, and neither her fiancé nor their new acquaintance would ever know the difference, nor would they probably care where the berries came from. Casting another furtive glance over her shoulder, she tiptoed towards the trees as slowly as she possibly could, careful not to make any noise that would trigger Norah's sensitive, wolfish hearing, or Remus's for that matter, though she knew his abilities didn't work so well in the Forest, perhaps simply because he was not accustomed to this environment and living in the Forbidden Forest as Norah Jameson was, she supposed.

Every so often, Tonks would chance a glance over her shoulder to ensure she stayed within the boundaries of the camp and didn't lose sight of Remus or Norah.

As long as she could still see the faint glows of the campfire the She-Wolf had built, she'd know she wasn't totally lost, which gave her a small modicum of comfort.

In truth, she had an entirely separate reason altogether for wanting some time alone. She wanted to try to talk to _him_. Alone. _Ol, can you hear me? Ollie, please answer me_. She thought, closing her eyes, squeezing them tightly shut and exhaling slow, slightly shaking breaths through her nose, and forcing her body to try to relax.

Silence. Tonks clenched her teeth, grinding them and feeling her jaw lock up. It had only been a couple of hours, maybe five or six at the most, since Kingsley had vanished from the Forest with Crouch still bound in his chains and Ollie's barely cognizant form draped over one of his shoulders as Shacklebolt supported her friend.

Tonks let out a muffled whimper and shot a silent prayer to Merlin above and anybody else up there who would listen to her desperate plea that Ollie was alive.

_Ollie? If you're alive and awake and can hear this, please answer me. It's T_.

Again. Silence. Discouraged, Tonks opened her eyes slowly and huffed in frustration and shivered as a cold chill traveled down her spine as a light breeze blew.

Tonks thought she was beginning to feel somewhat mutual towards the cold chill which seemed to hang in the air as October crept on in Great Britain at its petty pace.

Another week or two and it would be Halloween. Ollie's favorite holiday, she thought sadly, feeling a guilty pang prick at her heartstrings, and another shudder flitted down her vertebrae, one that Tonks knew had absolutely nothing to do with the cold.

Letting out a shuddering sigh, Tonks tilted her head back and tried to focus on the inky blackness ahead of her, thinking that Ollie had always loved this damned forest.

Just like Crouch does, she thought unhelpfully, and Tonks felt her heart and chest tighten, constricting horribly and it felt like her throat was hollowing, cutting off her air. Images of brief, sparse moments of suffering the horrible man's company came to the forefront of her mind and refused to part from her thoughts, and she wasn't even aware she made an odd little strangled, half-choked sobbing noise in the back of her throat.

"Damn it," she swore through gritted teeth, balling her shaking hands into fists and clutching onto the straps of her brown knapsack for support. "Can't _do_ this now."

And she really couldn't. If she did, if she thought of Ollie and wondering if her best friend was suffering, if Severus hadn't managed to save him, or maybe he had, but now he was undergoing the grueling process of Mr. Scamander and Professor Dumbledore attempting to remove the Obscurus from its host and save Ollie, a truly demanding and excruciating process, and she wasn't there by his side to help Ollie?

She thought she might cry. And if Tonks allowed herself to give in to the enormity of her grief and feel the stress and swelling tension that had been slowly building as a pounding pressure at the back of her skull for the last three days, then the only thing she would succeed in doing is working herself into a panic and she'd shut down completely. Shutting down, in the Forbidden Forest of all places, was simply something that Tonks could not afford. Not right now.

Not when she was wandless, and—and vulnerable. _Pregnant_ , the demonic voice that sounded like Snape chimed in her mind.

_Nobody asked you, Snivellus, and—SNAPE?!_ Tonks felt her jaw drop in shock. Tonks swore as the edge of her foot caught on a hidden and particularly gnarled twisted tree root, and she let out a muffled squeak and shot out an arm to catch herself.

_Leave it to you to get startled by a tree branch, you accursed, wretched banshee, though at least this time the rest of the castle is spared the further torment of listening to that ear-shattering screeching that makes my ears bleed that you dare to call a scream_. Do yourself a favor, wretch, and cease the screaming before you attract unwanted attention to yourself in the Forest. _Though what creature would even want to eat you is beyond me, but should they succeed, I'll be sure to thank them for it_. The man's droll, baritone and listless voice resonated within the confines of her stunned mind, and were the Potions Professor standing in front of her right now, he no doubts would have made some quip at Tonks's expense about her inability to form a coherent thought that Severus Snape, as a skilled Legillimens, could fully understand.

When the man's voice echoed in her mind, Tonks had to reach out and latch onto the nearest jutting tree branch that she could find, as her knees had begun to buckle.

_Professor Dumbledore advised me to find a way to communicate with you. I had intended to send a Patronus, but without knowing which region of the Forbidden Forest you're in, there was no way for me to tell it which direction to go_ , Snape said.

Oh, thank Merlin! Tonks felt tears immediately sprang to her eyes and she turned her head to the side once and coughed, swallowing down hard past the lump in her throat. "Ollie, Severus. Tell me about Ollie. Is he alive? Did you save him? Is Ollie…?"

There was a beat. A pause. Tonks felt a stab of a fear prick at her heart and she ground her teeth again and throttled the urge to roar like an enraged dragon, thinking if this was another one of Severus's pranks, then Merlin help the man she'd cut off his balls—

_Not very nice_ , Professor Snape interjected, sounding thoroughly offended. _That's no way to talk to the savior of your wretched friend's life, Nymphadora_ , Severus interrupted her steady stream of dark thoughts, and Tonks felt the heat creep to her cheeks as she blushed, though she inwardly cursed herself as she knew he could not see it. _The Obscurus is going to make a full recovery, though he suffers from several contusions, multiple lacerations, and may need to spend some time in St. Mungo's assuming the extraction of the Obscurus goes according to plan. Mr. Shacklebolt was able to bring him to me at once and he has gone with Mr. Newt Scamander and Professor Dumbledore for the time being in an attempt to remove the Obscurus entity from Mr. Brennan in a safer environment without endangering the students here at Hogwarts_.

This time, Tonks did feel the tears spring to her eyes and did not bother to fight it back as she allowed the salty liquid to fall down her cheeks. It took her an eternity to calm herself, feeling her ribs heaving and her vision struggling to return to normal before she could find it within herself to speak a cohesive thought, not in a stammer.

_Thank you, Severus_ , she managed after a long silence. _For saving Ollie's life_. _But_ …Tonks paused, furrowing her brows into a frown as she relinquished her grip on the tree limb she'd been clutching onto for support and straightened her posture. _Why_?

Severus made a noise that sounded like a scoff, and she could just picture the sallow-faced, greasy-haired Potions Master almost rolling his eyes at Tonks's question.

_You're asking questions? Is it not enough for you that I have saved his life_?

Tonks shrugged her shoulders as she continued walking towards the strange-looking bush with the vibrant flashes of red that she could only hope were berries.

_Forgive me, Severus, for being suspicious, but I—I can't help wondering! You and I haven't always exactly seen eye-to-eye on things. On most things, really. I bring out the worst in you_ , Tonks protested inwardly, biting the inside wall of her cheek.

Tonks frowned and shook her head to clear her mind, though it didn't work. She sniffed once as she reached up a finger and flicked away the final tear that rolled slowly down her cheek as her mind struggled to process the news that Ollie was alive and well.

_For now_ , Severus gently reminded her, and Tonks knitted her brows together at the man's pessimism. _And as for you bringing out the worst in me_ , he growled, pausing.

Tonks froze, rooted to her spot, steeling herself for an outburst inside her mind. There was nothing worse than a Legillimens losing their temper. Ollie had only done it to her a handful of times when they were enrolled in Hogwarts together. It was kind of like being on the receiving end of a Howler, only ten times worse since it was all in your mind, and if you were skittish or reactionary in any way, it received odd looks.

Given that other people around you couldn't hear a Legillimens when they yelled at you in otherwise impossible telepathy, Tonks supposed she could see why it might look odd. Tonks clenched her eyes tightly shut, bracing herself for Snape to yell at her.

But it didn't come. Instead, he sighed and responded in a calm but calculating manner, and Tonks could almost imagine Snape standing in front of her, hands folded together, and arms brought behind his back. _You can't bring out something that isn't there. You drive me insane. You're crazy, it doesn't take a genius like Dumbledore to see it_ , he admitted begrudgingly, though if Tonks wasn't mistaken, a hint of affection lingered in his tone as well. _But you couldn't bring it out of me if it weren't already there, to begin with. You drive me crazy. I drive you crazy, and the two concepts combine to form something truly terrifying, which I suppose makes me grateful that Dumbledore assigned the wolf as your partner. I think you and I would have actually wound up killing each other had things been allowed to continue as they had been_.

Tonks smiled, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards in a soft smile. _Thank you, Severus_ , she repeated, making a mental note to try to be kinder to the Potions Master from now on, though a big part of her still thought he was a git. _It isn't your fault any more than it is mine, Snape. I'll try to be nicer to you going forward, Snape_.

_You're welcome_ , Snape said, though he was beginning to sound like his old self again, Tonks mused, as just expressing the simple emotion of 'caring' was too much, and it sounded as though it caused him great pain.

Almost as an afterthought, Severus could not seem to resist adding, _But don't think this changes anything between us, Nymphadora_ , he snapped, spitting her name as though it were poison on his tongue. _I only saved the Obscurus's life because it was on Dumbledore's command, and given that I teach here and live here, I'd rather the whole castle not implode if the man dies. I have no intention of dying anytime soon and especially not for you and your friends. Though…_

Severus paused, as though unsure of whether or not to continue, and when he did find his voice, Tonks shuddered as she could almost picture the man… _smiling_.

_I heard it on good authority from Shacklebolt you and the dogs are heading deeper into the forest to look for Umbridge. You did not hear this from me, and if I should learn that you tell ANYONE of our conversation, I'll deny this wholly, but…_

There was a good long pause, and for a moment, Tonks thought the Legillimens had quit the scene and fled her mind completely. Though, Severus finally spoke again.

_Let them have her_. _The witch does not deserve to be rescued, or your unfailing kindness_.

That was the man's final statement before her thoughts went silent once more. Tonks blinked owlishly at the spot in front of her once Severus had well and truly relieved himself of her thoughts, feeling like she might burst into tears again. Ollie was _alive_. He was going to _make_ it. Snape bloody _cared_ about her; she _knew_ it!

The git! She _knew_ he cared, or else he wouldn't have bothered to attempt to contact her just now. They were going to get out of this bloody forest _alive_! The weight lifted from her shoulders as if a kid had just leaped off after a satisfying piggyback ride. She walked taller, her stride was lighter, more carefree, and giddier.

Tonks no longer cared that they still had to rescue Dolores Umbridge from the centaurs. If it meant seeing justice through to the end, then she'd rescue her twice over if that's what it took to extract her memories and present them as evidence to Minister Scrimgeour that would give him all the cause he needed to prosecute her and put the Senior Undersecretary behind bars of her very own cell in Azkaban where Tonks and the others knew a bitch like her belonged.

It wasn't long before Tonks reached the spot where she'd spotted the red color hidden in the midst of the trees, but the very second she came to a halt in front of the mysterious bush, she was immensely disappointed. Though the bush itself was covered in small red berries no bigger than the silver of a thumbnail, as she plucked off one of the sprigs and carefully examined it, Tonks realized with a heavy heart and even heavier stomach as it growled its hunger in angry protest, that she could not take these berries back to camp to Remus and Norah to make a meal out of them.

" _Damn_." She recognized these berries too. They were the poisonous ones.

Huffing in frustration, she dropped the sprig to the forest floor and crushed the sprig with the heel of her black combat boot, ignoring the squelch as her heel was now more than likely covered in berry juice, but Tonks decided she no longer gave a damn.

She felt like she was wasting precious time on the clock when she should be sleeping, given it was probably only a few hours from Norah would wake her and Remus up again to start walking. Tonks was just about to turn around and abandon all hope of finding something edible that she and Remus could eat for dinner when out of the corner of her peripherals, her attention caught something else, a few yards into the woods, something that Tonks, in her excitement and relief over learning Ollie's fate, had missed before. The young witch squinted into the darkness, straining to see it.

This time, what she noticed was a darker purple color, almost black. " _Blackberries_!" she whispered, feeling her mouth stretch wide as it erupted into a grin.

Those looked just like blackberries and a ton of them too. Enough for them all! Without even considering giving it a second thought, Tonks felt her feet move of her own accord and she walked towards them and knelt into a crouch at the front of the bush. Yeah, _baby_! These were _definitely_ blackberries, there was no doubt in her mind.

Tonks would recognize them anywhere, her mum used to take her to pick blackberries when she was a little girl in the countryside. With her thumb and forefinger, Tonks selected what she surmised to be the best berry off the entire bramble and plucked one from the little bush and popped it into her mouth. She caught it in her mouth and broke the delicate skin with her teeth. The sweet tartness of the berry practically exploded across her tongue and settling her, and she loved the sweetness.

Tonks took a second to sling her knapsack off her back and dig into the main compartment and dug out a handkerchief.

It wasn't much, but at least the little thing was clean and she took a second to fill the cloth with as much as she could before deciding that was enough and tying the handkerchief into a knot. Oh, Rem was going to be so _proud_ that she was doing enough to look after herself and not others for a change.

He hadn't stopped fretting over her since he'd found her earlier, which was understandable, considering the physical condition and on the brink, she'd been in, but if he was like this and she wasn't even a full month into her first trimester, what the bloody hell was he going to be like when her time was almost upon her, then?

The young Auror furrowed her brows, not sure she wanted to know. It was kind of annoying, if she were being honest with herself, though Rem was nothing but gentle in his handling of her given her condition, so she decided she would go lenient on him.

She'd try not to make Remus worry about her any more than she already _had_. When Tonks was satisfied that her handkerchief could hold no more, she plucked about four more berries and popped them into her mouth one by one and grinning like an idiot as she enjoyed the sweetness that began as a burst of flavor, settling on her tongue.

As Tonks turned back towards the campsite, she froze and felt rooted to her spot. "Oh, Merlin damn me to hell, not _again_!" she moaned, her smile immediately melting off her face as her gray eyes widened in shock and surprise. The campsite was now gone.

The young witch turned this way and that, to the left and right, trying to get any indication of Norah's campfire that she'd built, and she strained her hearing to listen for any sign of Remus calling her, though she could hear nothing, save for the insects chirping and coming to life as night fell upon the thick of the Forbidden Forest, fast.

Just trees. Every which way she looked; the only thing Tonks could see in front of her was trees. Trees and unsettling, eerie darkness that brought with it immobility, one that Tonks was not altogether quite sure that she liked this sensation.

It made her feel…off, as though someone was watching her, though what that 'thing' was for sure, Tonks had no idea. As the young witch craned her neck upward to the forest canopy above her head, she stifled a groan of frustration. Even the moon's rays seemed to have abandoned her when she needed it the very most right about now.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, feeling her throat hollow and constrict as she could practically feel a fresh wave of panic beginning to sit in her chest, a feeling that was, sadly, becoming all too familiar to Tonks as of late these days.

"Ugh, why _me_?" she moaned, putting her hands on her hips, and willing herself to take deep, slow breaths, trying to force her body as well as her mind to remain calm. "Remus?" she called out, hearing nothing. How the bloody hell could she have gotten lost for the _third_ time? She couldn't have gone more than ten yards from the camp! "Norah? Rem? H—hello?" Tonks called out in a slightly shaking breath as a puff of cold vapor formed in front of her lips and she shivered, shrinking into Lupin's jacket as much as she could for warmth. She squinted into the darkness, straining her eyes, though there was nothing in front of that she recognized or could see welly at all.

Frustrated, Tonks cupped her hands around her mouth and practically screamed Lupin's name into the dark. " _Remus_!" she yelled, not caring who—or what—heard.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she could _swear_ she heard a faint answer in response to her shout, though she couldn't be sure. It was really far away.

Whoever had called her name, their response was almost inaudible, so quiet…Quiet enough, in fact, that as Tonks cautiously walked in the direction the source of the noise had come from, she herself was not entirely sure it was still there.

Had that been Remus that called her name just now? Or was it Norah? Or was it the bloody wind? Or a centaur? Nothing at all? Was the Forest playing a trick on her?

Poor Tonks practically growled, yes, _growled_ , in irritation as she bit the wall of her cheek and stomped towards the source of the faint call as the noise came again.

Though she felt her heart thrum against her chest and she decided to make a run for it, just in case that was Remus shouting her name and she didn't want to miss the chance to find Lupin again, lest they get separated again and then they were truly _screwed_ , so _this_ time, she followed the sound frantically, all while screaming his name.

" _Lupin_! _Norah_!" she begged, biting down hard on her tongue that she tasted blood. " _Guys_? Can you hear me? I—I think I'm lost! _Please_! _Remus_?" she shouted.

She was so focused on remaining calm through the duration of her little panic attack, that Tonks failed to notice the gnarled tree root end barely poking out from underneath a pile of wet fallen red and brown leaves, and with a pained yelp of surprise, Tonks felt her body begin to tilt and lean forward as it snagged on the damned root. Tonks cried out as she landed, and squeezed her eyes shut as the young witch managed to catch the worst of her fall, right on top of her wand hand's wrist, and she could hear the crunch of bones and white-hot searing, flaring pain shoot up her arm.

She didn't even have to look at it to feel that she'd broken the appendage. "Shit," she swore through gritted teeth, struggling to sit up, glancing wildly around herself. "Remus? Norah?" Tonks cried out, softer this time, a pained whine escaping her lips as she cradled her now-injured hand in her other uninjured arm.

As her vision slowly adjusted and she blinked once, twice, three times to clear the hazy fog that had managed to penetrate her eyesight and cause her to become quite disoriented and confused, everything seemed much clearer to the young Auror now.

To her immediate left, she could see the rocky terrain that made up the outside world, and Tonks swore she could see the faint red and orange flickering glow of Norah's campfire, though their site itself was more of a distance than Tonks had initially believed.

Then there was Lupin, running towards her, a look of concern on his face.

" _Dora_!" exclaimed Remus, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he hastened to rush to Tonks's side and practically dropped to his knees in front of her. "I thought Miss Jameson told you to stay _out_ of the forest and stay where we could _see_ you, Tonks!"

He was not quite yelling at Tonks, though the immense displeasure in his speech was evident, and Tonks visibly flinched at the clipped and hardened tones of his voice.

Tonks's brows came together in confusion as she frowned, thinking his anger towards her was unfounded, though in all actuality, she truly didn't know what to say to placate Remus and make this situation any better, and her guilt only worsened as she heard Lupin's shocked gasp of surprise as she mutely held out her broken wrist. Nothing _ever_ worked out the way she wanted it to. It was like she was _cursed_.

"Come, love," Remus sighed, sounding utterly fed up and exhausted as he held out his hand to Tonks and gingerly helped his fiancée to her feet. "I don't think I should let you out of my sight again. You tend to have a _talent_ for trouble, Dora."

Though the second Tonks cried out in pain and shirked away from Remus's hand the moment his clasped over hers to take her hand in his and escort her back to their campsite, Lupin startled, not having anticipated her outburst and looked at her, hurt.

"What is it, Dora? What's wrong?" he demanded, suddenly sounding urgent and on the brink of a breakdown. "Is it…is it the baby?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"I—I landed on my wrist when I—I fell." Tonks stuck out her bottom lip in a slight pout and bit down hard, glancing down at her broken wrist with a pained grimace. "I—I think I broke it, Rem. Can you and Norah fix it for me, please?"

Lupin sighed and lowered his head a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Do I need to conjure a rope and tether you to my waist, Dora?" he snapped, though when he lifted his head to meet her gaze, there was no burning anger or animosity in his light brown eyes, for which Tonks was grateful.

He paused, and for a moment an unspoken look was exchanged between the two of them, with neither having to comment on it. Tonks was just grateful Remus had managed to find her before any worse than a broken wrist could happen to her, and Remus, for his part, was just relieved that she'd not gotten into any more trouble.

"I'll take a look at it when we get back by the fire and there's better light," he said, holding out his wand, which was lighted at its tip, and frowned, as when he'd lowered his wand to check her wrist, even with the Wand-Lighting Charm, he could still barely see well enough in order to ascertain how to treat her wrist better. "It's going to be crude, and I'm not a skilled Healer like Madame Pomfrey, but I guess it's better than leaving it in its current state, Dora." He let out a sigh and trudged along.

"I—I'm sorry, Rem," Tonks whispered hoarsely. She never understood quite how he did it, but the man was exceptionally good at making her feel like a bloody fool.

Lupin glanced at Tonks sideways out of the corner of his eyes and offered her a small smile meant to reassure, though, in the dim light cast from his wand that caused a dark shadow to fall across his lined and tired face, it looked more like a grimace. "It's all right, Dora. These things happen. I'm just glad you're safe," he admitted, doing his best to reassure her, though Tonks could detect the hint of candor and annoyance in his voice.

Remus continued to maintain a tight vice grip on her arm as he gently led her out of the Forbidden Forest's thick heart of the woods and to the camp.

Lupin led Tonks directly to the fire and waved his wand, conjuring a sleeping bag and forcing Tonks to sit on the blankets next to the fire. Norah, who'd been sitting absentmindedly against a tree, seemingly preening at her nails, perked up at the arrival.

As she took a moment to get herself situated, feeling the heat creep to her cheeks as Norah practically scrambled over the log to get a look for herself with her own wolfish sight at Dora's broken wrist, and Tonks swore the werewolf let out a growl, she shuddered, and it was then that she remembered the blackberries that she'd found.

"Oh!" she started. "I—I found berries," she murmured, sliding her brown knapsack off her back with her uninjured arm, fumbling clumsily through the main compartment until she found the tied handkerchief and un-doing it. "I hope I didn't squash them all when I fell. Guys, I found blackberries, you won't—oh, _damn_!" she swore. The very berries that she'd picked but less than five minutes ago, were not, in fact, blackberries, as she had initially been led to believe, and Tonks felt a surge of anger in her chest well and ignite, hot as dragon fire. These were not the berries she'd picked!

The new berries were a dark black color flecked with bits of garish crimson scattered throughout, and the red vibrancy of the hue seemed to almost pulsate.

Norah furrowed her brows and pursed her lips into a thin line, poking her head over Remus's shoulder to see the berries that Tonks was referring to, shaking her head.

"Don't even _think_ about eating those if I were you, Miss Tonks," she warned.

Tonks felt her eyes widen and go round with shock. She'd already eaten at least ten. "Wh—why not?" she stammered, feeling her already pale face go ashen as it lost whatever little color was left. "A—are they poisonous, Norah?" she whispered hoarsely.

Much to her chagrin, Norah Jameson nodded her head. "Yes, but it depends on how many you eat, I guess," the blonde She-Wolf explained as she calmly and methodically narrowed her cobalt blue eyes in suspicion, trying to read her expression. "though they won't technically kill you unless you more than a dozen or so. They cause mild hallucinations and a slight fever. Relatively harmless in small doses, but these guys are definitely something you want to avoid at all costs if you can help it, Tonks."

As if to prove her point, Norah scrunched her nose in disgust and took the handkerchief containing the berries, and let the kerchief fall to the ground, watching as the berries scattered in all directions every which way, now no longer edible at all.

"But what the hell _are_ they?" Tonks protested, swallowing nervously, actively avoiding Lupin's gaze now too, who was regarding her carefully, looking her over.

Norah scowled, turning back towards Tonks, and letting out a tired sigh. "The other wolves here in the Forest call those berries Bleeding Mulberries. I don't know _why_ . One of them hallucinated, I guess, this was before I came to the Forest to live and was seeing visions so bad that scared the crap out of him and he clawed his face off until he bled to death. Hence their name."

"Oh. I…" Tonks stammered, not sure what else to say, and she wondered if since they were basically harmless considering she'd only eaten about seven and nowhere near the right amount for the Bleeding Mulberry berries to be considered lethal if she should mention it to Remus and Norah. She decided against it, thinking the werewolf would only laugh at her and give the blonde She-Wolf further cause to doubt her abilities.

It was no secret that Norah did not believe Tonks should be here in her current physical and mental condition and was not shy about adamantly vocalizing her protests.

Tonks had already managed to get herself lost twice today, just alone, and had fallen and broken her wrist, and if Norah or Remus knew she'd likely poisoned herself just now by eating a couple of those Merlin-damned Bleeding Mulberries, they would lose any ounce of respect for the bright young Auror, and Lupin would _demand_ she hauls her ass back to Hogwarts and wouldn't allow her to come with to retrieve Dolores.

_No way_ , she thought to herself and ground her teeth in anger. _After what Umbridge did to me, I'm the one that has to see this through to the end. Not Rem, not Norah. Me. If the berries I ate are only going to cause minor symptoms, I can hide it_.

Lupin and Norah didn't even need to know. Tonks could pretend she felt just peachy until whatever minor side effects she suffered from would wear off, and poof.

Problem solved. Tonks bit the wall of her cheek and ran her tongue along the top wall of her cheek as she came to the decision that mum was the word on this little accident, that she would say nothing to either Remus or Norah. She swallowed.

"Well, they—they looked like blackberries when I was picking them, I guess..."

Norah did not seem to notice her growing discomfort and agitation as beads of sweat gathered on her brow as the young blonde werewolf merely shrugged in response and collapsed back against the trunk of the tree she'd been resting against, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh.

"It's just the Forbidden Forest playing tricks on you, Tonks." Norah cracked open one eye and craned her neck slightly forward, staring inquisitively in silence for a moment at Tonks's misshapen and broken right wrist. Norah clucked her tongue and cocked her head to the side. "Ouch! That looks like it _hurts_ , though I don't think you broke it," she murmured, flinching as Remus did not hesitate to procure his wand from his jacket pocket and point it at Tonks's wrist.

Tonks clenched her eyes shut, steeling herself for the pain of the bones popping back into place the second the chant, " _Episkey_!" left Remus's mouth. There it was.

" _Merlin's Beard_! _Holy Dungbombs Almighty, that really hurts_!" she shouted at the top of her lungs as white-hot flares of jolts of pain shot up her arm as the bones popped and re-set themselves back into their rightful places, tears pricking at her gray eyes.

Tonks carefully opened her eyes and let out a hiss of pain as she gingerly curled her fingers and flexed them, rolling her wrist to crack it to test for further injury.

It still twinged, though it was healed, though it would smart and bruise. Remus had been right about it was a crude method, though it would have to do for right now.

"I wouldn't recommend using that hand much if you can avoid it. Few days at least," Norah offered in a quiet, contemplative tone.

Tonks nodded, feeling her stomach give another lurch of hunger, and having to accept defeat in realizing she would not be eating dinner tonight and her and Baby Lupin growing inside her belly would just have to go hungry until breakfast, though Tonks guessed it was a good thing. She didn't want to make herself even sicker than she was already going to be, considering she'd eaten exactly seven Bleeding Mulberries. Tonks let out a tiny groan.

With just her luck, in four or five hours, whatever negative side effects she would experience from eating the few Mulberries that she did eat would be out of her system. Tonks huffed in frustration and felt her shoulders slump in defeat, and she jolted as she quickly realized the blonde She-Wolf had asked Tonks a question that she missed.

"Huh?" She blinked owlishly at Norah, who was now looking thoroughly annoyed and let out a wolfish growl at having to repeat her statement to Tonks again.

"I asked you if you want the first watch or second?" Norah piped up casually, a hint of ire laced throughout her voice as she waved her wand and fluffed the pillow behind her head, folding her hands and resting them across her stomach and crossing her legs.

_Merlin's left saggy nutsack_ , Tonks swore, grinding her teeth. So, she was only going to get about two or three hours of sleep total then. If she was that lucky, really.

She bit her lower lip in a pout as she thought of the attention to detail and responsibility of keeping watch on the Forbidden Forest's perimeter for undesirables.

It was a big responsibility, and even more so for her, considering she was more or less wand-less. With a sigh, realizing Norah had asked her the question again, Tonks turned towards Norah Jameson and Remus, swiveling her head back to regard Norah.

"Give me first, then, I guess. You two should get some sleep while you can," she grumbled darkly, reluctantly agreeing against her better judgment. If she _had_ to keep watch tonight, then she would rather get it over with.

Especially if she were going to experience any hallucinations or negative side effects from those Merlin-forsaken Bleeding Mulberries she'd foolishly consumed.

Damn her! Damn her and her foolishness! She should have paid closer attention, but how could she have known?! Tonks had no bloody idea those were _poisonous_!

Norah shot her a brilliantly white, almost blinding wolfish grin and clapped Tonks on the back just as Tonks was grumbling to herself and turned away to start the patrol. "Good girl," she complimented warmly, laying down on the ground and resting her head on her hands, closing her eyes, and crossing her legs. "Wake me in two hours."

_Ugh_ , Tonks thought frowning, watching as Lupin murmured for her to be careful, and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips and making Tonks promise to be cautious, and if she ran into anything to come and get him, before settling down himself to get some sleep.

As Tonks sauntered off away from their campsite, she was left with one plaguing thought, one that refused to part from her thoughts.

_I hope this isn't a mistake…_

* * *

**A/N: Tonks truly DOES have a talent for trouble! Will she experience any odd side effects from eating a few of the berries? And when has there ever been such a thing as a 'peaceful' night in the Forbidden Forest? Do you think Tonks is making the right call by NOT telling Remus and Norah that she ate the Mulberries? Please leave me a review and let me know your thoughts if you're enjoying it! :)**


	74. Not Alone

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR**

Tonks continued to grumble darkly under her breath to herself, standing to try to quell the aching in her arms and legs, which, if she was being totally honest with herself right now, were just fine, all things considered and didn't really need the exercise, per se, as she looked up with tired, heavy lids towards the night sky, what little she could see, that was, which didn't really amount to much.

This kind of darkness freaked her _out_. Night had fallen fast upon the Forbidden Forest. No more than an hour ago, she could have sworn that the sky was painted with hues of red, orange, and pinks, but all the color had long since faded, leaving only a matt blank canvas with no stars to be looked upon. The darkness was really thick, and she had insisted that Remus and Norah keep their wands at the sides, refusing the offer when they had both volunteered to relinquish their wands for her to keep first watch.

As such, given she was currently wandless and the only thing she would be able to use to defend herself if such an unsavory creature attacked her while she was on patrol would be a sizeable stick or branch laying on the ground, and that was assuming she could find one in the first place. At _most_ , Tonks could see an arm's reach in front of herself, and the pitch-black darkness in front of her only made her sight even worse.

Other than the darkness and herself and Norah and Remus sleeping by the fire in the distance, all that seemed to exist was the chilly wind whose harsh bite could be felt.

Tonks shivered, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck as they raised and the bite of the wind had left its mark in the form of small bumps that were tingling along her arms, but its bite was more than just flesh deep and seeming to redden her skin. Her blood ran cold through her veins and her very bones felt chilled to the brim. Tonks ground and clenched her teeth in a strange sense of skittish anticipation, willing them to stop their incessant chattering, wishing that the warmth from the campfire Norah had built would reach where she was, but she knew that was a pointless wish.

It was a cold and practically moonless night. The sky was so dark and low, the air so chilled it physically pained Tonks to draw in a breath. Night came like the spell of an enchantress, water to stone, earth to iron, green grass to frosted white. There was no hint of warmth left, nothing of the autumn, or the kiss of the vanquished sun. The hours promised to pass slowly yet steal their body heat with indecent speed.

Tonks huffed in frustration and shifted her spot on the log that she had perched herself on top of. Her lids felt like they were drooping, and she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, feeling like her legs were throbbing, screaming for relief, practically begging her to lay sprawled out on the forest floor and catch some much-needed rest.

Though she couldn't very well keep watch on the perimeter if she fell asleep, now, could she? So, to occupy herself, she paced rather restlessly around the campsite.

Tonks felt her gaze flit rather nervously in all directions, watching for any sign of movement in the trees or the thick brush. For whatever reason, Tonks couldn't quite shake the uneasy feeling of dread from her senses that sent a cold chill down her spine.

For reasons that were unknown to her, animals, Tonks thought, were staying away from the Forbidden Forest, though in her mind, she suspected that most animals with half a brain cell and instincts, especially magical creatures, were smart enough to stay away from this bloody cursed dark woods. Tonks heaved a haggard-sounding sigh.

Aside from the occasional popping and crackling of the campfire's kindling, and sometimes the She-Wolf would make strange little growling sounds in her sleep, in a similar manner that a puppy would whine or growl when sound asleep, she heard nothing. Which, though she didn't possess wolfish hearing like Norah or Remus, felt eerily strange to her, and Tonks wasn't at all sure that she liked this odd sensation.

In the last half-hour alone, if that much time had passed at all, there had been nothing noteworthy that was worthy of waking either Remus or Norah. There had been a stray moment or two when Tonks had thought she'd seen slight movement in the shadows, though she wouldn't be surprised if the Forest were playing tricks on her again. No insects, no owls hooting in the night. No scuttling or hopping of frogs. Nada.

Tonks froze, unstirred as she thought she heard the strange rustling noise again.

The young witch blinked once, twice, three times. She didn't hear it again.

"Maybe it was just the wind. Don't turn into _Moody_ with your paranoia, T," she grumbled, glancing down at her lap, and scuffing the edges of her black leather combat boots, playing with her pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm. She'd never had a quieter night, and in all honesty, it was sending her into panic. Tonks furrowed her brows in contemplative thought as she shifted her seat on the log, wondering if just the silence of the Forbidden Forest alone enough cause for concern was. Her frown deepened and she bit the wall of her cheek as she rested her cheek in her right fist, a rather bored and exhausted expression on Tonks's bone-white features.

Tonks sighed, wishing more than anything that Ollie were here by her side. She hoped the extraction process of the Obscurus attached to his soul and body was proving successful, and if her best friend were here, he'd no doubt attempt to ease her nerves by telling her bad jokes, more often than not at poor old Mad-Eye Moody's expense.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shot a silent prayer to Merlin above that Ollie was going to pull through, that Dumbledore and Mr. Scamander would take good care of him, and slowly felt her eyelids flutter open and she sighed, emanating a tense breath.

Tonks wasn't exactly sure _what_ she should be steeling herself for, given her training as an Auror and hearing old Broody Moody's advice of 'constant vigilance' to her and Ollie when both of them were in Auror training under his tutelage, she half-expected something to jump out at the shadows from behind her and try to kill her.

The young witch swore under her breath as she swore she heard the cracking of a twig and the rustling of a pile of leaves coming from behind her, somewhere to her immediate left, though as the pink-haired Auror turned at the waist to look, nothing.

A hand over her racing heart, Tonks frowned, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She would never complain or admit this out loud to the She-Wolf unless she wanted an earful, but Tonks had decided that she really _hated_ keeping watch. Even when on surveillance as an Auror in the Ministry, it was so _boring_ , it _redefined_ the meaning.

Sitting on your ass for hours on end, staring at _nothing_ , waiting for _something_ to happen. Ugh. No thanks! Plus, in this bloody dark, accursed forest, Tonks didn't exactly know what to be keeping an eye out for. More centaurs or giant Acromantula, then?

She shuddered as a tremor went down her spine at the thought of encountering another one of those freaking spiders, though the next one might not be a baby one.

Tonks clenched her teeth as just that pleasant visual image in her mind was almost—almost—enough to send her running back to the campsite with a scream at her lips. She _hated_ spiders, though not as much as she hated the idea of being entirely alone.

The young witch supposed she ought to be keeping an eye or ear out for strange noises or sights, but to Nymphadora, everything _in_ this forest to her felt really bizarre.

And Norah was going to be royally _ticked_ if Tonks woke her up for nothing, and Remus would no doubt fret over her and mollycoddle her to the point of testing her patience. Tonks huffed in frustration, a cold puff of vapor forming in front of her breath as she did so. She was barely a month pregnant, or so she guessed. Not showing signs yet, her stomach was still quite very much flat last time she checked it, and if Lupin were _this_ protective of her, almost hovering over her, fretting over their baby, Tonks couldn't help but to wonder what Remus would be like around nine months.

_Probably insufferable_ , she thought, though immediately felt incredibly guilty for thinking such a thought. She visibly winced, grateful that Lupin wasn't here to see her discomfort. He meant well, and he treated her like a queen, and she supposed it was only natural that he would feel nervous and skittish regarding her pregnancy, considering they had no way for either one of them to tell if their child would be 'normal,' but no way to test their unborn baby for any signs of Remus's lycanthropy.

At least…not that she knew of. Tonks frowned, wondering if Norah would know of any other cases that bore similarities to hers, where a human mated with a werewolf.

Making a mental note to ask her a little bit later when they were all awake and better rested, Tonks allowed herself to groan in frustration, brushing a wisp of her hair back behind her ear where it rightfully belonged, looking to her left and right. Nothing.

She was so damned bloody tired. Tonks sighed and closed her eyes for a split second, though she didn't allow them to remain closed for too long before opening them again and regarding her fiancé and their new traveling companion. The Wolf.

The She-Wolf puzzled Tonks, who still couldn't quite figure out her motives. Tonks's brows came together in quandary, as she sensed that Norah was keeping both her and Remus at arm's length thus far in their initial interactions and conversations with one another, and that there was something that Norah was not telling her now.

_She definitely hates Umbridge_ , Tonks thought, her frown deepening, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she recollected the angered look in the blonde Wolf's blue eyes.

Tonks couldn't help but to wonder why, sensing that the animosity and immense hatred went far beyond that of Umbridge initiating the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act.

_But why_? It was always the one question as an Auror she tried to answer first when attempting to ascertain a Dark wizard or witch's motives for committing a crime.

And when she couldn't answer it, during times like right now as she struggled to piece together why it was exactly that Norah was helping them, Remus's promise to talk to Minister Scrimgeour about repealing the Legislation Act aside, it troubled her.

As she watched the slow and steady rise and fall of the young blonde werewolf's shoulders, as Norah seemed to be fully asleep by now, Tonks stifled the urge to groan.

Tonks was more than tempted to follow Norah and Remus's example and get what little shut-eye she could, but she knew if she were to try, it wouldn't bode well.

It was, after all, her watch, and she was not about to shirk her responsibility, as bloody boring as it was. It was only fair. She _did_ say she'd take the first watch, after all.

Oh, but Merlin's _Beard_ , she was so exhausted, and feeling even _worse_ by the second as time seemed to drag and the seconds turned to minutes, which took ages.

Tonks frowned as her stomach gave another low grumble, reminding her that she had not eaten any dinner, though this time there was a slight tinge of nausea, as well.

She wondered if she had made the wrong decision in choosing not to tell Remus and Norah about the berries she'd consumed, or if there was a slim possibility that the She-Wolf could be wrong about the type of berries that Tonks had found, and then felt incredibly guilty. _Of course, she would know them better than me or Remus, she lives in this bloody forest_! Her conscience scolded her, and she felt the heat creep to her face.

It had taken her only about twenty minutes before she'd started to feel even remotely sick, how waves of heat had started to course through Tonks's bloodstream, a cold sweat glistening on her pale, gaunt features. Her eyes sunken in and skin sallow, it felt as though her stomach and feet as she walked the perimeter were full of hard stones.

Tonks stumbled away from Norah and Remus, and with each step, her stomach tightened and ached all the more. She kept swallowing, and her throat kept clenching, but it wasn't enough to stop the warm feeling rising, spiraling throughout her chest.

It felt as though her poor temples pounded against her skull, and she felt cold, though she suspected no matter the season, it was always bloody cold at night in the Forbidden Forest, and her headache, she tried to rationalize it and explain away as a stress induced headache brought on by the fear of being separated from Lupin for a second time and then what had transpired with Barty Crouch Jr. Tonks let out a sigh.

The young witch rested on the ground, her back pressed against the bark of a tree trunk for support. Her whole body felt like it ached, her pale cheeks reddening slightly and burning with the flush of a fever. She would have woken Remus or Norah, but she didn't want to worry them and disturb their sleep. Lupin was looking exhausted earlier, and he needed the rest more than she did, and besides that, there was no strength in her voice, just a whisper. Her breaths quivered in short, quick gasps every time Tonks inhaled to draw in a breath of air, her lungs having no choice but to take in the chilled night fall air painfully and rigidly around their campsite. She couldn't seem to stop shaking, either, which was troubling for her. Sometimes it was rough, other times Tonks thought she could manage it, but every time she thought she would get close to even a semblance of rest, a new violent spell of shaking would force her tired lids awake. "I'll get better. I'll get better," she repeated to herself, feebly rubbing at her arms and clutching herself in a sickly attempt to ease the unsettling chill that continued to run down her spine and made her poor skin crawl. Tonks had been sick before with a fever.

But never quite like _this_. Besides, if she woke Norah or Lupin up and told them what had happened, they would likely be furious with her, and the She-Wolf was more than likely right about what those damned bloody berries could do to a poor person.

She felt horrible! Tonks crossed her legs together and stared numbly into the fire, which had dulled since she had started the first watch and was mostly just a glowing ember flame by this point. The young Auror blinked owlishly as she spotted movement.

It was there amid the branches, stretched outward by tall and confident trees that the spider made his web. She flinched and bit down on her tongue to stifle her scream.

He (or she!) was the color of the bark itself and about the size of a small acorn yet so light that even he could surf the light breezes of the cold autumnal air around him.

Tonks blinked once, twice, three times, and the spider was gone. Vanished. Tonks narrowed her eyes in suspicion and looked to her left and then to her right. Norah had mentioned one of the side effects of those stupid poisonous berries was mild hallucinations. She let out a dark little chuckle escape her lips and shook her head.

Normally, she would have balked at the idea of experiencing one hell of a trip, but tonight, it was something of a relief. The second Norah had mentioned hallucinations, Tonks had been afraid she would start seeing pink elephants or Dementors or even a giant Erumpent, but if a tiny little spider was the _worst_ these berries could do, then she supposed that it wasn't so bad. She could handle spiders.

Doing her best to stifle her groan as she slowly stood up and stretched, Tonks supposed she could work on trying to collect more kindling to keep the fire going.

Of course, given the scolding she'd received from Remus and Norah earlier about accidentally almost wandering into the thick of the Forbidden Forest, she wasn't going to go anywhere near it again until Norah was awake and could guide them through, so Tonks decided she would stick to the perimeter and stay close by to find some of them.

Tonks had had enough of getting lost in the Forbidden Forest for one night. So, as she walked along the edge of the forest's borders, she collected what kindling she could find. Not that it really amounted to much. The branches that she did find were wet and wouldn't re-ignite the flames of the fire as well as she would have hoped. Tonks sighed.

She hissed and bit the wall of her cheek as another tingling, numbing, white-hot flare of pain jolted up her arm. Remus had mended her broken wrist earlier, but that still didn't mean the damn appendage didn't give a painful twitch every now and again.

Tonks let out a groan once she was well out of earshot of Remus and Norah as she walked further along the path, collecting meager twigs that practically broke the moment she gripped them as she went along, thinking maybe if she continued picking up sticks for the next half-hour or so, it would keep her awake until Norah woke up and then she could finally get some beloved and very much needed sweet, sweet rest.

Though the more she walked, the more she wanted to lie down and collapse. But Merlin's Beard, she felt so _sick_! Nauseous. _Those damned berries_ , she thought angrily.

The young pink-haired Auror looked up as the half-crescent, waning moon went behind a pair of clouds. Now it was bloody dark, and she could barely see anything at all. She wished she had her wand, though if she had to guess it was laying amongst a pile of rubble back at whatever was left of Crouch's estate. She frowned. _Wonder what happened to it since the damned place was under siege when Ollie and I escaped there_?

Tonks wondered if she would ever truly know the truth, and as she mulled it over, decided it was probably for the best. She heaved a sigh of frustration and squinted her poor eyes, straining to see into the pitch-black darkness ahead of her, bending down and picking up another stick for their campfire. At least it wasn't the dead of winter.

"Could always be _worse_ , T," she grumbled darkly to herself in a vain effort to make herself feel better. And then her mind drifted to thoughts of her best friend and froze. How…how could she have been so _selfish_?! For all she knew, Ollie was in pain and suffering and here _she_ was, relatively unharmed minus feeling the side effects from a small handful of potentially poisonous berries and she was complaining about this?!

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat. The snakelike voice that rested in the back of her mind whisper-hissed poisonous thoughts into the shell of her ear, taunting the young witch. _You honestly think your friend is going to make it_?

It laughed at her. _You are still soooo pathetic. He won't. He's going to die, and it's going to be all your fault, again! You haven't learned your lesson at all to leave that boy well enough alone! Ollie probably won't even want to see you after all of this_!

These dark, invasive thoughts left Tonks speechless and at an utter loss for words.

Her gray, almond-shaped eyes were wide and unblinking as the pile of sticks in her arms loosened and dropped to the ground at the edges of her black combat boots.

Her breaths hitched in her throat. _Oh! And what would Ollie say to all of this? You never really got to have that talk with him about you and Remus. And your baby_.

A heavy hand found its way back to Tonks's face as she wiped a sheen of sweat off her brow. The mocking, snakelike voice was laced with amusement and judgement.

Tonks tightly squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the awful voice. Unfortunately, she knew this voice quite well and was awfully familiar with its tone.

This time, the voice was _hers_. _Did you really ever care for Ollie Brennan at all? From what it looks like, you've moved on from one man to the next, Nymphadora_!

" _No_!" Her cracking, wavering voice erupted from the confines of her chest and her lips as though Tonks thought it would be the silencer to the demonic voice inside her head. Her shallow breathing quickened and only became worse as time itself passed.

Tonks wasn't even aware she'd dropped the last stick she'd collected to the ground and buried her face in her hands. "Y—you're _wrong_. I—I'm…h— _happy_ ," she croaked.

Pieces of her short dark pink pixie cut were sticky every which way as they entangled in her fingers as she tugged violently on locks of her hair, feverish and practically hysterical at this point. Tonks felt as though her lungs were on fire, burning as the biting cold air thrashed around her and squeezed at her throat, wrapping its icy tendrils around the column of her throat as poison ivy wound itself around an old pillar.

The pounding of her heart throbbed and numbed against her chest, and Tonks felt quite certain that slick, wet tears would slip from her eyes at any given moment if she couldn't get a handle on her emotions, and she might even wake Remus and Norah up.

Tonks allowed herself a few moments to try to force her body and mind to calm down. After a moment of what felt like a truly deafening silence, the demonic voice had finally ceased tormenting her already troubled mind and heart, and the only thing Tonks heard was the wind flowing around her and the occasional chirp of crickets.

Her head remained buried in her hands, and her lungs had finally calmed down enough to where the burning feeling was slowly subsiding. "I—I—I _love_ Ollie," she whispered. "I—I _do_. I—in my own way, b—but not…not like that." Her voice dropped lower than she was used to, and Tonks swallowed past the lump in her throat.

Oh, but Merlin's Beard, this was so bloody _wrong_. It just _had_ to be wrong, right?

Tonks's shoulders heaved as she inhaled sharp breaths of cold air and sanguinely lifted her head, brushing away the last of her wretched, salty tears with a flick of her finger. She didn't know how much more of this her fractured mind could be expected to take. She glanced down at her boots, at the pile of fallen and discarded sticks, and scowled, deciding to forsake the idea of keeping the damned bloody fire going anymore. As she prepared to head back to the campsite and wake Norah, she noticed the path in front of her was suddenly lit up better than it had been but a moment ago.

More illuminated, which Tonks thought eerie and rather kind of odd. Strange.

Tonks frowned and took a careful half-step forward. Where was the glow coming from? It hadn't been there before. Was this just another of the Forest's tricks on her mind? Another one of those damned poisonous berries' stupid, freaking hallucinations?

It wasn't until it was already too late, and Tonks heard the almost muted whinny of what sounded like a horse neighing in frustration and stomping its hoof against the dirt. _Oh, my Merlin_ , she thought and ground her teeth, clinging her eyes tightly shut for a moment before finding that she was well and truly rooted to her spot where she stood. _There are MORE of them_? _But when did they get here? Why didn't I hear_?

Tonks still hadn't forgotten the one that had held the bloody knife to her throat! The young witch swallowed and slowly turned on the heel of her boot with the intention of making a run back to the campfire and alerting Norah and Remus immediately, that they were no longer alone, that centaurs were in their vicinity.

Though as she risked a peek over her shoulder, Tonks realized that the centaurs' silhouettes were now just as close to her as she was to the fire of their precious camp.

And they had much longer legs than Tonks had, considering their lower halves were the bodies of powerful stallions. Did they _see_ her? There were only two of them.

Probably. Tonks inwardly cursed as she felt her left foot accidentally step on a loud twig and it snapped and made a deafeningly loud crack! under the heel of her boot.

_Great_ , she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. _There goes the stealth part of my plan. There's no way in Merlin's Beard the centaurs didn't hear that bloody noise_!

"Oh, _damn_ ," Tonks swore as she saw the creatures' heads whiplash sharply up, looking away from their own campfire and towards the source of the disturbance.

In this case, _her_. She had to get back to Norah and Remus, and _quickly_ , though it would seem Fate, that cruel bastard, had _other_ ideas in mind for her at this point in time, considering how the creatures she saw in the distance at the other end of the Forest weren't so distant now, and how the centaurs, both of them, moved towards her at an alarming speed, their hooves galloping and thundering onto the forest ground.

Tonks froze, her mind feeling like it was going a million miles a minute. She had no wand with which to defend herself with, and even if she did, considering the centaurs' prejudice towards witches and wizards, the act of using magic against a centaur was considered one of the highest offenses in wizard kind that there possibly was.

To do so was a crime. Tonks bit the wall of her cheek as she watched the creatures steadily advance on her and close off the gap of space between them and her.

What the bloody hell was she supposed to _do_ in this situation? The centaurs were going to reach her before she could even think about making a run for it for Remus…

They saw her and there was no stopping that. She was well and truly caught.

"Damn it," she swore through gritted teeth, wildly looking on the ground, to the left and right, searching for something— _anything_ —that she could use as a weapon.

Spotting a large fallen tree branch just to her immediate right that looked sturdy enough, Tonks thought it was going to have to do and didn't hesitate to bend down and pick it up, clutching onto the overly large branch with both hands, holding it out defensively in front of her, much like she would a sword. Oh, what she wouldn't give for her wand, regulations and rules against the centaurs be damned to Merlin Above!

Tonks winced and took a half stumbling step back, clutching the stick tightly in her grasp, squeezing it as best she could with her uninjured hand that still hurt as hell.

She chanced a glance behind her at the campsite in the distance. There was no way that she was going to make it back to Remus and Norah in time before the centaurs would catch her, and more to the point besides, making it back would only succeed in leading the centaurs right to the two of them, and Tonks couldn't do that.

So, she made the split decision that instead of going back to camp, she ducked into the trees and bolted into a run as fast as her legs would allow, being sure all the while to stick to the edge of the Forbidden Forest as much as she would allow, to ensure that the pair of centaurs that were tailing her followed Tonks instead of moving towards the sleeping She-Wolf and her fiancée. If this meant she could keep them safe, then so be it.

Tonks swore under her breath as she ran, not sure if she should feel relieved or not as she heard the thundering of the centaurs' hooves get closer as they rapidly gained on her. Of course, she was glad she'd thought not to lead them straight to Remus and Norah, but this didn't exactly solve the problem that she was currently being chased.

Perhaps by the very same beasts that had kidnapped Umbridge, or even worse, knew the same centaur that had held the knife to her throat! Now, Tonks was back in the thick of the Forbidden Forest, which had succeeded in getting her lost a total of two times, about to make this one a third, and was being followed by two, maybe even three or four centaurs at best, and she was without a wand, her only weapon a branch.

And Norah and Remus were both still asleep, oblivious to the fact that she wasn't keeping watch, and to top it all off, Tonks _still_ thought she was going to vomit, feeling the warm acidic bile creep up at the back of her throat, the pounding headache at the front of her temples and back of her skull, the feverish drops of sweat on her brow.

_Maybe it's best if I DO get lost in the Forest this time_ , Tonks thought angrily. At least the centaurs couldn't kill her or do whatever they were going to do to her if the Forbidden Forest managed to lose her for a third time in a single night. A record, really.

In the Forbidden Forest, especially at night like this, there was no way to know which direction to go, the trees hidden behind the thick dense of blackness that covered everything in its path. Tonks could feel her blood become cold and her skin totally icy.

This was a truly horrible, and all-around _bad_ idea. What in the name of Merlin had she been thinking?! She—she should have sucked up her wounded pride and woken Remus and Norah anyways. With their wands, they were better equipped to deal with this current little problem than _she_ was, and to top it all off, she was _pregnant_.

Remus was right. She had to stop putting herself at risk like this without thinking things through. But the Forbidden Forest seemed to have a twisted, cruel sense of humor, and unlike earlier, the woodland path in front of her feet wasn't as confusing.

Both a blessing and a curse, that she could actually see in front of her, that was the blessing, but a curse in that mean that Tonks didn't hold a prayer's chance of losing the centaurs currently tailing her. Tonks let out a groan and ran deeper into the Forest.

She was kind of starting to feel dizzy, _really_ light-headed, and her lungs gasped and practically heaved, burning for cold air to come to her lungs that just wasn't coming to.

Her wide-open gray eyes moved with pointless speed. She wanted to see open sky and space all around—not these virescent tree limbs that groped that blotted out even a patch of nighttime sky. Even the cold air, which at first had felt refreshing and was perhaps the only comfort in helping to ease the horrible feeling of sickness in her stomach, had now come to feel like thick soup that had settled deep within her chest.

Tonks would run, but she didn't know which direction to take. "Damn it…" She cursed herself for not trying to throw up those damned berries when she had the chance. Norah would have thought her a bloody _fool_ , and Remus probably would have fretted over her, thinking she was sick again or something was wrong with their baby, but at least she could have made a run from these damned centaurs with a clear mind.

The young witch swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, wanting nothing more than to call out for help, for Remus or Norah to come to her aid as she felt and heard the pounding of the centaurs' hooves behind her, wishing at the very least, she had her wand, treaty with wizard kind and the centaurs' be damned at this point. Tonks was _not_ going to just sit back and let them torture her without a fight.

Tonks was starting to wish that she'd woken up the She-Wolf and Lupin, but she didn't want to drag them into this. This was her mess, her burden to get out of, and calling out for help could easily lead to both of them getting killed, and Tonks was _not_ about to put Remus's life in mortal danger when he had so much to live for these days.

She couldn't drag either one of them into this, even if she were petrified beyond belief and terrified out of her wits' end and no longer able to think rationally anymore.

The thought of saving Lupin's life was the only thing that propelled her legs forward, though she wished she was faster and that she weren't so exhausted and she could actually see straight in front of her, and tried to ignore the black mists swirling in front of her vision in ebbs and flows, and the rising feeling of acidic bile in her chest.

Tonks knew in her current physical condition she was hardly capable of fighting off two or three centaurs, much less without her wand at the ready, and especially not with her head swimming as it was at the moment, and she wanted to scream and panic.

Especially when they began shouting, almost catcalling after her, and Tonks was surprised at how young the pair of male centaurs sounded. _Not much older than me_ …

" _Human_! There's no use _running_ from us, little dove," one of them to her left mocked in a coarse, rough voice that sounded like a wooden crate being moved across stone. "You trespass in our territory, _witch_ ," the centaur spat in a disgusted tone.

Another one of the creature's comrades offered a cruel laugh at the quip.

"Why don't you turn around and come back? We've got something we think you'd like to _see_ , little _witch_ ," another one barked out in a frustrated, gruff voice.

Tonks felt her teeth grind in anger and beads of sweat break out on her brow and start to drip down her temples as she ignored the cruel taunts as best as she possibly could, considering the centaurs were rapidly closing off the gap of space and gaining on her, and their loud, frustrated whinnies felt like they were reverberating all around her.

Tonks was so bloody tired, though she knew she had to keep running or they would catch up to her. Her lungs burned, hotter than dragon fire, with each frantic breath of cold night air she drew in as she ran faster than she thought possible of herself.

Her first thought was that Moody would be proud of her for running this far, despite how sick she felt, how her entire body ached, and it felt like she was going to throw up at any second, and she almost wished that she _would_ , if anything to get rid of the warm feeling currently rising in her chest and the bitter bile that crept its way slowly up into her throat. She knew she had to keep pushing her body, even past its breaking point if that's what it took to keep the small herd of centaurs away from Remus and—

Tonks let out a muffled yelp of surprise and skidded to a halt, sending earth and leaves everywhere as she practically almost barreled over the centaur closest in her path.

The young witch froze and drew in a sharp breath of cold air that pained her lungs. Oh, _damn_. She panted and gasped tired breaths, clutching weakly at her ribcage.

There were four of them in total, and flanking her from all directions, three of them with loaded bow and arrows pointing directly at her chest in case she tried to flee.

The fourth, however, and clearly much the leader of this little herd, had no arrow pointed at her chest, and he stood in the middle with a twisted, grotesque smirk on his otherwise handsome features. This one, unlike the one she'd met earlier, was a light pale purple in color, almost lavender, with a dark black mane that was braided into sections, and a look of utter annoyance intermingled with…something _else_ on his face.

Tonks gulped in between clutching onto the branch she'd picked up off the ground, holding onto the stick tightly as she looked wildly around herself at the others.

_Just great_. She was more or less surrounded by the four centaurs with no way out. _I should have called for Rem or Norah when I had the chance. But then if I did…if…_

If she _had_ , they'd probably be surrounded too. At least this way, they weren't in danger. Tonks swallowed as the leader of this particular small group of centaurs spoke.

"What's a cute little slip of a thing like you, _witch_ , doing _alone_ in the forest?" he questioned with what Tonks could only describe as a sinister smirk on its pale, purple face as the centaur stomped its hoof in a moment of agitation. "Hmm?" it asked her.

Tonks heaved and gasped for breath and hesitated as she righted herself, one hand still holding onto the stick, the other wound tightly around her bruised, protesting ribcage for support as she barely managed to straighten her posture and stand upright.

"What's…what are _you_ doing away from the rest of your herd?" Tonks shot back in between gasping, pained breaths. Tonks groaned in frustration and squeezed her eyes tightly shut in between her swells of nausea and rapidly increasing light-headedness.

There was no _possible_ way she was going to be able to talk herself out of this one and given that she was pregnant and had so much in life ahead of her, she wasn't ready to surrender to these beasts and die, either.

At least not without putting up a hell of a fight. Tonks swallowed, hoping it wouldn't come to that, as her body already felt taxed beyond its capacity for one day.

Tonks gulped and held the stick out defensively in front of her as one would a sword, ready to attempt to fight off these beasts as she tried to think of something—anything—else that she could say to keep the centaurs listening to her, not attacking.

"Wh—what do you want with _me_?" she croaked hoarsely. "I mean you _no_ harm." Her attempt at stalling was already proving to be pretty much a fruitless endeavor at this point, and the only thing she succeeded in doing was causing all four centaurs to erupt into a bout of raucous, and in her mind, wicked sounding laughter.

Tonks visibly winced and resisted the urge to glance back over her shoulder towards the direction of their campsite. Maybe the noise would have woken either Remus or Norah up. At this point, she almost hoped that it did. She needed _help_.

Though she was pretty far from their campfire at this point, given she could no longer see the flickering ember flames of the campfire anymore, she was probably pretty far off, and thus she was forced to abandon any hope of help coming quickly to her aid.

Besides, she couldn't scream for help and drag Norah and Remus into this with a clear conscience, and Tonks thought if she could save her fiancé's life, then she would.

Even if it meant her own. Tonks swallowed as the leader of the herd spoke.

"Put the stick down, human, and I promise that we won't hurt you, little dove," the light purple-skinned centaur grinned and stomped its hoof, shooting his arm out and forcing his comrades to lower their bows and arrows. "We just want to talk to you."

Talk?! Talk?! Why in Merlin's name would these beasts want to talk with her? Was this how she was going to die? Were they going to rape her and leave her body?

Was _that_ it? This didn't at all sound like a promise that Tonks thought she could trust, though if the one were willing to engage in conversation, maybe that meant these creatures would show her a modicum of mercy and allow her to escape unscathed?

It was worth a shot. Tonks ground her teeth and spoke through gritted teeth.

"We can…talk," she said at last. "I—I won't use my—my weapon if you don't fire at me and use yours," Tonks offered in what she hoped was a neutral voice, though she continued to keep a firm grip on the stick clutched tightly in front of her. " _Well_?"

Tonks steeled herself, knowing she had to be ready to bludgeon either one of these beasts to death if she had to, treaty with them or not be damned at this point.

She had her baby to protect and think of. She would defend her unborn child with her own life. She knew she would fight like hell if it meant staying alive. " _Now_."

Her voice cracked and wavered at the command, and these four centaurs didn't just seem like the type that would walk away from a human encroaching in their turf.

The other three centaurs laughed, though the fourth in the middle, did not.

"Just _look_ at her! So _weak_ she can _barely_ stand up! I doubt you know how to use that anyway. You don't even have a wand on you, _witch_. Not so _powerful_ now…"

This other centaur that had spoken, this one dark blue, almost cerulean in color its coat, took a half step forward and whinnied in frustration. Tonks noticed and let out a snarl. "S—stay back! I—I'm _warning_ you!" she squeaked, warning the lot of them as she held out the stick defensively in front of her like a sword, wishing she had a wand.

Tonks swallowed as her voice cracked and wavered on her threat as she left her words hanging in the air, and the lead centaur in the middle let out a snort of agitation.

"You play a dangerous game with us, _witch_. Do you take us to be fools?" the centaur growled angrily. "You know you cannot fight us off, human, but you are more than welcome to try, though I guarantee you, _witch_ , that you will not win against us."

"We'll only be too delighted to play along with this game, little mouse," piped up the other one, almost sounding amused, and Tonks's fear sent a shiver down her spine.

Tonks shook her head, blinking back the beginnings of briny, salty tears and took a few steps back, trying her hardest not to look at the arrows still pointed at her chest.

"As you wish, little dove," the purple-skinned centaur murmured, and Tonks decided this one was evidently their leader in this regard, shaking its head, as though disappointed in Tonks, almost like he had expected her to put up more of a fight.

Without so much as a warning, he fired an arrow directly at Tonks, knocking the stick she'd been wielding out of her hands in one swift movement, the arrow moving so fast past the shell of her ear and impaling the arrowhead in the bark of the tree behind her before Tonks could so much as let out a cry of surprise or scream for Remus.

"Grab her." It was just a simple command, though the lack of compassion and the coldness of the centaur's voice, curt and clipped as it was, made Tonks gasp in surprise.

She gasped as she felt a strong hand come around to clamp over her mouth, and she was leaning against something firm and hard, and she recognized it was one of her captor's chests. Tonks threw her uninjured arm back towards her would-be aggressor, trying and failing to hit the centaur with the crook of her elbow, but it grabbed her arm before she could even throw most of her body weight in attempting to fight him off.

"What should we _do_ with her?" this one whisper-hissed into the shell of her ear, squeezing Tonks's arm as it forcefully wrenched her injured arm behind her back. "What if this one is with the same witch that Astelos brought back?" he questioned.

_Oh, he must be talking about Umbridge_! Tonks thought, but could only manage a small mewl of fear. Though the leader of the herd's next words sent a chill through her spine. "I suppose we'll have to kill her for daring to trespass here," the purple-skinned centaur growled, no semblance of warmth or kindness in the beast's voice. "But that doesn't mean that we can't have some _fun_ with this little witch, first before we dispose of her." He looked towards Tonks, and she felt a tremor of fear engulf her as he looked at her and scoffed, shaking his head in disgust. "There's no way this little dove could have survived out this long on her own like this. Just look at her! Helpless as a rabbit and I don't see a wand on this one." But _Merlin's_ _Beard_ , what she wouldn't give for her wand! Even to cast a Patronus to call for help! Tonks groaned quietly to herself and tried to ignore the swells of pain that shot up her injured arm as white-hot flaring jolts.

With a whimper of pain, Tonks felt herself being pushed roughly into the arms of another centaur, who turned her around and slammed her back in the direction she'd come from, only to be forced into the arms of another one. She squeezed her eyes shut as she attempted to regain control of her own body, yet these damned centaurs seemed hellbent on preventing that. Given how nauseous and dizzy she felt, there was no possible way she could even think about making a run for it in her current condition.

The only thing she could focus on was the cruel, taunting laughter of the four centaurs as they herded her back towards the direction of their campsite, to do what with her, Merlin only knew, and Tonks decided that she didn't want to know of it.

Tonks gave a cry of pain when one of the centaurs shoved her forward especially hard, causing the sole of her boot to catch on a twisted, gnarled tree root that had been hidden from view, and she launched forward and felt her body beginning to lean.

With virtually no time to react, she caught her fall with both of her hands, the brunt of the impact resting solely on her still-injured hand, and she hoped the move wasn't going to cause her poor wrist to re-break. Remus had already set her bones once; she did not want him to have to do it a second time in the span of a single night.

None of the centaurs made any sudden movements to pick Tonks back up off the ground after a few minutes spent in cruel, mocking laughter as their taunts and insults rang in her eardrums, Tonks gritted her teeth and let out a hiss as she picked herself up off the ground with as much dignity as she could possibly muster, trying to ignore the swells of fiery pain that shot up her arm, down her spine, and to the tips of her toes.

Though with a cruel laugh, the centaur closest to her, this fellow green in color, he kicked his hoof right out from underneath poor Tonks, causing the young witch to shoot out an arm to catch herself, and she let out a scream as her sprained wrist caught her weight for a second time, and Tonks just let herself lay there.

"Ugh. Just…just let me lay here and let me bleed," she moaned, feeling blood well thickly on her tongue. "Yeah," she gasped, panting for breath. "It'll be good for me. Just leave me here…"

The centaurs only laughed even harder at her comment, and Tonks let out a whine as the leader stepped forward, its tail flicking back and forth as he knelt by her.

"You'd have not survived this long on your own, precious little girl," he spat, sounding amused and also disgusted, extending an arm and wrenching Tonks to her feet. "Someone in this Forest has prevented you from getting yourself killed, _witch_. Though it would seem, and this truly is such a shame, that they have abandoned you. Left you behind, _witch_. They saw you as _worthless_ , and now, here you are. With _us_."

Tonks clenched her teeth as she felt the centaur's strong hands engulf her waist and let out a scream as the leader of the herd threw her promptly over his shoulder.

Ignoring her yells and screams of protests as she balled her hands into fists and pounded at the centaur's bareback, the other three following behind their leader as it led her further and further into the Forbidden Forest, Tonks felt the panic surge within her veins, and her energy and strength rapidly drained from her the more she fought.

"Just wait and see, little dove," the purple-skinned centaur called out, in a low, threatening warning as he continued to carry her further away from her campsite. "You think you're quiet now, but you won't be by the time the others have finished with you. And it's not going to _last_ when I break every single bone in your body with my bare hands. We have our methods of getting trespassers like you to talk, filthy _human_. I'll break your fragile, tiny little body in more ways than you can ever imagine, witch. Let's see just how quiet you are, _then_. I know _someone_ in these woods is _protecting_ you. My comrades and I are going to have fun making you talk. You're going to tell us their names, where to find your precious camp, everything. _I'll_ get you to talk, sweetheart. But it's really up to you, _witch_ , just how much you want to _suffer_ first."

* * *

**A/N: Whew! As you may have noticed, Tonks really IS a magnet and has a 'talent for trouble.' Tonks once AGAIN finds herself in a very precarious position sans wand and sans Remus or Norah for help, and isn't quite as easy to handle as say, a broken wrist or the eating poisonous berries. I don't know how many of you know this, but in Greek mythology, centaurs are a race of creatures that are known to be quite volatile, and represent barbarism and unbridled chaos (horse pun intended?) and are known to be quite, ah…lustful and rape-y, which REALLY makes me question in OOTP just what the heck happened to Umbridge when the centaurs carried her off, though the book didn't go into explicit details, it got me thinking.**

**The Forbidden Forest segment has been pretty serious thus far, and it's only going to increase in its seriousness as the story progresses as the heroes of our tale work to get Umbridge back so that she can properly face justice for her crimes. I'll try going forward not to let these few centaurs get too carried away in their mistreatment of Tonks, but they do have minds of their own and are going to do whatever their black hearts desire, which in this case, is finding out who Tonks is with in the Forest.**

**Hopefully, help will be able to come for her soon! I'm starting to think poor Lupin should have taken his own advice and tethered an enchanted rope to their waists to constantly keep track of his fiancée. Just how much more trouble can she really get into?**

**Please leave me a review if you're enjoying it?**


	75. A Pretty Little Witch

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE**

Tonks screamed until she thought her voice had gone hoarse and all she could manage was a breathy little, hoarse squeak and pitiful mewls of fear, hoping the noise would alert the She-Wolf and Remus to her disappearance, and her white-knuckled fists were practically bruised, cracked, and bleeding from pounding on the small of the leader of the group of four centaurs' back that had unceremoniously and without warning hauled her over her shoulder. Oh, but Merlin's Beard, where was her _wand_?

_I swear, next time Ollivander comes to give me a replacement, I'm buying six_ , Tonks thought darkly, clenching her teeth in anger, thinking this was the _last_ time she was going anywhere without her wand.

She should have had Ollie try to find it for her back when they were still at Crouch's stupid familial castle, but _no_ , escaping was more important. The centaurs knew the ins and outs of the mysterious ways of the Forbidden Forest, which wasn't exactly surprising to Tonks, considering this was their natural habitat, and they appeared to be taking her to the undisclosed location of a small cave, just outside of where Tonks had been patrolling the perimeter near their campsite.

Tonks didn't think it was _fair_ that the centaurs also did not let the Forest's magical enchantments get the better of their mind, or perhaps they'd lived their whole lives in this dark forest, by this stage of the game, the centaurs had simply gotten used to it.

It was hard for her to tell. Though not once had the centaurs gotten lost or turned around on the path in the same manner that she and Remus had, or would have had several times over by now if they didn't have Norah as their guide through the woods.

The air in the forest almost felt thick and suffocating, like soup in her chest, which made it hard for Tonks to get in a good breath of air, which she still didn't comprehend. Merlin's Beard, why couldn't she _breathe_ properly in this bloody forest?

_Figures. Just my luck this damned forest would take a break from insanity only exactly when I NEED it to get them lost_!

Tonks was promptly jolted out of her thoughts when the centaur carrying her like she weighed less than a sack of potatoes over his arm spoke up in a rough and coarse voice.

"Get a fire going," it growled in a lowly tone, the edges of his voice hardened as he stomped one of his front hooves in an aggressive manner, before flinging Tonks to the ground, where her back connected with the hard, earthen soil with a sickening crack.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Tonks tried to ignore the white-hot fiery swells of pain that jolted down her spine. Carefully, she cracked open one eyelid and peered up at the lead centaur's three other companions in his group. The other three did not seem to mind the harsh brutality of his treatment towards a woman so far, but then again, she'd heard stories.

Tonks gulped nervously and tried to ignore the beads of sweat gathering on her brow. Centaurs were lustful beasts, and whatever these creatures were hoping to do with her, she sincerely hoped it wasn't… _that_.

Were they going to torture her and then rape her? Leave her body somewhere for Remus and Norah to find after they were done? Was that what they wanted with her? Why had the centaurs brought her _here_?

She decided that no matter what their reasonings were, she didn't like it one bit. Tonks opted to lay as unstirred and motionless on the forest floor as she possibly could, focusing on regulating her breathing back to something that resembled normal breaths, rather than making any attempt to even slowly lift her head to ascertain why she was being watched, much less try to figure out where she was or how she could escape.

Given that she still felt like she was going to puke, making a run for it when her vision blurred at the edges, causing black dots to swarm in front of her line of sight seemed like a poor judgment call at this time, so Tonks was not going anywhere at all.

_Maybe if I stay still for long enough, they might forget about me or move onto something else, and I can sneak away while they're distracted when the time is right_.

Though even as she thought this idea and found it difficult not to roll her eyes at the sheer hopefulness of her little idea, it sounded like something Ollie would come up with. After all, such things had worked for her best friend in the past, so why wouldn't they work for her? Tonks was rather petite and tiny and was often easily overlooked. It was a hell of a wild idea, by Merlin's left testicle, but it might just work. _Maybe_.

Tonks drew in a sharp breath and listened as her captors conversed amongst themselves. "What do you want to do with the _witch_? Do we have time to _play_ with this little dove? For a _human_ , she really _is_ a pretty little slip of a thing, isn't she?" One of the centaurs wondered out loud, loud enough, ensuring Tonks heard him, snorting in amusement, and shooting out one of its legs, so that its hoof kicked her in the ribcage.

Tonks bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out, though it wasn't enough to stifle the groan that escaped the confines of her chest and lips, rolling over on her side, curling in on herself as much as she possibly could to protect her stomach.

She didn't give a damn if they went after her legs or arms, but she'd fight like hell to protect her baby and didn't want the centaurs going anywhere _near_ her abdomen.

_Damn_. They obviously hadn't forgotten they'd kidnapped her here, then. _Shit_.

"Play with her and cut her up into little pieces, feed her to the others? She's good meat. I can make a nice fire and _burn_ her, bit-by-bit. Nice and slow," the other teased.

Tonks felt her face rapidly drain of what little color was left and shuddered, clenching her eyes tightly shut and trying to drown out the cold words of the vicious _beast_. _Oh, my Merlin, they're going to kill me_ , she thought, grinding her teeth. Before entering this bloody cursed Forbidden Forest, she'd never once given much thought to why the forest itself might be forbidden, hence its name. Now she knew.

These horrid centaurs threatening to cut off certain appendages and viciously maul her before _eating_ her?! What kind of a _sick_ joke was this, huh?! Tonks had heard rumors about the brutality of this race, but never in her wildest imaginative thoughts would she had ever guessed centaurs to be this…this… _beastly_. She felt her body instinctively stiffen as the centaur with the dark azure coat and silky black mane knelt and without prompting, lifted her hand and ghosted the pads of his rough, calloused fingers over the top of her hand, stroking her fingers tenderly.

"Look at her fingers. They're so _pristine_ , so delicate. They'd be chewy, even crispy like rat meat if we cut them off and cooked them right," he called out, interested.

" _No_." Their leader barked, whinnying in frustration, and throwing back his head and letting out to Tonks what sounded like a snort of agitation. "We aren't killing this little dove. At least, not _yet_. I'll find something else to eat. I'll hunt us a rabbit or something, and you'll cook that over the fire while I question our… _guest_ , get to know her a little better. It won't take me but a few minutes to catch us something to eat. Tie the witch up, nice, and tight. Though given how _sick_ this one looks, I do not think she will cause you any trouble," Here, the leader stomped over, his hooves kicking up leaves and dirt in his path, and the purple-skinned centaur had to stoop down slightly and his strong hand cupped Tonks's chin in his hand and he jerked her head upright, " _Will_ you, little dove?" he growled, no semblance of warmth in his tone whatsoever.

Tonks tried to open her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech. Finally, she found enough strength to slowly shake her head no.

"Good." The centaur nodded in agreement and relinquished his firm grip on her chin and shoved her back down onto the ground, stomping his back hoof in agitation.

The leader turned towards his three comrades and barked orders. "Tie her up, watch the _witch_ while I'm gone, and I would not see a single hair harmed on her pretty little head. If she's _dead_ by the time I get back, well…she won't be the _only_ one, men."

_Damn. Merlin Above, help me_ , Tonks begged silently, still keeping her eyes tightly squeezed shut as she allowed her head to rest against the forest floor beneath her head, no longer caring about the dirt and grime, or that she swore. This situation called for it. Tonks continued to keep her eyes closed until she heard the resonating sound of their hooves against the forest floor fade slightly, and she slowly, cautiously sat up straighter and dared to open her eyes to get better handling of her new surroundings.

Wherever the beasts had brought her, it was near a cave of sorts. The three centaurs had gone off near the forest's clearing to gather kindling to make their fire.

The largest centaur, the one with the purple coat and torso, was presently walking away from the rendezvous point, bow and arrow in hand, no doubt on his way to hunt for food. _Probably more rats_ , Tonks thought and suppressed a shudder at the image.

Though her temporary moment of peace was relatively short-lived as one of the centaurs started to close in on Tonks from where she sat perched on the forest floor.

He was holding what appeared to be a coil of rope in his hands, and Tonks could not seem to pull her gaze away from it. Every natural instinct of her body told her to fight like hell, to struggle against whatever this _man_ - _horse_ was about to do to her, but…

But the calmer, more rational side of her told herself that maybe, just _maybe_ , if she cooperated, there was a slim chance this group of centaurs would let her go, assuming she could summon the courage within and show them an ounce of respect.

It wasn't much of a shot, a hell of a long-shot, really, but better than nothing…

The centaur worked quickly to grab onto Tonks's hands and bind them together tightly with rope, seeming to relish in her almost-muted cry of pain as the harsh material of the rough ground against the delicate skin of her wrists and rubbed them raw. The creature did the same to Tonks's ankles, binding them tight enough that she had no fool's chance of escaping without either one of them in the group noticing her, before shoving Tonks rather violently and unexpectedly back onto the forest ground.

Tonks ground her teeth in anger as her head connected harshly with the stone beneath her, remaining stock-still, just as she had when she'd fallen. She wanted to give these centaurs no bloody excuse to give them just cause to torture her and injure her. She shivered as a cold gust of October night air wafted their way, wishing that she'd thought to borrow Lupin's jacket, or that her hands were free so she could wrap her arms around herself in a feeble attempt to keep warm. Or even, and this was a pitiable thought, but she almost— _almost_ —wished that she was developing a fever.

At least then, the radiating heat that would emanate from her body would keep her warm. Or maybe, she already had a fever and the sickness was giving her the chills. _Those Merlin-damned berries_ , Tonks thought darkly. Norah _had_ warned her, though there was nothing Tonks could do in that regard about what she had done.

It was already too late for that. The only thing she could really do in _this_ instance was praying to Merlin Above and anybody else up there in the heavens that might be looking out for her right now was that these centaurs didn't kill her, and help came.

Tonks stifled her groan of pain as she shifted slightly from her spot where she lay sprawled on the ground, testing the security of the length of rope binding her wrists.

She'd give the centaurs credit where credit was due. They knew how to tie a knot. The rope the one had used on her wrists was so bloody tight, that Tonks could barely move her wrists together a fraction of an inch at all, and she couldn't help but wonder just how long these arrogant _beasts_ planned on keeping her tied up like this.

The ropes were cutting through the fragile, already bruised skin of her wrists, causing her recently re-sprained wrist to sent fiery jolts of white-hot pain up her arm.

Tonks clenched her teeth tightly shut and locked her jaw to prevent herself from crying out in pain. She was not going to give these centaurs one piece of information.

_No_. _Way_. Not on her _life_. Her determination, however, was not quite enough to quell the stab of fear that pricked at her heart, and keeping as still as she possibly could, Tonks looked around her surroundings, and practically felt her ears perk up at the noise.

The centaurs were speaking in their own language now, a series of grunts, whinnies, and neighs, much like an actual horse would. Tonks wondered if there was a part of this race that found it beneath them, to speak in their common tongue like this.

Though centaurs, as brutal and boorish as they were, were far from stupid. Highly intelligent beasts, Tonks knew they were talking in this manner to avoid her listening.

She furrowed her brows in frustration and huffed, flinching as her breath expelled and caused a cold puff of vapor to form in front of her mouth. Damned beasts were smart. Tonks couldn't understand a word of whatever was being communicated amongst the three of them, though she wondered if it was best if she didn't know at all.

They'd managed to get the campfire going by this point, and Tonks wasn't at all sure if she should be terrified of this revelation or grateful, considering the heat just _barely_ managed to reach her from where the leader of this herd had dropped her off.

The heat from the campfire seemed to be sucked into the frigid air before ever reaching their frozen hands. They added more wood and poked it with long sticks. It seemed to die a little as if unsure of itself, unready to devour the new offerings. It licked at the new logs like a nervous kitten and sent feeble sparks to die in the air.

But after a time, it found its confidence and grew until the heat warmed them, orange flames celebrated with their wild flickering dance. It would have to last through the night. Someone would have to stay up and nurse it through the darkest hours, guard it, feed it. The warmth didn't reach Tonks, however. If anything, she felt freezing cold.

She felt as though she could deal with being cold. She didn't necessarily like it, or how feverish she currently felt, though it was nothing compared to the enveloping feeling of coldness that was the familiar feeling of fear currently pricking at her heart.

The feeling of being left alone in the presence of literal beasts who were known for their brutality and lustful ways, especially towards young witches, if the tales were true, wasn't exactly a comforting thought, and what was even more troubling was how the three centaurs were, for the time being, leaving her alone, not regarding her at all.

With her ankles and wrists bound as tightly as they were, it kind of made the possibility of hoping to crawl away on her stomach not very likely at this point, but Tonks prayed that if she just remained as unstirred as possible, and didn't speak, then she wouldn't be bothered, and maybe Remus or Norah would find her and get her out.

Though even that felt like a fool's hope. Tonks frowned and blinked back frustrated, angry tears with herself for allowing herself to stray so damn far from camp.

Norah and Remus were going to be _pissed_ with her when they found her. _If_ they found her. It was almost too much for Tonks to even want to get her hopes up at this point. She hadn't even been lying on the ground for less than five minutes before Tonks felt a pair of strong arms grip onto her forearms and roughly haul her upright to a sitting position so that her back was pressed against what felt like a stone-cold boulder.

Tonks instinctively shrunk away from the centaur, the one with the dark blue coat and narrowed, blackened, beady eyes, as it proceeded to wrap another length of rope around the boulder which she was now effectively pinned against so she couldn't flee.

She let out a hiss as she felt the pad of his rough, calloused finger come up to almost stroke the pale column of her throat tenderly, much as a lover would.

"You _know_ , little dove, I can't recall the last time a _human female_ wandered this far into our territory before," the blue centaur commented, almost casually, and Tonks let out a whine as it pinched at the lobe of her and gave it a rough and firm squeeze. "You're not much," it growled, scrunching his nose in disgust, though Tonks didn't quite like the hungered look in his eyes as he eyed her figure in her black pants and red collared shirt, dirtied and torn though it was. "Though, for a _witch_ , you _are_ pretty."

It let out what Tonks guessed was supposed to be a light-hearted laugh, though coming from the centaur, it sounded methodically cold and devoid of all warmth. The centaur continued to eye Tonks as though she were a prize to be won that it had ensnared in his little trap, and she supposed that wasn't too far off from the truth. " _So_ ," he drolled, almost methodically, toying with the braided ends of his black, silky mane. "You have ventured into this Forest, into our territory, have crawled out of whatever disease-ridden _hovel_ you live in, to come to this place, where angels reside."

Tonks made an odd little strangled noise at the back of her throat, sputtering at the sheer arrogance and indignation of this creature standing in front of her triumphantly. The words tumbled unchecked from her lips before she could even think of stopping herself, much less be made aware of what was happening, how her fear manifested itself in the form of anger at being held against her will like this violently.

"This is _no_ place of joy, _centaur_ , and you are _no_ angel," she spat venomously, and before Tonks knew what was happening to her, the centaur moved so fast to close off the gap of space between the two of them and backhanded her across her right cheek.

The slap was as loud as a clap and stung her face. It had been an open-handed smack and a good one at that. Tonks frowned and turned her head to the side and spat a mouthful of blood out onto the ground. It stung. It hurt as hell, tears welling in her eyes. The centaur was regarding Tonks now as she were little more than a piece of dirt that got caught at the bottom of his hoof and he scrunched his nose in sheer disgust.

"I should cut out your _tongue_ for that, _witch_ ," it snarled meanly. "It must be hung in the middle so that it can wag at both ends. Have you no sense of the precariousness of your position? _Hmm_?" The creature snorted and folded his arms across his slender chest. "Arrogant _witch_ , though you're a feisty little girl, I'll give you that. Though, I don't mind," he added, almost casually as he shrugged his shoulders. "It's what makes little doves like you so much fun to play with before killing you a trespasser. So… _weak_ , but you've got at least a little bit of fight left in you, _witch_."

Tonks watched the three centaurs now ganging up on her from her spot hogtied against the boulder without turning her head at all. Her heart thrummed erratically against her chest, and her eardrums were filled with a horrible, fatigued ringing.

She shrunk down and furrowed her brows in a frown in an attempt to get this beast's _filthy_ , groping hands _off_ of her midriff, which only succeeded in the centaur grabbing her even harder, his gaze lingering on her chest longer than was appropriate.

"Ngh—get— _away_ —from—me!" Tonks gasped, feeling the harsh, dirtied fingernails caked with dirt and what looked suspiciously like dried blood. " **LET GO**!"

The nails only dug into her shoulders even firmer as the centaur moved its hand from the shell of her ear and onto her face, with his hand ghosting down slightly to wrap around the pale column of her throat and gave her throat a light little squeeze.

Not enough to kill her, but just enough to enforce his intended message.

"You're not a part of this Forest, _witch_. You don't know her ways. You, humans, are _soft_. _Weak_ ," the centaur spat, sounding thoroughly disgusted and beside himself with rage. "You humans are so to using your magic to get you out of tough situations. Which is why I was surprised to find you without your wand, little dove," he crooned.

Tonks swallowed nervously down hard past the lump in her throat, not sure what to say in this regard. "I…" she stammered, though her voice trailed off as they laughed.

"Things are different here, girl," the second centaur chimed in his two cents with a rough, coarse voice in a mocking, condescending tone as he gave Tonks's figure a once-over and sniffed in disapproval, almost shaking his head in disappointment. "Your soft little body is so _tiny_ , so _fragile_. You won't fare nicely against what we would do to you. But don't worry, sweet little dove. We'll try hard not to _kill_ you. _Yet_."

The centaur snorted and turned his head back around to regard Tonks and let out a low warning growl.

"It wouldn't take much to kill you, though. Just one swift kick to the gut and you'd be dead. I could _do_ it; you know. We could kill you _easily_ , witch. All _three_ of us," he breathed, a note of lustful excitement seeping into his baritone voice right now. You would do well, human, to keep that in mind. Every second that you still draw in-breath is considered a kindness, mercy from us. Any centaur here could kill you. _Easily_."

"W—well, I…I'd really rather you _didn't_ ," Tonks managed to choke out in between pained breaths. "Look, buddy, what is it that you _want_ with me, huh?"

The centaur snarled at her, its nostrils flaring like that of an angry bull, and it stomped its hooves at her, a release of his frustration. "What do we _want_ from you? We _want_ you to tell us where your camp is, and why you've ventured into our domain!"

Tonks shook her head mutely in response. No way she was giving up Remus and Norah. This was apparently the wrong move for her to make, for her response elicited a low, warning growl from the nearest centaur standing directly in front of her, showing her slightly yellowed teeth before it balled his hand into a fist and slammed it hard into Tonks's side.

The young witch flinched and attempted to curl in on herself, as well as she could, given she was currently hogtied to a boulder with no hope of escaping unless help came for her. "Ugh, please don't do this! Please…stop this! Don't do this! I—I mean you _no harm_!" Tonks begged in a pitiful, mewling whimper, though she knew this was futile as one of the centaurs gripped onto her shoulders roughly.

"Don't _move_ , _witch_ ," he growled, practically hissing it into the shell of her ear. "Or I'll take these pretty little fingers," he added, clutching onto one of her hands and Tonks shuddered as he brought her knuckles to his lips for a chaste kiss. "And break every _single_ bone in each of your fingers, one by one…what do you say to _that_ , dove?"

The centaur turned a deaf ear to Tonks's protests and grasped onto one of Tonks's fingers in its own, larger, rougher, and more calloused hand, holding it threateningly.

Tonks, for her part, could do nothing but stare with wide, almond-shaped eyes brimming with tears, continue to beg futilely for the sake of her poor fingers and life.

"No! Don't! S— _stop_ , _please_ ," she gasped, her shoulders practically heaving as she tried to blink back the tears that threatened to escape from her lids. The centaurs only laughed, all three of them as the one clutching onto her hand continued to squeeze.

Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut, locking her jaw, and mentally steeling herself for the pain that was about to come of having each bone in her fingers broken one at a time. But it didn't come as a harsh male's voice rent the air, their leader's.

"Didn't I _tell_ you not to kill her, yet?" the angered voice bellowed, fuming.

Tonks's eyes flung wide open as the leader came practically galloping back, with what looked sickeningly like a pile of dead rabbits in his arms. She swallowed a lump in her throat as the leader regarded the scene before him with darkened, narrowed eyes.

"I think it's time that this one and I had a little conversation, wouldn't you say, men?" The leader growled in a cold voice devoid of any semblance of compassion.

Trembling, Tonks could only manage a small mewl of fear as he unsheathed a knife and the blade sat precariously on her skin, soft enough not to piece her neck, hard enough to enforce the centaur's intended message. The harsh metal should have been cold and raw against the skin of her neck, but Tonks's numb body only felt the cold.

Her throat held in a silver grasp for a second time by a centaur, and the only thing Tonks could do at this point given she was wandless, was staring lifelessly into the creature's soulless, black eyes currently clouded with a wave of horrible anger and fierce lust.

Trembling, Tonks tipped her chin up into the sharpened edge, tempting the beast to end her anguish, there was a sliver of her, just a small part, mind you, that was half hoping that he would just do it, end her suffering and get it over with, here and now.

A small stream of blood trickled from the feeble cut that Tonks could not feel, and neither did the centaur as he slowly lowered the dagger and cut at the rope restraints binding her arms and ankles, remove his gaze from hers. Her frozen heart shifted at the sight of the beast's merciless gaze, her legs almost failing beneath her, as the leader of this small broken-off herd of centaurs roughly hauled her to her feet and shoved her.

"It's time for this little dove and me to have a friendly little _chat_ ," the centaur growled, gripping onto her forearm in a tight vice grip as the creature violently forced Tonks into the shadows, towards the cave. Tonks swallowed, blinking back briny tears.

She wasn't at all sure what this group of centaurs had in store for her, but whatever they were planning it wasn't good. She wondered if they'd done…whatever they were about to do, to Umbridge when that group had captured Dolores earlier.

Tonks was certain of one thing, at least. She was fairly certain that it wasn't going to be any better than what the lead centaur's companions had threatened her with.

To slowly break every bone in her body one-by-one until she confessed. No way. She was not about to betray Remus and Norah.

No. There was a good chance it was going to be worse. So much worse…


	76. Of Interrogations and Surprises

** CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX **

Tonks could only recall a time in her life where she was truly terrified a handful of times. The first was Ollie's first 'death', the other times had all been surrounding Crouch. But none of them quite measure up to… _this_.

The young witch swallowed past the lump in her throat and fought her body's fight or flight instinct in order to survive. She wanted to appear the fierce and brave Auror in front of this wretched beast, this centaur, this 'Man-Horse' as the blonde She-Wolf so affectionately referred to this species, but without her wand in her hand, and her nonverbal magic skills just were not coming to her, given her panicked state of mind, she was pretty much defenseless now.

_Merlin's left testicle_ , she thought, biting down on the wall of her cheek. _Why me_? She certainly didn't _feel_ brave at the moment. Far from it, as a matter of fact. In her heart, she felt nothing but a strange, horrible coldness, an emptiness for being so stupid.

So bloody, terribly _stupid_! She—she should _not_ have strayed so far from camp! Tonks felt a strange sense of cold dread that crept down her spine like a spider leaving a careful trail of silk, knowing the centaur seemed like the type of creature to make good on his earlier promised threats of torturing her until she managed to talk.

Which, at this stage of the game, might actually work, and Tonks hated herself for thinking along these lines. She was an Auror, tough-as-nails, or tried to be most times.

_Constant vigilance_ is what Moody would tell her. Bloody hard to practice _that_ when a vicious, lustful, beast of a creature was apt to kill her with dagger eyes alone.

Remus and Norah didn't know she had been taken. Hell, for all she knew, Norah hadn't even woken up yet and noticed Tonks hadn't reported back in that all was clear.

Neither of them would be able to come to her aid if they couldn't manage to locate her, or which direction to start searching _._

_Nope_. She was well and truly _screwed_.

The poor, confused, and still quite sick young witch and Auror now found herself cowering in a corner of this dark, damp cave that smelled way too much like blood and other bodily fluids for her comfort, a true assault on her nostrils. Tonks flinched.

The other three centaurs in the group were resting around a campfire at the cave's entrance, skinning and cooking up the rabbits their leader had managed to bring back.

If Tonks strained to listen, she could hear the frustrated neighs and whinnies of the centaurs as they conversed back and forth. Occasionally, the three of them would shoot intrigued glances towards Tonks's general direction, wanting to know what was said.

Their leader was currently standing, towering over poor Tonks, staring down at the young witch from where she sat curled in the corner, her knees brought in close to her chest, though Tonks refused to be the one to avert her gaze first, a sign of weakness.

The centaur's dark, purple lips twisted upwards into a vicious, cold, hard smirk.

"Who _are_ you, little dove? Really? No _human_ could have made it this far into our encampments without a guide. Are you traveling with other witches or wizards? Hmm? Is _that_ it? Perhaps there's another group of you somewhere out there," the centaur growled, pointing with an outstretched arm, the very same that was holding his knife, to the exterior of the cave, gesturing towards the open forest clearing of the Forest herself.

Her interrogator continued to speak to Tonks in a lowly, rather seductive voice that, were this creature in front of her a human, she might— _might_ —have otherwise found it at least somewhat attractive, though in this case, she found him repulsive.

The incessant, unceasing habit of the pads of the centaur's fingers grazing tenderly along the skin of her collarbones, placing his hand just underneath her shirt and allowing his fingers to explore to reach and see what they could be a _huge_ violation of her privacy, not to mention her rights.

She didn't like having this accursed wretch of a creature so close to her, nor did Tonks particularly like the way his hands groped at her.

Tonks thought she _almost_ would have preferred a kick in the legs from this creature's hooves, or for the centaur to hit her. Anything but… _that_.

She swallowed nervously and locked her jaw, hoping that her facial muscles remained impassive.

Most of her Auror training had kicked in, though Moody's rigorous training and advice throughout the years had never exactly quite prepared her for this situation.

She had, not once, offered up no verbal reply to the centaur's inquiries or antics. Though for a split second, she felt her blood run cold as the centaur asked her again if she were traveling with more humans, hoping that her eyes did not betray her fear.

How in Merlin's name did this centaur know about Remus and Norah? Had there been other scouting parties out combing the woods and they'd come across the camp?

What if…oh, Merlinhelp her, what if Rem and Norah were already hurt? Or _dead_? Or had they noticed the pair of them sleeping by the fire earlier when the group had spotted her and just not said anything, not wanting to disturb their sleep and risk causing a huge ruckus, and instead just opting to go for her since she was the weak one?

The centaur continued talking, either oblivious to Tonks's growing discomfort as a dozen possible scenarios flitted through her distraught mind on the unknown fates of her fiancée and their guide.

"Though it makes no sense why witches and wizards would travel this far into the Forest, which brings me to my _point_ , little dove. Why are you here? Your life and the current condition of your appendages depends on it, _witch_."

Tonks felt her lips part open slightly to speak, to tell him to get that dagger _out_ of her face and he could shove it where she knew it would hurt him the worst, though the only sounds that escaped her lips was a hoarse-sounding croak that made Tonks wince.

She was unwilling to answer any questions posed to her by this—this _beast_! Her heart seemed to pound and thrum against the cage of her chest, growing louder as the seconds dragged on, though, to her, it felt as though Time had stopped, becoming suspended at this moment.

It didn't take a genius like Dumbledore for Tonks to know that her captor was growing more agitated as the seconds passed with her lack of response.

Tonks had a sinking feeling that the gentle caresses of the creature's hand would soon stop, and if she didn't offer up something, it would only get worse for her.

But she couldn't rat out Norah and Remus. Not like _this_. She couldn't. _Wouldn't_. She swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as a swell of nausea wracked her body. Those damned bloody berries and their stupid side effects still hadn't worn off.

Tonks couldn't tell where the centaurs had learned, given their limited exposure to humans here in the Forest, had gotten into their thick skulls that somehow, by treating their would-be-captives with a surprising gentleness would get them to talk.

Well. It _wasn't_ going to work on her.

Tonks knew it was just a ploy, a façade of this beast in front of her, and it seemed that her captor knew that she knew it, too, and was increasingly growing more and more frustrated with her, his nostrils flaring angrily.

Tonks shivered as the centaur let out a low warning growl of frustration and one of his strong arms grasped around the column of her throat, wrenching her to her feet.

"I do not think, _witch_ , that you understand the precariousness of your position, here. What my companions and I will _do_ to you if you refuse to give the information I desire," the centaur whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, leaning in so the tip of his slender, somewhat hooked nose was almost touching the tip of hers. "I _know_ you _lie_. I detect when you _lie_ ," he snarled, baring his teeth, and stomping his hoof in frustration.

Still, Tonks did not respond, though she felt dangerously close to fainting at this point. The mounting fear sending spirals of warmth throughout her chest was likely the only thing keeping him from allowing herself to relax enough to not pass out.

He let out another growl, baring his teeth and snarling. "There's no point in keeping _secrets_ , little dove. Not from us. All I require from you, _witch_ , is for you to tell me whom you're traveling with. What you are doing here so far into the Forest's path."

The centaur let out what sounded like a frustrated snort and caressed her cheek.

"Perhaps, little dear thing, if you're good, I might even keep you alive as my little _pet_. My little _mouse_. Wouldn't you _like_ that, little dove?" the centaur tormented her.

Tonks felt her bottom lip as it trembled, quivering against her desperate urge to still it. How in the name of Merlin was she going to get out of this one? Rem and Norah weren't here with her. She wasn't about to betray Lupin's location and put him at risk.

The She-Wolf, Tonks had a feeling the young blonde could fend for herself. Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut and shrunk away from the centaur as much as she possibly could, determined to put as much distance between herself and it as she was able. She was not this centaur's little _pet_. She wasn't a little _girl_ , a defenseless _child_.

Tonks was not about to betray the love of her life just because a calloused, rough, purple hand belonging to an accursed wretch of a centaur had put his hand on her face.

Though the most intimate gesture confused her. A kick or slap she could deal with and had honestly kind of been expecting it. But this surprising feigned tenderness.

Well. It unnerved her and caused her to feel like her mind was reeling, and she did not know how to react, much less form an apt response the centaur would be pleased with. She had a feeling she could tell him anything, and he'd think she lied.

Tonks let out a muffled squeak as the centaur pulled her closer, grabbing the young witch's chin in its large, calloused hand, tilting it upwards and forcing Tonks to meet his cold and calculating gaze. "Are you _lost_ , little dove? Is _that_ the reason?"

She didn't answer him. How _could_ she? Maybe it would be better if the group of centaurs just did whatever they were going to do to her and then left her here to die.

Though this was not exactly how she pictured leaving this world. Her silence proved to be the only answer that the leader of the group of three centaurs needed.

"You _are_ , aren't you? You're just a plain little mouse, little dove. Lost in the Forest, completely lost. Lucky for me that I found you wandering the path, then. At least now you'll have someone to look after you, _witch_ ," he spat, sounding revolted.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as she could feel her entire body shaking involuntarily under the centaur's strong grip, both of his hands resting firmly on her shoulders to keep her standing upright. She wasn't going to rat out Rem and Norah.

No way. She was probably already doomed as it was. These centaurs weren't just going to set her free and allow her to go about her business now that they'd found her.

It was evident on their leader's face that he thought Tonks to be a trespasser. Besides, if she were the type of coward that would succumb and talk under pressure, the best case scenario she'd be kept as a prisoner, a plaything for these beasts to satiate themselves to her image and quell their lustful desires. Tonks let out a little shudder.

The fate this centaur had planned for her sounded even worse than death. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Tonks winced as the centaur's grip tightened even more. " _Tell_. _Me_. Who are you traveling in the forest with, little dove? Is it _her_? That witch?"

Tonks's eyes flung open and she regarded her interrogator with wide, unblinking gray eyes. Was he referring to Umbridge? Or possibly even Norah? Did they _know_ her?

She exhaled a shaking breath through her nose and slowly lifted her chin to meet the wrathful creature's gaze. "N—no one," she finally gasped out in a pained breath.

The centaur's expression told Tonks everything she needed to know. That the beast wasn't buying it. Tonks turned her head to the right side and coughed, gasping for air as she felt the damn creature's strong, sausage-like fingers slacken around her throat.

That too, was also the wrong answer as the centaur stomped its hooves in frustration. "You _try_ my patience, little witch, and you tread on _dangerously_ thin ice."

Tonks pursed her lips into a thin line and clamped her mouth shut. She wasn't going to tell this creep anything. Not a _damn_ thing, if it meant Remus would be safe.

"Fine, if you will not talk willingly of your own volition, then there are other methods I have that will cause you to spill the truth from those pretty lips of yours," the centaur growled in a somewhat reluctant sounding and disappointed voice, and Tonks did not have time to cry out in surprise as his grip on her throat loosened, and she was thrown violently to the cave's ground, where she scrambled away from the beast as fast as she could, careful not to put too much weight on her sprained ankle. "Perhaps _this_ ," he snarled, snapping his fingers, rearing his head back and whinnying, "will help you to reconsider what I offer you, little dove. Do you like it?"

Tonks had no bloody idea what he was talking about. She lifted her chin, a hand over the column of her throat as she continued to cough, shoulders heaving as her body fought to return air to her lungs, and her eyes widened in shock. "What…? _Ollie_?!"

She felt her blood chill in her veins as her best friend's limp form was violently dragged into the cave and thrown unceremoniously by her side. When he first came into view, his wrists bound by a similar length of rope as hers had been not even ten minutes ago, she almost didn't recognize him.

He was too far away, his gait wrong.

As he neared, her heart gave a painful little lurch and dropped to the pit of her already-churning stomach. Poor Ollie was way more purple than pale. His left eye was swollen, he couldn't be seeing a bloody thing out of that and wouldn't for a while. His pale face still bore congealed blood and his black woolen robes were a mess.

"T," he croaked hoarsely, only able to say the first syllable of her name. His voice sounded rough, coarser than before in times past like he was being choked. "Found you," he whispered. The voice _definitely_ belonged to Ollie. This was no new trick.

When Ollie Brennan was forced to step from the shadows by the centaur leading him towards Tonks's kneeling form on the cave floor, Tonks immediately understood why her best friend had spoken to her from the darkness. Though his voice was the same, had she seen him first, Tonks would have denied that it was really her friend.

Tonks felt her lips part open in shock, and as she tried to speak, to say something, her voice faltered into unintelligible croaks.

After so long without her friend by her side, Tonks was afraid that Ollie would just die if he left her alone again for a third time.

She wanted to tell him that in her own way, though her heart would first and foremost always belong to Lupin, that she really _did_ love him, somehow, she didn't think that Ollie would believe her words, and she was afraid it would sound hollow.

Ollie was really _here_ , beaten, broken, and very much _alive_ and next to her side.

Tonks turned, and in one shattered moment, almost choked on her own tongue as she blinked back her tears. He was a right bloody mess, figuratively and literally.

His poor nose was smashed, and both eyes almost shut tight with swelling. His arm not currently wrapped around Tonks's shoulder was clutching onto his guts like he was holding them in, and to be honest, the other centaurs had beaten him so bad, he could be, for all Tonks knew.

He turned, shifting slightly at the waist, already knowing what face Nymphadora was going to make at him, wincing as he did so, trying to block out the annoying sounds of their captor snorting in frustration.

Tonks began to shake. Tonks's eyes got that wide look, her bottom lip trembled as she scrambled to his side and without even waiting to be asked, flung her arms around his neck, pulling Ollie down slightly into her embrace. "Wha…what are you _doing_ here?" Tonks demanded, amazed she could even find her voice. She pulled apart after what felt like several minutes, too stunned for words. "How…how did you _find_ me, Ollie?"

Oh, but Merlin's Beard, she sincerely hoped that Ollie wasn't disappointed in her. How he would never know that Tonks had never given up hope on him, never gave up hope that one day, he would come back to her alive.

Just hearing him trying and failing to say her full name was enough to cause poor Tonks to practically snap inside.

To snap like brittle glass and felt the shards tearing and ripping at her guts. She couldn't even find it within herself to speak as the blood drained from her face, and she gripped onto his black woolen robes, seizing handfuls in tight fistfuls, clinging to him.

He stopped, watching Tonks practically break down right before his very eyes. His face remained somewhat impassive, but something shifts in his posture as he watched as Tonks's eyes walked from one of his injuries to the other, taking in the gore that was her best friend.

Ollie could see the conflict brimming within those gray eyes of hers already, with Tonks wanting to be the stronger person here for him and the raw need to weep welling up.

"It's all right, T," Ollie croaked hoarsely, his voice faint. "Y—you can cry." Ollie shot her a grin, though Tonks wished he wouldn't have, as several of his teeth were bloodied, though the smile did not last as he turned his head to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood. "D—Dumbledore and Mr. Scamander told me where to—to find you. Said to—to Disapparate straight here. Lifted the protective enchantments so I could come and try to find you."

Oh, Merlin _bless_ both wizards! They might actually have a prayer of being _saved_! Tonks nodded mutely and blinked back more tears, giving her friend's battered form a once over. So many questions she was dying to ask him, but only one she needed an immediate answer to.

Tonks just had to know for herself if the Obscurus attached to Ollie was gone. She gesticulated with her hands towards her own body. "Did you…did…is it?"

Ollie, Merlin bless him, sensed Tonks's struggle to formulate her question and offered his best friend a curt jerk of the head. " _Gone_ , T. The—the Obscurus. I—I don't know _how_ , but Professor Dumbledore and Mr. Scamander saved my life. I _owe_ them."

Tonks blinked back tears of relief, though she still had a thousand questions burning on the tip of her tongue.

How had he managed to _find_ her? Did he have a wand? Did Norah and Remus know what had happened to her, and did they even know that he was now out here, trapped with her? So many questions and no answers.

She felt her lips part open to speak, though her and now Ollie's captor had other ideas in mind for her, and Tonks let out a pained cry as, without so much as a warning as to what was coming next, a heavy purple-boned fist slammed into the side of her head, blindsiding her, causing stars to erupt in the front of her vision as Tonks fell.

The centaur roughly wrenched her to her feet by her injured wrist, taking no further care to be gentle with her, seemingly past the point of niceties at this point.

Tonks ground her teeth as she _swore_ she felt her shoulder pop right out of its socket at the way this beast was roughly manhandling her, ignoring Ollie's protests.

She swore she could even hear the sick popping sound that accompanied a dislocated joint, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, stifling her scream of agony.

A sharp, shooting white-hot flare of pain erupted down her arm and traveled all the way to the tips of her toes in her boots as their interrogator slammed her against the stone wall of the cave. "You humans are so _weak_. Crying over a hurt arm, witch?"

Tonks tugged pitifully and uselessly at her now-injured arm and re-injured wrist, which only worsened the throbbing pain that she knew would dull to an aching throb.

The young witch felt hot, wretched tears stinging and blurring the corners of her vision, threatening to spill out of her eyes as her brain commanded she deal with the pain of having her arm pulled completely out of its socket, but refused to give the damned centaur the immense satisfaction she knew it would bring this beast to allow him to see her tears fall. And even _more_ than that, she had to be strong, for Ollie's sake.

Her entire body convulsed as waves of pain wracked her slender form, and from trying to maintain her composure in front of Ollie and the centaur who'd kidnapped her.

She continued to keep her eyes squeezed tightly shut and held her breath as a painful spasm wracked its way through her body as another jolt shot down her arm.

Now her wrist and her shoulder ached and throbbed so terribly, and Ollie's shouts and black curses that poured unchecked from his tongue as he screamed for the centaur to let her go rang in her eardrums until she heard nothing but a fatigued, awful ringing.

It was becoming harder and harder for Tonks to keep her tears at bay as they threatened to escape as the dulling pain in her dislocated arm and wrist only worsened.

"Open your eyes, _witch_ ," the centaur commanded lowly, squeezing onto Tonks's arm even tighter as he promptly seized a fistful of her red shirt and shook her slightly. "Open your eyes," he repeated angrily when Tonks did not make a move to look at him. "I want you to look me in the eyes. I want to see your fear _myself_."

Tonks cried out a pained gasp of surprise as she felt the centaur's hand squeeze a fraction of an inch tighter around her dislocated shoulder and her eyes flung wide open, and she forced herself to meet Ollie's gaze.

"I—I _swear_! I—it was just me and him!" she screamed, reaching up with her one good hand and clawing pitifully at the centaur's hand now wrapped around her throat, threatening to cut off air to her passageways.

She felt and heard the faltering crack and wavering of her voice as her resolve failed her and Tonks was quick to recognize that she was close to her breaking point, and very near tears, and no vile curse that poured unchecked from Ollie's lips was going to entice this group of centaurs into letting them walk away from this incident _alive_.

The other centaurs had gone, and at least not able to hear their laughter anymore was perhaps the only small measure of comfort and relief that her cruel fate would give.

"Cry, then, _witch_ ," the centaur growled, ignoring, and turning a deaf ear to Ollie's continued shouts as the man struggled to rise to his feet and ignore his purpling bruises.

The centaur let out a grunt as he tugged on Tonks's injured arm to pull her forward so that she was practically leaning into his chest with both hands splayed across his chiseled chest.

"It's only going to get _worse_ from here if you don't start telling me the truth," he growled. "I have a knife that I won't hesitate to use on you later, little dove. Do you think you know pain? You _don't_. You won't even _know_ pain until you feel the edge of my blade pressed up against your pretty little throat, little dove. You'll see."

Tonks felt a stab of a fear prick at her heart, and she could not seem to tear her gaze away from Ollie, who was standing directly behind the centaur, who hadn't noticed.

His gaze was darting wildly to the left and right, looking for something— _anything_ — that he could use as a weapon by which to defend his best friend, and Tonks, though she admired her friend's bravery, felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach.

_That means he doesn't have HIS wand, either_ , she thought, almost bursting into tears at just that thought alone. She squeezed her eyes shut as her arm throbbed.

It sent fiery, pulsating bursts of white-hot lightning up and down her spine, and Tonks let out a yelp of pain as the centaur began tugging on Tonks's red collared shirt, seeming like he was testing a few of her shirt's buttons until one near her collarbones popped clean off and scattered alongside the ground with tiny pattering sounds, like gentle raindrops. _Oh, Merlin, oh, no, oh shit_ , Tonks thought wildly. _Is he going to…_?

_Is he going to rape me_? Tonks stared up at the beast towering over her with wide, unblinking eyes, and this time, she did not bother to stop the flow of her tears.

" **TONKS**!" Ollie roared, and she didn't even have to look over the centaur's shoulder to see her best friend, with no other alternatives, charged at the beast, to which the creature barely spared her best friend behind him a glance as he kicked out with his hoof, and just the gesture alone sent poor Ollie sprawling to the ground, gut-punched.

" **OLLIE**!" Tonks shouted, trying to focus her blurry vision more than a few feet in front of herself, tears pouring in a relentless stream in tracts down her pale cheeks before swiveling her head sharply back around to regard the centaur's fuming expression. "You—you _horse's ass_!" Tonks bellowed, raising her voice, no longer caring what happened to her. "Leave him alone! He's done _nothing_ , _I'm_ the one you want! Take me instead, but let Ollie go!" she shouted, biting down on her bottom lip.

Her eyes widened in shock and horror as she winced as Tonks realized what the centaur was about to do as his hand wandered slowly until they settled on the flat of her abdomen and his fingernails, which were so long and overgrown that they practically resembled claws at this point, began to bite into the soft skin of her flesh, deliberately.

It was going to use its jagged nails to claw at Tonks's flesh, and given it was near her stomach, if it dug deep enough, not only would kill her but her _and_ Rem's baby.

And that, she could not allow to happen. " _Wait_!" Tonks screamed desperately, blinking back a fresh onset of tears, grabbing pitifully at the centaur's strong bicep with the intent on pulling it away from her, but Tonks simply lacked the strength to pry him away.

Not without her wand. And Ollie, oh, _Ollie_! One glance over at him was enough. He was still struggling to get to his feet, but the powerful blow the centaur's hooves had dealt straight to his gut had very clearly knocked the wind from his lungs.

Tonks swallowed a lump in her throat and forced her attention to return to their captor, whose hand was hovered over the delicate skin of her stomach, an angered expression in his narrowed, beady eyes, and his nostrils flaring like that of a wild bull's.

"I—I'll tell you," she lied, biting the inside wall of her cheek, wracking her brain for a story to makeup, anything to get this herd to leave her and Ollie bloody _alone_.

"Tell me." The command escaped the centaur's lips, though his hand continued to hover over Tonks's stomach. "And don't even _think_ of lying to me, witch. _Don't_."

"V—vampires," Tonks blurted out, biting down on her tongue hard enough that she tasted the metallic tang of iron on her tongue and palate as she realized she'd bit down hard enough to bleed. "M—my _colleague_ and I," here, she gestured as well as she could towards Ollie, who was slowly and rather shakily getting to his feet, "a—are with the D—Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. We—we received reports of a couple of v—vampires attacking Muggle provinces in London and we offered them the Forbidden Forest as a means of re-homing them in exchange that they cease the attacks on innocent lives and adapt to eating food here in the forest."

Tonks let out a whine as she felt the centaur's sharp nails slowly rake over her stomach, digging in just slightly, and she wept as the beast's eyes narrowed in anger.

"Somehow, little dove," it growled in a low, menacing tone, "I don't _believe_ you." The corners of his lips turned upwards in a sly, sardonic smile that somehow was meant to be unreadable, though to Tonks it came off as unimpressed and…excited.

Tonks very nearly let out an ear-piercing scream as she felt the centaur grab onto her injured wrist, which in addition to her dislocated shoulder, may have been broken by this point, it was hard for her to tell considering how much everything ached, and out of a sudden surge of instinct to survive and protect her and Remus's baby, Tonks felt her leg kick out instinctively at the centaur's kneecaps and swung her free arm at its chest in a feeble attempt to shove the creature away, wondering where the others had gone, though she supposed it was only grateful that there was now just the one to deal with.

" **LET**. **GO**!" she screamed wildly, biting back a sob at the sharp pain in her arm.

The wild, thrashing kick soon connected with the centaur's chiseled, burly and hairy chest, which sent the creature thrashing backward, and it was just enough to relinquish his grip on her injured arm, which gave Tonks enough time to scramble towards Ollie's side, practically having to crawl on her stomach to him at this point.

"Ol?" she breathed through panicked, shaking breaths as she draped his shoulder over her arm and weakly, though somehow finding a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins to give her strength, she managed to pull both her and him upright.

"G—good, I'm good," he wheezed, still sounding thoroughly winded and out of breath, one hand clutching at his very likely now-bruised ribcage. "Let's—g—get out of here, T." Though before Ollie could grab onto Tonks's uninjured arm and pull her away to safety, a squeak of terror erupted from his lips, and Tonks swiveled her head around.

Ollie would have yelled until he was hoarse, though given the strength of blow the centaur had dealt him just now, he lacked the strength and it came out as a breathy little squeak and Ollie's darkening cerulean eyes went wide in terror, just as the centaur, thrashing wildly and stomping its hooves in frustration, furious at the blow that the human _witch_ had dealt him just now, allowed a cry of rage to escape his lips and an ax planted itself between Ollie and Tonks.

* * *

**A/N: Oof. Is Tonks ever in trouble? Yet AGAIN. XD. I guess I should have warned, and I think I might have in the last couple of chapters, the next few segments might get a little rough on Tonks (I know, I _know_ , she's another character in this who never seems to catch a break!) I'm not too into writing too extremely violent or graphic things, especially in a _Harry Potter_ story, trying to keep it to that T rating for teens, but my perception of the centaurs' brutality and what I think these creatures would do to a human female if they found one in their territory (remember what Hagrid said about them being extremely possessive over their 'turfs') is probably a bit different than what most people would imagine.  
**

**Is Ollie EVER going to catch a break?! Thanks to all my lovely readers and wonderful regular reviewers, namely miniandminnie, Sarah1996, and a few others! Your reviews are life and I always love hearing what you have to say!**

**Once again, Tonks finds herself waist-deep in trouble, though at least this time, Merlin bless you, Ollie, you came back for your friend. Coming up in Ch. 77, will Tonks and Ollie be able to find a way to deal with this lone, insane centaur? And will Norah and Remus be made aware of what's happened? Coming soon :D**


	77. Adrenaline Surges and Panic Attacks

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN**

Tonks didn't know exactly what happened just now, nor did she even _remember_ the scream that erupted from her lips, but she supposed it must have, given the look on Ollie's face as he flung his arm out in front of Tonks and stepped back with her, as though he thought the simple act of shielding his friend could keep her from any harm.

Ollie's face was pale. Paler than Tonks had ever seen her best friend before in his life, his blue eyes wide and round as dinner plates in abject shock and horror, lips pulled tight into a thin line, and the skin pulled taut across his brow as he glared at the beast.

Her mind felt like it was starting to fail her, like one of those old Muggle car engines that Arthur Weasley was obsessed with tinkering over, never kicking into action.

She couldn't formulate a thought. Every action could lead to more pain and suffering and there was no way out of this Merlin-Forsaken, bloody, damned mess!

No way out. Tonks scrambled away from the crude, makeshift weapon that looked as though the centaur had carved it himself from the very wood of one of these trees, and for all she knew, he probably _had_ , her hands fumbled over the harsh stone and grit of the cave.

Her red shirt had by now since lost a few more buttons, one of the sleeves tattered and torn, and she didn't even _care_ if Ollie saw anything he wasn't supposed to.

All that mattered to her right now was the two of them getting the hell out of here in one piece. Tonks let out a cry of pain as her injured wrist gave out and her dislocated shoulder hit the ground, under too much pressure from trying to support her body's weight, and the rest of her soon followed in a tangled, horrible twist of limbs.

The centaur was now rapidly advancing on her and Ollie's retreating forms, rearing on its hind legs and snarling, exposing his yellowed, sharp incisors which were much more dirty and unhygienic, though Tonks couldn't help but think of the She-Wolf's teeth, and had a wildly inappropriate thought that just for a split second, thinking that Norah Jameson took _way_ better care of her fangs than this centaur did.

She felt her cracked and bleeding lips part open slightly to cry out, to scream for Ollie to run, it was _her_ they wanted, _not_ him, for him to find Rem and Norah, but no sound was coming. The best she could manage was a startled mewling of utter fear.

Poor Tonks had virtually no time to react as the centaur shot towards her with an outstretched arm, and his strong fingers curled into a fist around the fabric of her shirt.

Tonks coughed a painful breath, feeling like her vision was swimming at this point, wondering if she were finally close to that point where she would pass out now.

"Do not _ever_ hit me, _witch_ ," the centaur growled in a low, threatening voice.

"P—please…don't…" Tonks choked out in a shaking breath, clenching her eyes tightly shut since her vision was darkening anyway.

It felt as though her entire body was convulsing in painful, wracking waves, though pure adrenaline and anger was keeping her from feeling most of it for the moment, for which she was immensely grateful.

_Ollie. Ollie, have to save Ollie_. She repeated this like a mantra to herself, though it did nothing to quell the fear that pricked at her heartstrings, that damned stubborn corded muscle within the confines of her chest that pounded so damned loud she was honestly surprised that Ollie himself standing right next to her couldn't hear it beat.

Tonks coughed and choked, gasping for air that simply would not come to her lungs as she willed her body to flee, to pull away, though the centaur's rough hand, which had come to grip around the column of her throat, had started to squeeze down.

_Hard_.

Her body would not obey her unspoken command to take Ollie and go, go anywhere, find Remus and Norah, and let Professor Dumbledore deal with Umbridge.

The centaur tilted its head back and snorted in frustration and agitation, its listless eyes darkening as a myriad of dozens of emotions, all of them negative, flitted through its beady, soulless orbs and regarded Tonks with a look akin to something like terrible curiosity.

Without any kind of warning, the centaur, this man-beast dragged his horrible, claw-like fingernails several more inches over Tonks's slightly exposed stomach as his hand groped underneath the material of her red collared casual shirt.

Tonks let out a scream that she wasn't even aware she was capable of as she felt as though but a split second ago, the cold, icy hand of Death Himself, that black shrouded figure, had somehow wrapped its stiff, dead fingers, those bony appendages about her heart, crushing it with such a terrible, overwhelming ache that caused her to scream.

_Ollie. Save Ollie_. Her mantra repeated. She didn't know how much the man was hurting, the poor guy could barely stand up as it was, he was already so broken and beaten from encountering the other centaurs in this one's herd when he'd Apparated.

Tonks felt the damned stubborn beating muscle that resided within her chest nearly cease its rhythmic course as she felt the centaur's hand around her throat squeeze even tighter, and black spots began to dance in front of her vision as her air cut off.

Then, the crushing fear and panic that had threatened to consume her only moments ago was replaced with a new, unbridled desire, a new reason to fight and live.

A far more prominent and potent one, as in the midst of her rapidly fading consciousness, she began to hallucinate. The bright, beautiful face of a newborn baby.

_Our son_ , she thought wildly. _Or daughter_. She couldn't quite tell the gender, but just hearing her and Remus's baby's gentle cooing which rang in her eardrums was enough. And then, the fear and dread she felt was replaced with a raw instinct.

Defend. Protect. Attack. _Kill_. Tonks very nearly let out an animalistic growl of her own that sounded more wolfish than she thought possible of her as she felt the centaur grabbing violently onto her dislocated shoulder and broken wrist, and whimpered as she felt the centaur's hand encircle her bruised wrist in another bone-crushing iron grip.

" **LET**. **GO**!" Tonks screamed violently, biting back a sob at the sharp pain in her arm. The young witch had no time to react or deduce what was happening, as her retaliation and wild thrashing must have angered the already pissed off, violent centaur.

She felt something hard and sharp come down against the base of her skull and soon she found herself crumpled in a limp heap on the cave ground, utterly winded.

Tonks wanted nothing more than to break down and scream and cry, staring towards the mouth of the cave, though Ollie's handsome but broken face swam into view.

The centaur snarled furiously, nostrils flaring like that of an enraged bull, a hostile and angered glint in the creature's beady, black eyes that were the pits of Tartarus.

Though, as Tonks blearily lifted her head and struggled to look into those black orbs, she could so no souls waiting to dive into the depths. Nothing there but pure evil.

With a cry of rage upon his lips, the centaur did not hesitate to pull his bow and arrow from the quiver resting slung across his shoulder, pulling an arrow, pointing it squarely at her chest. Tonks felt entirely too weak to move around at this point but was at most able to loll her head backward and to the side, to peer toward the cave's entrance.

Though she could have sworn she saw a few shadowy figures moving around outside the mouth of the cave, it was hard for the young witch to tell if they were of man or centaur.

But it was too blurry for her to make anything out clearly, as stars still burst in front of her vision, her own line of sight clouded by the stinging of her own tears as they ran in pale tracts down her ashen cheeks.

The centaur towering over her did not seem to pay attention to whatever was going on outside of the cave's entrance.

Its attention was fixated solely on that of Tonks and Ollie. Oh, _Ollie_! Where was…? Tonks blinked, though her lids felt heavy and it was getting harder and harder for her to try to stay awake.

The centaur was speaking to her, though given her fading consciousness, his voice, though he was standing directly in front of her, sounded muffled.

Faint. Distant. As if the beast were attempting to speak to her underwater.

"Perhaps I won't kill you right away. Whoever left you out here and abandoned you to die at our hands has done you a _terrible_ dishonor, little dove," the centaur snarled. "You really _do_ have quite a pretty little face. For a _human_ ," it growled angrily.

Tonks barely managed a small mewl of pain as she felt the centaur's strong hands firmly grip onto both of her shoulders, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out in pain as he roughly—on _purpose_ —manhandled her dislocated shoulder and wrist.

The centaur continued, ignoring Tonks's almost muted pleas for mercy, seeming to relish in her growing discomfort, his horse-like, pointed ears flickering at her cries.

Tonks could only whimper pitifully, weakly as she slid down against the stone wall of the cave, both hands clasped around her stomach, groaning, and curling into a ball.

The centaur snorted, glancing down his nose at Tonks's fetal position. "It really is a shame, _witch_ ," he spat, spitting the last word as though it were poison that had settled upon his tongue. "Were you a female centaur, I would have made you my _mate_ , dear."

_Oh, Merlin's Beard_! Just that thought alone was enough to cause her stomach to roll. With one violent contraction, the congealed contents of her stomach emerged in the dim light coming in from the mouth of the cave, what little moonlight there was, nothing digested since breakfast this morning and those damned Bleeding Mulberries.

She was barely aware of Ollie's tall, towering figure somehow coming up behind her, feeling one of his broken hands on her shoulder, intent on helping her to her feet.

Tonks shuddered as some of the bile still trailed from her lips, vicious and opaque. She turned her head towards the centaur, who threw his head back and let out a holler.

The caustic fluid still coating her mouth, she reached up the back of her hand and shakily wiped at her mouth, scrunching her nose in disgust, wondering what happened.

Slowly, not wanting to turn back around, Tonks swiveled her head to the front.

Tonks immediately wished that she hadn't. now she knew what had happened. She'd accidentally thrown up on their captor's leg, and the centaur, this proud, vain creature, had failed to step back in time and its hooves had stepped in the puddle of sick.

"D— _don't_ ," she pleaded, a moment of panic seizing her as she felt the centaur's heavy hoof squarely on top of her chest, a blow that, if delivered with enough force, might actually succeed in killing her, or at the very least, would knock her the hell out.

The centaur in response to Tonks's plea merely managed a low, threatening growl and let out a snarl as it continued to put even more pressure directly onto her chest, silently taunting the young witch with a vicious threat she sincerely hoped this monster wasn't going to make good on his promise to deliver. If he did, it would kill her and….

_Our baby_ , she thought, and barely managed a stifled, half-choked sob as it escaped from the confines of her chest, throat, and lips. Surely, the centaur was going to kill her.

With just one swift kick to the chest, like he had taunted that he could do it earlier. This was how she was going to die, and then the others would go for Ollie too.

He had been right about one thing. The centaur. That it was going to be incredibly easy for him to kill her, and then Ollie, given neither were in good physical condition at the moment.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as more wretched tears spilled silently in unceasing torrents down her pale cheeks, as she shoved at the centaur's hoof pressed against her chest with her one uninjured arm.

Fat lot of good it did her. She could barely cause the creature's leg to budge, and the Man-Horse was pressing down his leg even slower this time, increasing the pressure as the seconds passed and dragged into minutes, and Tonks wished he would just do it.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, knowing that to plead with the centaur to let them go, that she was sorry she had accidentally thrown up on his front hoof, was futile.

The beast was well beyond the point of logical thinking and any attempt to reason with it, and besides, Tonks knew that she lacked the physical and mental strength to.

Her life, like it or not, was now at the sole mercy and whims of this damned, wicked centaur, and nothing that she could say or do, or anything that Ollie could do, was going to sway the centaur from the dark, burning desires in his black, putrid heart.

Tonks closed her eyes, slowly, feeling her body steadily lose all feeling in her limbs, save for the burning, tingling numbness of her dislocated shoulder and wrist.

The young Auror did not feel her face promptly drain of all its color, and it felt as though her heart had suddenly stopped beating as she felt her vision slowly ebb away.

One of her last conscious thoughts was that somehow, she hoped this was all just a nightmare, another hallucination brought on by those damned Bleeding Mulberries she'd accidentally consumed earlier.

Tonks could feel the small world of the cave spinning around her, Ollie's face flitting through the front of what little vison she had left as it blackened near the edges, the light-headed sensation a warning sign of fainting.

It was as her assaulter, this monster, this _beast_ , advanced upon her form for a second time and lifted his leg, the bottom of his hoof the only thing that Tonks could focus on with her hazy vision, that a rather odd and inappropriate thought came to her.

_I wonder, if when all this is over, if Jameson and I get along if she'd be a bridesmaid?_

* * *

Ollie, from his place on the cold stone ground, watched in dawning horror and outrage as his pregnant best friend crumpled and went limp like a child's rag doll in the centaur's clutches as the creature lifted its leg and prepared to deliver a crippling blow to the young witch's chest, a blow that would surely kill her by causing her lungs to crack.

And he had not undergone the grueling and painful process of having the Obscurus attached to his soul for Merlin-damned bloody nothing only for his best friend to die right before his very eyes.

He hadn't trekked all the way through the Forest for _nothing_. His stomach churned and gave a painful lurch, his heart instantly rising up to his throat and he tasted acidic, bitter stomach bile that rested on his tongue as Tonks lay on the cave's ground, unstirred and unresponsive.

" _Tonks_!" Ollie shouted desperately. No response from the young witch, though her head lolled and fell helplessly backward, exposing the pale, vulnerable, and exposed skin of the column of her throat.

As the centaur snorted in frustration and raised its front leg high above Tonks's chest, Ollie felt his cobalt blue eyes fly open even wider. The beast was going to _kill_ her! His friend! After he'd just gotten Tonks _back_ , he wasn't going to let this happen!

" **NO**!" he roared, not even thinking as the cry of outrage left his lips and before his broken, battered mind could even process what was happened, a surge of adrenaline coursed through his system as a fight or flight instinct. In this case, it was fight like hell.

Ollie's heart wanted out of his weak chest. It wanted to beat free of its cage, it pounded against the cage of his chest like it was going to crack one of his already bruised ribs. Ollie's senses were reeling and on high alert.

Every color was brighter, every noise louder, every little twitch of movement, be that from friend or foe, was a cause to make his heartbeat even fiercer still and the growl of rage escaped his lips.

_Tonks_! Ollie screamed, trying to get her to wake up _his_ way. _Get up! Please, please, open your eyes, get the hell up and get OUT of here, Tonks_! _I'm scared. I—I've been there for you so many times and won. I've saved your ass, over and over, but right now, this centaur has me outnumbered by its brute strength alone, Tonks._

Still no response from Tonks. Only the barely noticeable sign of the rise and fall of her chest. Ollie clenched his teeth and his gaze flitted between that of her and the centaur, desperate to keep this would-be-rapist beast away from his best friend at any cost.

_I've never asked you to defend yourself, but please, please. You have to wake up_! Silence. Not so much as a _twitch_ from her. _Damn_.

He cringed as the centaur let out a vicious, animalistic snarl and charged. Ollie flinched and didn't even question his natural instinct with virtually no time to come up with a more effective plan to wake Tonks up as he flung himself in full force at the centaur, aiming for the one thing he knew would insult the beast the most. His back.

Ollie let out a growl of his own that almost rivaled that of the centaur's as he wrapped his arms around the centaur's thick and stout neck, a vein in its powerful neck throbbing and pulsating, dark blue against pale lavender skin.

Ollie wrapped his arms around the centaur's neck, clenching his eyes tightly shut in a vain attempt to draw the monster away from Tonks's unconscious form on the ground, hoping that, as the centaur reared up on its hind legs and wildly kicked, it didn't accidentally kick Dora in the process.

Ollie let out a tense exhale through his mouth as it lowered its hoof and stumbled backward, hellbent and intent on getting this human off of his back.

However, Ollie Brennan's moment of triumph was short-lived.

The centaur was _not_ appreciative that a human male almost as tall as him, and younger besides, had managed to latch itself onto his back, nor did it particularly relish having its air supply cut off.

It thrashed wildly much like a wild, untamed stallion would, all the while clawing at Ollie's arms wrapped around its throat to pry him off.

Though the violent struggling of the centaur only caused Ollie's grip to tighten, at least until the damned bloody horse blindly struck out at Ollie's face with the crook of his elbow, his appendage landing a crushing blow to poor Ollie's bruised left ribcage.

His grip on the centaur's neck immediately loosened, sending the broken and battered man to the hard stone floor below as Ollie lost his grip on the creature's neck.

The pain in his ribcage, already cracked and bruised from earlier when this one's herd mates had caught him outside the cave's entrance while he'd hid behind a tree, trying to come up with the best plan of attack for getting Tonks out of there alive, stung, having an unpleasant warmth to it, eating away at his stomach and intestines.

There was nausea too, just enough to cause Ollie to heave and gasp for breath. He had often prized himself for his ability to ignore the pain and just continuing on regardless.

_Years_ of abuse at Master Crouch's hand had taught him to power through the hurt, but that just wasn't possible right now.

It owned him, dominated every thought. Controlled his every action, or in this case, his _lack_ of action.

He couldn't move. Ollie blinked once, twice, three times, in an effort to clear away the tears that were gathering out of the corners of his vision, blinding him, welling hot and stinging him.

Ollie struggled to stand up when the accursed, wretched creature let out a bellow of anger, his was a cry of pure rancor that sent a tremor of fear and a wash of cold down Ollie's vertebrae, and launched himself at Ollie, wrapping his hands around his throat.

Ollie instinctively felt his body begin to protest, both of his hands coming up to claw pitifully at the centaur's hands currently wound around his throat like poison ivy.

"L—let _go_ , you—you horse's _ass_!" shouted Ollie, cringing at how weak and hoarse his voice sounded, shirking away as the centaur snorted in frustration and hissed, baring its teeth into the younger man's face, who shirked away from the centaur.

Poor Ollie continued his desperate clawing at the centaur's digits currently holding his throat hostage, able to feel his lips practically turning blue as oxygen slowly left him.

And then, almost as quickly as the centaur had begun to squeeze his hands around the column of Ollie's throat, the pressure was instantly relieved, his breaths returned to his lungs in full force, and the broken man and former Slytherin student collapsed to his knees, a hand over his throat and gasped, coughing, his lungs practically heaving for air.

Hot tears poured unchecked from his lids, and Ollie couldn't bring himself to care as his tears slid down his cheeks and drenched his black woolen robes in the salty liquid.

"Don't touch him!" shouted a familiar voice. A female's. "Don't _fucking_ touch him!" There was something in that shout of the She-Stranger's, pain behind the yell.

Despite the hazy fog that was currently clouding in his vision, Ollie could swear he recognized the owner of said voice, a tinge, just a trace, mind you, of familiarity.

He blinked once, twice, three times, in an attempt to clear his line of sight to better ascertain what the bloody hell by Merlin's left nutsack was going on around him.

Though the pain from the several harsh blows dealt to him just now by the centaur seared through his abdomen better than any dragon fire could ever flame, his mind feeling as though it was collapsing in on itself, allowing his body to concede to the anguished torment, unable to bring so much as a cohesive thought to completion.

Without meaning to, his body curled into something fetal, something primeval, and all the while the pain in his ribcage and stomach, not to mention his head, _burned_.

Ollie grunted and practically growled with the effort to prop himself up on his elbows and lift his head, turning it to the left, for that was where the voice had come from, to better see just what the bloody hell was going on, and he blinked as the numbness in his body slowly left him, and his vision slowly but surely cleared up.

And almost immediately, as his sharp gaze like that of a hawk settled on the blurred vision of two figures, one pale and one light purple-skinned in color, he froze.

Tonks threw her entire body weight behind the centaur's fist that edged closer to her face. His curled fist hit her right cheek with such brute force that blood pooled into her mouth. Pain erupted from the point of impact.

Tonks wasn't exactly thinking when she let out her boiling antipathy and swung her fist tight, too quick and potent, into the centaur's defined jaw; the impact like thousands of venomous blades piercing apart her clammed fist, as absent her wand, she had to resort to the Muggle method of dueling.

It led her to one conclusion: it hurt as hell. Tonks snarled like a savage, rapid She-Wolf as with her own two hands, she grasped the centaur's head in her hands and brought her kneecap up to his slender, slightly hooked nose.

There was a sickening, horrible sounding crack, and Tonks released his dark-haired head, practically biting her lip off to keep herself from screaming as white-hot jolts of pain flared from her arm.

Crimson leaked from both of the creature's nostrils and his nose was twisted to the left in a way that it otherwise shouldn't be. The centaur snarled and roared in rancor, drawing back his fist again and it plowed into Tonks's thigh as she tried to duck.

Tonks repaid this in kind by punching the centaur's jaw, her fist collided with all of the creature's body weight. She continued this battering until he fell to the cave floor. His chest gently rose and sank with each shallow breath the centaur drew in.

Putrid, black curses of the foulest language, the darkest he had ever heard, poured from Dora's lips, and Ollie wasn't even quite sure the woman he was looking at was his best friend anymore. That… that was _not_ her voice. No. Her voice was timid, shy. Soft.

This was the voice of someone else, someone harder. Someone…someone _new_. Tonks, not at all satisfied that the wretched, rapist beast who was more pig than centaur was rapidly losing consciousness, did not seem to hear Ollie's protest to stop.

The pressure in her head finally exploded along with a blood-curdling scream as her hands lunged for the centaur's throat and began to squeeze, increasing the pressure.

She began to scream.

* * *

This—this _thing_ had tried to kill her just now! Tried to _murder_ Ollie, who'd only been trying to protect her. She just _had_ to keep this beast _away_ from Ollie at all costs.

She just _had_ to. Tonks dove at the centaur, tackling the creature to the cave floor in a tangled mess of bruised and broken limbs and clothing, seizing a dagger that it held in its hands and plunged it deep into the wretched, vile, black of heart creature's throat, with such a sick, raging passion that it caused her own pupils to dilate.

A drop of rage spread like a fever in her blood as a series of memories rolled within the confines of her tormented mind and with it equaled a hard rip through the centaur's tough flesh and bone.

Her strength slowly faded from her and made the last push of the centaur's own blade of his knife into his throat, her blood-coated fingers remained shaking, though still. Tonks hung her head, bathed in crimson and shredded skin from the dead centaur.

Her shoulders began to heave in the release of several days' worth of pent-up frustrations regarding her time spent in captivity towards Crouch, what he had done to her and Ollie, and now, _kidnapped_ by _centaurs_?! Was there no _end_ to her suffering?

Tonks's throat screamed, though it already ached and felt warm. On fire, and hot, wretched, rapid tears marred her vision as it blurred and stung, and she could no longer fight back the salty liquid as it poured down her cheeks, showing no signs of stopping.

Between the hitched, convulsive catching of her breaths, a relatively poor attempt to calm herself between her unrecognized fits of hysterical sobbing and laughter, Tonks lifted her chin and shifted at the waist to look behind her, towards her best friend. _Ollie_.

Ollie stood by, his face pale, paler than she had ever seen him before, his handsome but battered face broken by the intense psychological disturbance staring at the witch that Tonks has made of herself by taking the centaur's life only just now.

Her wide gray eyes peered at the speechless man between her bangs drenched in sweat and blood, the centaur's blood and her own, whereas the creature lay on the cave floor in front of them both, his blackened dead irises staring straight out ahead at him.

At what, Ollie and Tonks would never know, a massive cavity in his throat.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of Tonks's mind, it occurred to her, in her hazy, clouded thoughts, that the centaur was no longer fighting back. She paused, curled fist raised in the air when reality and time slowly inched its way back into her consciousness.

"I…" she stammered, hearing a hoarse, rough voice that did not sound like her at all, and she was barely aware of Ollie rushing towards her side, and a pair of strong, calloused hands wrapping around her middle and hauling her to her feet, violently.

Slowly but surely, her vision cleared, and the centaur's form was still. Still, its blackened, listless eyes staring lifelessly at what, Tonks couldn't quite say for certain.

She blinked, puzzled. Confused, and in more physical pain than she was sure her body knew how to cope with. And then, a tiny cry of horror squeaked past her lips.

"Merlin help me. What have I _done_?!" she moaned. It felt as though she were resurfacing from a long, deep dive, her murkier thoughts now becoming clearer, the haze in her vision gone.

An invisible hand clamped over her mouth, a fresh surge of adrenaline pierced her heart, unloading in an instant. Tonks could feel her ribs heaving as if bound by ropes, straining to inflate her lungs.

Her head felt as though it were spinning out of control, each one pushing the confines of her mind into a thick, horrible black abyss of nothing. She wanted to run; she needed to freeze.

Sounds that were near felt far away, like she was no longer in the body that knelt on the cave floor on her knees, not minding the stone, blood, and grit that seeped into her black pants.

Tonks erupted into a violent shaking spell of panicked chokes and splutters as she coughed and gasped for fresh air.

With the help of Ollie, she staggered unsteadily to her feet, with Ollie clutching tightly onto her one good arm, though Tonks stumbled and faltered as she struggled just to take a half step forward. Her vision blurred, and then cleared, then blurred again.

A horrible, fatigued ringing filled her ears, though the silence was deafening. She couldn't even tell what was real anymore. What if Ollie here by her side was a _trick_?

Tonks felt as if her lungs were slowly filling with water as if there were just less space in them for air. Inflating them felt like pushing a lead weight on her poor chest.

She sucked in the air as if it were chocolate, yet she was kneeling at the mouth of a cave in the Forbidden Forest, with fresh air all around yet.

Why couldn't she breathe? Why was it so _hard_? Awful, ragged gasps for air shook her petite frame, and Tonks was only somewhat cognizant of the fact that she was hyperventilating.

Something told her she needed to calm down and breathe properly, or she was going to pass out soon.

This type of breathing and stress wasn't good for her body, which was clearly broken and taxed beyond its natural capacity to handle this sort of physical and mental strain.

Her lack of breath coming to her straining lungs warned the young witch that her pounding heart wouldn't be able to take the strain, for the blood flowing through her veins was surging, igniting her bloodstream and going much too fast, too fast, too—

" _Tonks_?" A horrible, aching pain had begun to blossom within her chest, sending an incredible, spiraling heat coursing through her system, and when Tonks parted her lips to try to beg with whoever the voice belonged to, to make it stop, make it stop, the best she could manage was to splutter sporadically and pitiful mewling's of panic.

She clawed haphazardly at her front, seizing fistfuls of her shirt, tugging at the buttons near the neckline, wildly trying to undo them, she couldn't _breathe_! At _all_!

"Tonks!" Tonks was vaguely aware of a somewhat familiar voice, a man's.

Was it Remus? Ollie? Snape? Dumbledore? Kingsley? She couldn't tell, nor did she care now. She couldn't bloody breathe!

Her breaths were not staying put in her lungs where they belonged, and her vision kept flooding in and out, and she felt…a burning pain.

Pain. Burning. Everywhere. White-hot fire licking up her right arm and wrist, like nothing she had ever felt before. Worse than her Splinched arm when she'd escaped from Crouch's, worse than the Cruciatus Curse, or that time she broke her foot during Quidditch practice after being hit by a rogue Bludger. Worse than anything in her life.

" **TONKS**!" The voice came again, desperate this time. Louder. Way more urgent. Tonks felt her lips part open, though all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech.

If she screamed, Tonks was never aware of it, or of the Stranger speaking lowly. " _Tonks, T, listen to me! It's Ollie! Y—you're all right now, it's dead, it's dead_!"

Though Tonks only had eyes for the centaur's corpse in front of her. By Merlin's Beard and His Light, what had she _done_?!

* * *

**A/N: Some of you might be confused with Tonks's segment in this chapter, which was kind of what I was going for, for her to be disoriented and dazed while her body goes through 'fight or flight' and she's hyped up on so much adrenaline right now, she doesn't even feel the pain in her dislocated shoulder or wrist.**

**At least, not until she stops fighting. She's having a bit of a mental break down, as I'm sure you, my lovely readers, noticed. Poor Tonks is going through what I like to call mental shock when a person experiences such extreme stress/fear/immense pain that her mind just can't cope with that kind of stress.  
**

**Centaurs, in case you didn't know, are known for their ah...more 'lustful' behaviors, shall we say, in Greek mythology, and part of me thinks I might have gone overboard with their treatment towards Tonks and Ollie, though the other part of me doesn't* think that, considering how in the books they show an extreme prejudice and disdain for humans.**

**And given Tonks's code as an Auror, 'this isn't our way', this is the first time in the story where she's truly been faced with a 'live or dies' situation in terms of if she DIDN'T kill the centaur, she would have been killed, and there our tale would have ended.**

**That said, an Auror with a moral life code such as hers, regardless of whether or not she was defending herself, her unborn baby, and Ollie, is going to have to face the fact that she just took a life, and a centaur's life at that, which is already on rocky territory considering the relationship the centaurs have with wizardkind, which may or may not affect Tonks and co. getting Umbridge back easily.**

**She has essentially killed for the 2nd time in her life (I don't really count the first time with the Carrows in her wolf Animagus form, considering her conscience was basically on a whole different plane of existence then), and is now aware of it, and is going to have to come to terms with what she's done and learn to deal with it, though hopefully Remus and Ollie will be a good support system going forward.**

**Coming up, will Ollie be able to pull Tonks out of her panic attack?**

**Oof. Probably not well. Stay tuned, my lovely readers!**


	78. Of Sorrows and Uncertainty

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT**

Ollie thought he had been terrified before, though this took the _cake_ on any prior experience, and he was most _definitely_ panic-stricken now as he watched Tonks collapse in on herself, seemingly not knowing who _he_ was, who _she_ was, or where they _were_.

How the bloody hell in her current physical condition, beaten and battered as she was, with a dislocated shoulder and broken arm did she manage to fight the centaur off, even Ollie didn't know, though she'd managed to keep the creature away from him long enough for him to regain consciousness, though by the time most of his strength had returned, the damage was already done, the centaur's blood seeping into the stone floor of the cave.

Tonks was towering over the slain beast, her shaking, uninjured hand balled into a fist and prepared to bash its head in with a rock, though, then she paused. Tonks stumbled and faltered backward in indecision, her gray eyes wide and round with shock and surprise, the poor thing swaying dangerously on her feet.

" _Here_!" he shouted, though Ollie doubted Dora heard a word he just said as he lunged forward and caught her before her knees buckled and she hit the ground, and he fell with her, cushioning the worst of her fall so that he, not her, would bear the brunt of the impact.

Tonks wasn't making any kind of coherent noise that he recognized. Just splutters and gasped, pained, choking breaths.

"T? Tonks, can you hear me? Are you still with me, Tonks?" he called out in a low, hushed voice, almost a whisper. He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "T, if you can _understand_ , I need you to nod for me. Can you nod? Tonks?"

Yet, Tonks did not respond to his voice as he wrapped one arm around her waist, holding onto her from behind, brushing back a stray wisp of her short hair that had a mind of its own and tended to stick up near her cowlick.

"C'mon, T, _talk_ to me." Ollie cringed, fully aware that he was practically begging her now, though this tactic had always worked on his best friend in times past when he begged to Tonks. Though still, she didn't answer him and only continued to sob, shaking her head back and forth, gray eyes brimming with unshed, glistening moisture, in utter disbelief.

Tonks cried like there was too much raw pain inside her to be contained. She cried like her spirit needed to break loose from her skin, desperate to release an elemental rage on the world. The soothing words of her sister made no difference at all. Nymphadora was beyond all reason, beyond all-natural methods of calming, and the pained, choking, frightful sob that wrenched its way from her lips was so heart-wrenching, that Ollie swore he felt his own heart cry out in response.

"No, no, T. It's _me_ ," he said, still whispering what he hoped were soothing remarks in the shell of her ear, smoothing away her bloodied bangs off of her sweat-drenched forehead. "It's _me_." Her hands clawed frantically at the fabric of her shirt and her sobs turned into a violent spell of coughing, which in turn caused her breathing to become inconsistent. "Merlin Above, help me," Ollie moaned, the pads of his fingers ghosting along what looked like a shallow cut on her collarbone, wishing he had his damned wand.

Once the Obscurus had been managed to be safely extracted and he'd gotten an hour or two of sleep via a Sleeping Draught given to him by Mr. Scamander, Professor Dumbledore had told Ollie that Tonks was in a precarious position and needed help.

He'd been in such a damn hurry to appear at her side, he'd forgotten his damn wand, and Ollie clenched his teeth, grinding them and squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself for his stupidity. How—how could he have forgotten his own bloody wand? She—she needed medical attention immediately, and he didn't trust himself to try to tend to her wounds without his wand. Ollie lifted a trembling hand and felt her forehead. It was burning up. She was burning up with a fever.

"Oh, no. No. Please, no," he begged through gritted teeth, feeling now way more scared than before. Why the hell wasn't Tonks _moving_? What had that stupid horse done to her to cause such a violent reaction? What if she—could she be…?

 _No_. He shook his head, almost violently so, back, and forth in order to clear it. He couldn't _do_ this. Not on his _own_. Professor Dumbledore had gotten a strange look in his brilliant sky-blue orbs that were so very much like his own and said she was here in the Forest with a She-Wolf named Norah Jameson, and of course, her fiancée. _Lupin_. Her _new_ partner and love. He frowned, fighting back the swells of jealousy. There was a time and a place, and now was not the time, nor was it the place for it.

"I—I can't _fix_ you, Tonks," he whispered, hating hearing his voice as it cracked and faltered. " _Can't_. You need to stay _awake_ , T."

"O… _Ollie_?" The whisper that escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open was barely audible. In fact, if Ollie hadn't currently been cradling her, supporting her weight in his arms, hanging onto her every slight movement, he _never_ would have heard it. Ollie felt his blue eyes widen in extended shock. So, so she wasn't…wasn't _dead_! Tonks was alive!

"Oh, thank Merlin! Merlin's Beard, T, don't _scare_ me like that! I—I thought you were…" he breathed, exhaling a tense, relieved breath as a choked half gasping sob of wonder tore from his chest, and he blinked back briny tears. A choked half sob, a half gasp of awe tore from his chest, wracking his form in a wave of relief and joy. Renewed tears began to flow down his face. Slowly, as if in a dream, Ollie took his raised hand and gently pressed his palm to her cheek.

It was not cold as it had been not a moment ago, some warmth had returned to her skin. Her eyes, at that moment, misted over and began to close, a small shuttering breath escaping her as she did so. A wave of panic suddenly hit him at her reaction to his touch and he felt ice flood his veins instantly.

"No! Tonks. Don't go to sleep, you _jerk_! I saved your life, damn it, now stay awake! Stay awake for me, Tonks, can you stay awake?" He carefully shifted her in his arms, bringing her upper body towards him, cradling her left hand in his own hand, bringing the hand that now wore her soon-to-be wedding band up to his cheek. He carefully settled her against his shoulder and the crook of his arm, allowing her to lean against him for support while also letting her sit somewhat upright. He gently gave her a firm shake.

Nothing to cause any unnecessary pain, but enough to rouse her from drowsiness. "Open your eyes, asshole!" he shouted, fully aware he was shouting at Tonks now, his fear at losing his best friend manifesting in the form of anger, though thank Merlin, this time, there was no Obscurus to cause any more trouble. "Don't go to sleep! You—you _have_ to stay awake, Tonks!" Instantly, her eyes reopened, yet they still could not manage to open fully. Ollie realized in that horrible moment that although Tonks was not yet gone, she was fading.

She barely had any strength left, hardly enough to keep her eyes open let alone try and speak to him. Risking a quick glance, he scanned her for her injuries, remembering that she had been dealt several hard blows. Her left wrist was broken in two places. There was a shallow, long cut on the other side of her neck, just above her collarbone. Her dislocated shoulder practically radiated heat from the appendage and lay jangled.

Despite this, the crucial life essence had seeped through and stained the already red fabric of the bandage a deep, dark crimson. He knew not how deep the wound went or its width, but what he did know was that removing that bandage was out of the question right now. Doing so would surely result in massive blood loss, and…he couldn't bring himself to think further. He needed help. Ollie needed help.

If he didn't find a solution fast, she was truly going to… Again, he feared the word that came into his thoughts, but he pushed his fear away. He needed to get a grip on his emotions or else he was going to cause her to panic. "Tonks?" he whispered gently, his voice far too low, and trying to keep the fear out of his tones. "Can you hear me?" His best friend lifted her head ever so slightly so that her half-open, misty gray eyes that resembled the last ashes of a deadly wildfire, smoke on the breeze, were gazing up at him.

She offered him a tiny nod, yet he could see the sheer amount of effort it took for her to do so. She nearly had little to no strength left in her at all. Swallowing the lump forming in the back of his throat, Ollie nodded stiffly back and sucked in a deep breath. "Don't," he pleaded shakily, his voice cracking in the process. He inwardly flinched; his voice sounded far too desperate.

"Don't do that, T. _Please_ ," Ollie begged her, biting down on his bottom lip.

"Don't do what?" she whispered, wincing at the harshness of his tone.

"Don't go to sleep," he commanded harshly. " _Fight_." Giving himself a shake to steel his nerves, Ollie raised his head and looked around. He saw no sign of that blonde She-Wolf or of her partner or anybody else that could help. Where was more help? What the hell were they _doing_ , sleeping on the job? Ollie feared that if he tried to move Tonks any more than he already had, he would end up causing more harm than good.

"The She-Wolf." The one Ollie could trust above all else to help Tonks. She would have some idea of what to do for her since the female werewolf lived here in the forest. Anything Ollie was incapable of doing; the She-Wolf would know what to do. Ollie looked down at Tonks (who was still resting limply against his shoulder, still fighting to keep her eyes open and stay awake.) He reached up a finger and gently stroked her cheek, not caring that her blood stained the interior of his palm, brushing a wisp of stray hair back behind her ear. "Tonks?" he asked softly, his voice just a bit stronger this time.

"Mmm," she mumbled incoherently, keeping her eyes still closed.

"I need you to stay awake, Tonks. For me. Nod if you understand."

She blinked, recognition and awareness returning to her eyes, which instantly sought his own. She blinked again, this time much more slowly and exhaled heavily. "Yes, I hear you, Ol," she breathed, her voice still hoarse and weak. Ollie felt his heart give a painful lurch at the sound. It resembled nothing like her beautiful, gentle tones. However, he took the hand that rested against her cheek and threaded it through her hair, trying to give her as much comfort as he was able.

At the sudden and unexpected action, Tonks opened her eyes once more and this time, they were a bit wider than before. Wide and full of affection. Her expression softened a little bit. A tiny ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. At her gentle expression, he felt his heart hitch again, but this was a different feeling than the ones from before. He began to feel an immense sense of relief, that she was alive.

That while this was entirely _his_ fault, for not getting here fast enough in time to save her, what had happened to her, there was the small flickering ember flame of hope that welled in his chest that his best friend might one day forgive him. _If only I'd gotten here sooner, I could have_ …

Yet, as Ollie opened his mouth to speak, Tonks's eyes suddenly flew wide open and a deep, pain-ridden cry tore from her lips. Her body gave a hard shudder, her eyes glazed over as she clenched her eyes tightly shut, shielding them from his view. She cried out and released a small groan and turned her head to the side, eyes clenched tightly shut and teeth ground in the effort to keep in her scream of pain. Whatever amount of pain she was in, it was clearly too taxing and far too much. His eyes widened in shock as her cheek fell against his shoulder and her body tensed as a wave of pain hit.

"Tonks? What's wrong? What the hell is happening?" Ollie immediately forwent any amount of calm. Instead, raw panic hit him faster than ever before, and this time, he did not hesitate. The arm that was supporting her shoulders tightened instantaneously while his other shot underneath her knees, gripping her lower thigh tightly as if to ground himself. "No! No, no, don't…don't go to sleep!" She was still conscious, he could tell, though her breathing had quickened, and her eyes moved rapidly from under their lids, which were squeezed tightly as if to somehow bar away whatever pains she felt. Tonks was in far too much pain for him to help and he was far too panicked and emotionally compromised to be of any use. He didn't know what to do.

What could he do? There had to be something… Suddenly, Ollie felt that Tonks needed to be set upon something stable. Holding her like he was, was probably causing her wounds to flex and become agitated and inflamed. For all he knew, he had rubbed an injury the wrong way and had caused the bout of pain that Tonks was now desperately trying to fight off with all her strength. With the utmost care, he gently lowered her to the forest floor, making sure that he was mindful of her injuries. Once she was settled, he made to pull away, yet as he did so, one of Tonks's hands caught hold of two of his fingers on his right hand, refusing to let go.

His hand was far too large for hers, so two fingers were about as much as she could wrap her hand around, yet her grip was stronger than he had anticipated, almost as strong as a man's. He winced slightly as they tightened further upon his fingers, feeling the amount of pain she must be in for her to inflict such strength. Ollie lifted his free hand to her brow and wiped away the beads of sweat that were accumulating there.

Her face, which had regained a bit of color, was pale again, but thankfully, not as white as she had been before. She kept her eyes clenched tightly shut, in far too much pain to open them and look at him. Small tears began to flow from the corners of her eyes. His heart gave another painful lurch at the sight of his sweet friend in so much agony. She was suffering greatly, yet there was nothing within his power to stop this. He couldn't stop his own tears from escaping as a sob of his own escaped past his lips. Despair began to take hold of him. It was hopeless! There was _nothing_ he could do for Tonks, and he hated this!

His best friend and the only good thing in an otherwise _crap_ life was fading right before his eyes and he could not seem to be able to keep himself calm enough to aid her. It would have been better if she had passed before now, to not suffer like this. This was agony for her! What had he done to her?!

All of this was all _his_ fault.

He bent over her, trying so hard to get his voice to work, to speak words of comfort to her to ease her pain, yet nothing but choked sobs and tears came forth.

His voice would not come to him. So, he continued to stroke her hair gently, wanting nothing more than to pick her up and hold her in his arms and never let her go, but there was the simple matter of any broken bones she might have, and he worried that if he tried, it would do more harm than good for Tonks. The last thing he wanted to do right now was caused even more pain and damage than he had already done. Until he got her help, neither of them would know the true extent of the damage.

Then it dawned on him. Something he had forgotten and Ollie _cursed_ himself for forgetting this, black putrid language pouring from his tongue as if the curses were the only words that he had grown up learning. How could he have forgotten? Mustering every bit of strength and control he could manage; he lifted his head towards the edge of the woods wherever the other two had disappeared to and shouted desperately for the only people that could save her at the top of his lungs.

" **GUYS**! **LUPIN**! **NORAH**! **SOMEONE**! **HELP**!" Ollie roared.

He needed help, and fast, or Tonks wouldn't live.


	79. Her Liability

**A/N: Ollie and Norah are both characters who are really growing on me, in their own way, for separate reasons. I still can't believe that the entire time during all the horrible abuse poor Tonks was subjected to, Norah was _sleeping_. **

**Though, sleep doesn't admittedly last very long in the Forbidden Forest. We're changing things up a bit in this chapter of Remadora's long tale, focusing on Ollie and Norah's Points of View more than Tonks or Remus's (though there's plenty of that left to come).**

**And holy Merlin's Beard, this chapter wound up being way longer than I initially thought it was, but hopefully, still a good one! I hope that you enjoy it, my lovely readers!**

**Also, a slight warning I guess for some language in this chapter. Norah has a bit of a trash mouth, but given her hardened tough exterior and life in the Forest as a Wolf, I feel like it's kind of expected of her, so I'm not that* sorry lol.**

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE**

The young blonde werewolf slowly drifted into consciousness. And back out. The Forest around her was a blur, and random images of their makeshift campsite seemed to float aimlessly in the pool of Norah's tired thoughts. A sharp tap on her shoulder momentarily brought her back to the outside world, but after a second, the young She-Wolf was once again pleasantly lost.

Norah felt her brows furrow and come together in mid-sleep. She could swear she felt the other Wolf, Lupin, trying to look at her, tapping her roughly on the shoulder and staring her dead in the eye, but she just couldn't seem to find it within herself to manage to keep her focus right now.

Confusion blossomed in her heart as she felt the tap again on her shoulder, stronger this time, more urgent, knowing that sooner or later, she was going to need to wake up and face whatever the hell new, unpleasant reality that was staring her dead on in the face, challenging her.

But for now, she was content to lay down her heavy head and retreat into wallowing black.

At least, until the sound of a faint scream pierced the late-night autumnal October air and woke her up. It echoed through the tree line and the canopy, making the origin hard to pinpoint.

The first cries were undoubtedly terror, but not the shrill cries of someone bloody _faking_ it.

No, this was the screaming cry of someone with their eyes locked wide and every muscle rigid. The next ones were fainter this time, of immense, suffering pain, garbling, and pitiful. Sad.

It was the kind of scream that made Norah's blood run cold in her veins. It pierced her brain and ignited some primeval pathway. Adrenaline surged through her veins as Norah bolted upright. She plunged her hand into the interior pocket of her black leather jacket, the fingers of her wand hand twitching as they curled into an instinctive, protective fist around the handle of her wand, and her decision was made for her. Save whatever the hell was making such a damn ruckus.

Maybe _then_ , the Forest would allow her some small semblance of peace and to go to _sleep_. Norah Jameson could only sleep when exhausted. When she felt the tiredness in her chest, in how she breathed and her thoughts dragged by in slow motion, she slunk to a quiet spot and curled up.

On good days she'd get three hours, on bad days two. Should she doze later on she'd wake as soon as sleep came, always as fast as if a jinx had sounded, heart beating fast and breathing as if she'd just surfaced from deep water.

After that it was time to get up, to do something, keep moving. When Norah finally woke up, alongside Remus, she could have _sworn_ it was because she'd heard faint screams and cries of pain coming from somewhere off in the distance, as her slightly pointed ears perked up and her wolfish, heightened sense of hearing took over. Her ears perked up as she heard a noise and her eyes widened in shock. There it was again.

Lupin had woken her first, in a panicked state of mind, saying Tonks was missing. Norah huffed in frustration, the breathy puff of air as it left her lips dissipating as quickly as it had come as she sat up slowly and blinked once, twice, three times to shake the sleep from her senses.

Norah swiveled her head to the left slightly to regard the other werewolf. "Remus? You all right? Hello?"

Norah frowned and practically snapped her fingers in front of Lupin's face to jolt him back to reality. But the man was having trouble answering her. Lupin's brow was practically drenched in sweat and his face was pale, much too pale for even Norah to consider it healthy, and most wolves were pale.

Lupin was pacing about the forest floor like there was a bloody hurricane moving inside him. He was moving like his brain demanded the energetic expenditure of a runner but won't tell his limbs what to do. His light brown eyes were wild with a tinge of melancholia and familiar panic.

But when Norah forced him to sit back down on the log next to her, he started fidgeting. He got faster until he exploded into motion again, bolting from his spot on the log, and pacing. Norah's cobalt, sky-blue eyes followed his movement. Back and forth he went. Back and forth in a repetitive motion until she thought for sure the soles of his shoes would leave permanent indentations in the ground beneath the man's feet as he walked in the same line, back and forth.

Suddenly, the man was talking. Talking to Norah and himself like Lupin didn't have enough time to say whatever it was that he thought he needed to. His sentences were fragmented, and his thoughts seemed to jump from one thing to another.

All his fears tumbled unchecked out of his brain, the poor man was in some kind of awful, mental free-fall, unable to analyze things or assess the risk of going off alone on his own to search for his _missing_ , _pregnant_ , _stupid_ fiancée.

In all honesty, Norah was of the belief that Nymphadora Tonks shouldn't even be _out_ here in her current condition, given the state of things, and the witch's pride and stubbornness was going to be her downfall. Norah ground her teeth and bit down on the wall of her cheek,

Yes, she thought the girl was so very _stupid_. _Foolish_. _Arrogant_. She'd told her, no, she had _warned_ her not to go off alone! And _now_ look! She was worrying her mate to the point she thought the guy would collapse.

Her words that she spoke to Remus Lupin meant to reassure the man bounced off of him as good as hard rain.

Now he was practically right in front of her and invading her personal space, his fingers were white-knuckled holding onto fistfuls of her shirt as he pulled Norah to her feet, causing her to let out a surprised squeak of anger intermingled with concern at the sudden shift in the man's countenance, and he was asking Norah where the hell Tonks had gone off to.

If it will be OK. Norah tells him yes. She told him over and over, all the while somewhat awkwardly patting his back and trying not to shirk away in an uncomfortable disgust at the contact. Unwanted physical contact always unnerved her, especially from Strangers, people she did not know, though she supposed that Remus Lupin was no longer a Stranger to her, was he?

Norah huffed in frustration and gingerly pried the man's hand off of her shirt. With a clear view of the Wolf in front of her, she could see the sheer terror practically mount within him as Norah looked to the left and right and confirmed Lupin's suspicions: that Tonks was (again) lost.

Her unblinking blue eyes ran up and down his tall, towering form as he continued his restless pacing. His light brown eyes looked towards anywhere but at Norah in a state of panic.

Remus seized tufts of his brown hair and tugged on them violently, truly agitated, and terrified. Norah furrowed her brows at the man as she could have _sworn_ she heard him whimper.

"She—she's gone. I've scoured the entire perimeter and I can't find her. She's _hurt_. _Dead_. Something's _happened_ to Dora, Jameson!" Lupin shouted, truly beside himself with panic.

For several long seconds that felt like they were suspended in time, Norah simply stared at Remus Lupin in shock. She felt heavy as her feet remained firmly cemented to the forest floor. Norah blinked owlishly at the werewolf, feeling a wave of sympathy and guilt as it wracked through her entire body as she looked upon him, hating how she had been so cold to him.

To _both_ of them, really, though the witch was the one who was proving to be problematic, and quite frankly, in Norah's blunt opinion, a bit of a dumbass. How many times could one witch allow the Forest to get her lost? What if the centaurs or _worse_ , the spiders found Tonks?

Norah bit down on the wall of her cheek, thinking it would be in poor taste to voice _this_ concern to the man standing directly in front her, clearly a distraught mess fretting over his fiancée's whereabouts. _Pregnant fiancé_ , Norah reminded herself darkly and let out a tired sigh.

Her guilt got the better of her, however, and the young blonde werewolf pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. This man and her partner were not monsters. They were not like Umbridge, just because Lupin had attempted to live amongst humans.

Remus was a person, a human being, just like his mate was, and just like Norah was. And this man had lived through an entire world of hurt and anguish his entire life if the backstory of his Turning was anything like hers, and Norah decided that she was not about to continue that scorn.

"Hey…" Norah lowered her voice, ensuring that it was low, quiet, and softer than silk as she looked upon the man's tired, lined face without a hint of fear or disdain, though the muffled scream in the distance sent a surge of fresh adrenaline and panic coursing through her bloodstream, hotter than any Hungarian Horntail could flame.

The nervous werewolf's light brown eyes met her sky-blue cobalt blue orbs. His shining eyes were filled with utter dismay and dread. His hands, which had been entangled in his tuft of thick hair, tugging on his locks, his fingers sticky every which way as he pulled relentlessly on his hair, dropped slightly in hesitation.

"I don't know which way Tonks went. But I'm _going_ to find her," Norah heard herself reassure Lupin as best as she could. "I—I'm sure it's not that bad. She probably just tripped and fell off the path." She snorted at her own quip and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "She's _fine_."

Though even as Norah spouted the words of reassurance, the words that she knew the man needed to hear in this exact moment, she herself was having trouble believing her own words.

"It's going to be all right. I'm sure your fiancée is just fine. Waiting for me to save her ass _again_. That's _three_ that she owes me now, and I hope she knows I'm keeping count. She _owes_ me a solid favor after all of this," Norah grumbled darkly to Remus, though a hint of teasing snaked its way through her kind, German accent.

She watched with bated breath as Lupin's wide, slightly glazed eyes blinked rapidly as if Remus were processing her unexpected words of gentle kindness.

No doubt he had been expecting her to yell, to scream, berate the young witch for not daring to wake either one of them up if she had walked into a spot of trouble. Norah swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat, suddenly feeling guilty, as that had been her first reaction upon being woken up and discovering the witch missing.

Oh, there were _definitely_ going to be words exchanged between Miss Tonks and herself, though first, she had to _find_ the clumsy young witch. Remus was looking more than shocked by the young blonde wolf's kind reaction.

Lupin's face held a somewhat dumbfounded expression as he nodded towards her, silently acknowledging to Norah Jameson that he had heard and was processing her words to him.

His gaze nervously flitted between the path ahead of them and back to Norah, far too nervous to eye the She-Wolf for very long. His round, unblinking eyes darted from her to the damp ground beneath their shoes.

Well, _his_ shoes, rather, and Norah's black combat boots made for this kind of thing. His breaths hitched and caught in his throat, a relatively poor attempt to calm himself down as he slowly lowered his hands, finally pulling them out of his hair and down to his sides.

Though it did not escape the young wolf's attention that Remus's hands violently trembled, and he practically was forced to ball his hands into fists to keep from striking out at something in anger. Norah cocked her head to the side. "You're going to _stay_ here in case she—"

But Norah did not get a chance to finish her sentence as the scream came again. The blood drained from Norah's face, and before she was even aware of making a conscious decision, her fingers had curled around the tip of her wand, and she didn't even glance back over her shoulder at Remus, though she made sure to raise her voice and bark the only order given to him that she fully expected Lupin to obey, or Merlin help him if he did not by the time she got back!

" _Stay_ here, Romeo!" she roared at the top of her lungs, skidding to a stop. "Listen to me, Lupin. You're going to _wait_ here until I come back, _or_ I signal you to come and provide backup. I'll send up a shower of red sparks with my wand if that happens, but if it _doesn't_ , then you stay _put_ , do you understand? Just in case Tonks is wandering around something and comes back here. If you even think of coming after me, I'll hunt you down and _castrate_ you, _wolf_ , you got that?" Norah shouted; her temper rapidly swelling in her chest. feeling her legs pounding on the muddy track ahead of her. Norah barely heard Lupin let out a low warning growl of his own, or his shout of protest as Norah didn't bother to stick around to wait and see his reaction toward her order.

 _Let him be pissed,_ she thought angrily, grinding her teeth as she propelled herself forward, her slightly pointed ears straining for more sounds, more clues as to where it came from.

She had no _clue_ what she was going to do when she found this witch, depending on what kind of bloody mess Tonks had gotten herself into now, just that she had to get there, _fast_. Norah paused as the noise came again, this time sounded much weaker and muffled. She growled in frustration and bared her sharp canines, letting out an animalistic hiss of anger.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Norah emanated a tense, shaking exhale through her nose, forcing her body to try to relax and shutting out all other stimuli around her, save for the scream. _Her scream_ , she thought, feeling her heart give a painful little stab of fear at the thought, though Norah did not immediately open her eyes, not even when she felt one of her ears give a twitch, or her nose scrunching in slight disgust as she could have sworn she heard cruel laughter.

 _Merlin damned bloody centaurs. Damn them! Damn to the seven hells below and may they rot there for all eternity until maggots crawl out their eyes! I know those voices_ , Norah thought violently, feeling that familiar hot fire-seed of anger ignite deep within the confines of her stomach.

Whatever the hell was happening somewhere in the distance, it was something wicked. And if that thought alone wasn't troublesome in it of itself, the pink-haired witch wasn't here at all.

She was nowhere to be found. "For Merlin's _sake_!" Norah exclaimed violently through gritted teeth, flinging her eyes open and slapped her knee, a release of frustration as the faint sound seemed to reverberate through the trees, making it almost impossible to pinpoint its origin.

Norah quickly searched the surrounding area, doing her absolute best to ensure she stayed calm, though she felt terrified. "How many bloody times can _one_ witch get lost in a single night?" She shook her head, grinding her teeth and locking her jaw in anger and irritation as she mulled this over.

The fact that she had been woken up by the sound of someone screaming or crying in the not-too-far-off distance from where they had set up camp for the night, coupled with the fact that the young witch who was hellbent on extracting the old Senior Undersecretary from Astelos's clan was deeply unsettling and enough to incite panic in even the calmest of souls like Norah was.

"Keep _cool_ , Jameson," Norah scolded herself, pursing her lips into a thin line. "Panicking isn't going to solve _anything_ ," she sighed, though she flinched as she realized her fingernails had practically turned into claws and were raking down the bark of the very tree she'd shot an arm out at to steady herself once she'd opened her eyes again and allowed her hearing to resume to normal.

Using her heightened senses to locate someone always made her feel a little dizzy after.

It was disorienting and overwhelming, to be a werewolf even in the _best_ of times. To have a heightened sense of smell and hearing of a wolf. Sometimes, especially during peak times, full moon times, it made her feel so _sick_ and her stomach could not tolerate 'normal human food.'

Norah frowned as she turned her head to the left and right, having come to a fork in the path. The young blonde werewolf couldn't hear the cries of screaming anymore. All was silenced. She had really only heard them as they were what had woken her up in the first place. That and Lupin prodding and shaking her shoulder with his hand, though now that she was alert, she couldn't even tell which direction they were coming from. The south? Northwest? The west?

"They could have been all in my head," Norah huffed, running her tongue along the top wall of her cheek before she bit it. "But it _still_ doesn't change the fact that the _witch_ isn't here."

Nymphadora Tonks was proving to be a difficult one to keep track of, that much Norah knew in the limited time she had been exposed to the bright young witch with the dark pink hair. The woman didn't seem to want to ever stay _put_ in one place _or_ keep things easy, and to make matters _worse_ , was constantly offering up her verbal opinions on matters that Norah didn't give a crap about, and always seemed to be tripping over her own two left feet and needing saving.

Tonks didn't seem to want to accept the fact that Norah had _plainly_ told her, that there probably wasn't going to be any dinner, and she should have eaten breakfast and lunch like Norah had advised her to, and instead of letting that be the end of it, the stupid girl had wandered off on her own, alone, wandless, away from the campsite in search of berries.

And _now_ , instead of staying put by the campfire and simply keeping watch, again like Norah and Remus had instructed her to…

A relatively _easy_ job so simple that even a first-year at Hogwarts could do it, unless they were especially thickheaded and mentally incapable of doing so, of which Norah was starting to think Miss Tonks was _not_ capable of keeping watch, and she was regretting asking the witch since.

" _Now_ I have to _save_ your _sorry_ little _ass_. A _third_ time," Norah snarled, allowing a deep, low warning growl that she recognized as the She-Wolf within her, escaping from her slender chest.

Tonks didn't seem to understand that by daring to wander off on her own, alone, and unsupervised, just to make Lupin's life more comfortable while they stayed in the Forbidden Forest, her attempt to 'help' now only made things worse. Who knew _what_ kind of danger she was in now?

Norah almost cursed herself for daring to help the young witch in the first place. _Why_ couldn't she just have left the woman and her mate to their own bloody devices? Left them to fend for themselves?!

But no, she just _had_ to play the noble part of a savior to make some sort of atonement to make up for a lifetime of bad decisions, the first and foremost of ones mouthing off to Umbridge. _Because then Tonks would have lost her little wolf cub and you'd be no better than the very bitch you're rescuing_ , Norah's conscience piped up, rather unhelpfully at the back of her mind.

Norah was hardly aware of the She-Wolf growling, roaring its displeasure in her chest, and she flinched as Norah quickly realized that the beastly noise had come from her own lips. Near the woods, at least a few thousand feet away from the fire, Norah's eyes widened and her ears perked up as the heel of her black boot stepped on a pile of small branches and twigs and they crunched underneath her heavy footfalls as she stomped, yes, quite literally stomped off in the opposite direction where she had left Remus.

She _really_ hoped the man was better at following a simple order than his mate was, because Merlin _helps_ him, if he was _not_ in his exact spot by the time she arrived back to camp with his girl, then she was going to murder him herself.

With a carefully practiced eye, Norah knelt into a crouch by the pile of fallen twigs, picking one up and carefully inspecting it. Tonks had obviously decided to kill some time by gathering more kindling for their fire.

A noble cause, but she could have just borrowed her or Lupin's wand, either _one_ of theirs, or could have lit the fire that way, but Norah suspected Tonks hadn't wanted to wake them. Though something had happened to the vibrant young Auror that had prevented her from making it back to camp, what?

Norah narrowed her cobalt blue eyes and scowled, allowing the She-Wolf within her to take over, using her sense of smell and heightened sight to discover a set of tracks, hoof tracks to be precise, that obviously did not belong to Tonks. Not unless the girl had managed to find someone's wand and Transfigure her feet into hooves.

Norah snorted and let out a growl that was more like a hiss as she bared her canines, as her heart promptly sank to the pit of her churning stomach. "Fucking centaurs," she snarled, not even bothering to mind her language now that she was well and truly alone. She'd gotten a few withering looks from Lupin the first few times she hadn't bothered to mind her tongue around him.

Tonks, without her wand, was in no equipped state, mentally or physically, to fend off what appeared to be three to four centaurs judging by the set of hoof tracks that she was following.

"Merlin's left saggy nutsack," she swore, spitting the venomous curse words as though they were poison that had settled upon her tongue as she followed the tracks deeper into the woods. "Miss Tonks, what the bloody hell have you gotten yourself into now?" Norah snarled.

 _Can't leave this one alone unattended for FIVE minutes and look what the hell happens_! She silently seethed, fuming, feeling a muscle in her jaw twitched as she stowed her wand in the pocket of her black leather jacket, thinking that to use magic against a group of centaurs, no matter their ill intentions towards Miss Tonks or not, was a direct violation of the treaty against the race of the centaurs and the Ministry of Magic.

She growled, snarling, and practically foaming at the mouth as she continued to follow the set of tracks, following the set of prints further into the Forest's path.

When she heard a horrible cry of agony and pained screaming, and the sound of a male's voice pleading for someone to help them, which was eardrum-shattering enough and loud that Norah knew without a shadow of doubt in her mind that the noises she'd heard earlier were real, she knew she no longer needed to continue following the forest path for more hoofprints.

As quietly as she possibly could, Norah snuck her way through the thicket of the forest, ducking behind relatively large tree trunks or behind bushes were appropriate, careful to mind the thorns catching her hand or any of her clothing.

The young blonde female werewolf carefully poked her head around the trunk of an abnormally large twisted and gnarled elm tree, practically stooped over with age, and found the set of centaurs' hoofprints had led her to what looked like a cave.

Three centaurs were gathered around the entrance, near a fire. "Damn," Norah swore through gritted teeth as she took a cautious half-step forward.

Her jaw locked up, tense and tight. She wasn't allowed to use magic to defend herself against these brutal beasts.

 _Need to work on getting rid of these three before I can check on Tonks and whoever the hell is screaming bloody murder inside_ , Norah thought, feeling beads of sweat gather on her browbone, scowling.

Norah bit the inside wall of her cheek as she swore she felt her pupils dilate in the dark. Her left hand, her wand hand, hovered inside the interior pocket of her jacket as her fingers practically twitched as Norah fought back the almost instinctive _itch_ to draw her wand.

 _But how?! I can't use my wand! Merlin Above, give me strength_. She begged, tightly squeezing her eyes shut and grinding her teeth. Norah barely succeeded in stifling her growl of frustration.

The cruel laughter of the three centaurs just outside the mouth of the cave fueled the burning wrath that surged through her bloodstream and her veins, hotter than most dragon fire.

The drop of rage that spread through the She-Wolf's veins was like a fever, like a vexing of the soul for what Norah felt was not at all human, it was twisted and distorted, but it was _strong_. It burned so bad it was like Dragon Fire itself lacing her veins and creeping up her spine. She could practically feel what little color was left drain from her pale features, but all Norah could feel was desire.

Desire to _hate_ these Merlin-damned man-horses that were true _beasts_ in every meaning of the word. Monsters, the whole pack of them. Or herd, she guessed was the correct word.

Not that Norah gave a damn. Norah continued to stare at the three centaurs gathered around the mouth of the cave, seeming to relish in the He-Stranger's screams of agony and desperate pain, intoxicated with no emotion she had no intention of ever feeling, the acidity of it was residing in her stomach, waiting to be spat out of Norah's mouth in foul and vulgar words that, if Remus Lupin were here, and maybe even Tonks, the pair of them would stare at her for saying them.

Except that Norah wasn't going to say them to these creatures. Oh, _no_. No, she was to screech them with every ounce of breath that dwelled in her powerful lungs before she would dare to sink her own incisors and canines into these monsters' necks to dispose of them if she had to.

The young blonde werewolf needed to work on getting rid of these centaurs and hopefully reclaim the injured witch before it was too late. She hadn't saved Lupin's mate's baby for _nothing_ , Merlin damns her.

The man had made her a _deal_. Escort the pair to Astelos's camp. Get Umbridge out, though she would sooner see her rot in here if she had it her way, and then Lupin was to talk to Minister Scrimgeour on her behalf about Norah getting _out_ of here.

That was the _deal_. And Norah could not certainly keep up her end of the bargain if Tonks was dead, beaten and savagely raped to death by these fucking centaurs, now then, _could_ she? No.

Though going hand-to-hand, three against one was hardly fair odds, and though Norah was brave, she wasn't a fool. This was likely going to turn out not in her favor at all. "Suicide…that's what this is, a suicide mission..."

Norah hid, shrouded under the cover of the shadows, of darkness, her insides quivering at the thought of what she was about to do, all for the sake of one very stupid, foolish woman.

But she set her face hard. She had cried her tears in this life, suffered her fair share of wounds, both of the body and of her heart, walked perhaps the hardest road the day that she lost both her husband and one-year-old son at the hands of Dolores Jane fucking Umbridge. Norah clenched her teeth and closed her eyes.

 _"Ugh_. I really _am_ a _stupid_ woman," she growled angrily. "I can't believe I'm really doing this. Merlin _damn_ you, Tonks, you'd _better_ still be alive, so _help_ me…."

If she bloody _wasn't_ , then Norah would just have to resuscitate her herself, just to have the pleasure of killing her all over again for causing her mate worry, and Norah had to trek all the way out here at three o'clock in the bloody morning to save Tonks's stupid, sorry, clumsy _ass_.

Norah felt her back muscles tense as her posture became rigid, her shaking, empty hands clenching and un-clenching, not sure what to do with them, given she couldn't use her wand against these three centaurs, not unless she wanted to be arrested, feeling the sweat trapped beneath them, and she swallowed hard down past the lump in her throat that hollowed her throat.

Being brave meant being afraid, or at least it did for the young blonde She-Wolf. There was no bloody _way_ on Merlin's green earth that she was about to go up against three armed centaurs without her wand and expect to come out of this little surprise encounter unharmed. Alive.

The two went hand in hand. First was the fear, then the determination not to be ruled by it, and as she snuck up behind the tree centaurs, all three of whom had their back turned to her, Norah's pointed ears perked up and twitched at the sound of pitiful whimpers and sobs coming from deep within the cave, along with a muffled He-Stranger's voice that Norah did not recognize.

Though whoever it was, it sounded like the individual knew Nymphadora Tonks well enough. That meant that Remus Lupin's pregnant mate was still alive, for the moment, anyways.

Norah knew she would need to move quickly, with lightning, wolfish speed if she wanted the young Auror to keep her life and the life of the little wolf cub growing inside her belly, and fast.

She had three centaurs, all of them adult males and _much_ larger than her to deal with before Norah could even let her mind _think_ of what might be waiting in that cave for her in a sec. Though before Norah could take the first hesitant, shaking step forward, fighting against her revolting body as she fought back a tremor of fear, Norah Jameson felt her arm become heavy.

Puzzled, Norah glanced down at her left hand, her wand hand, only to find it no longer empty, but a sword had magically appeared in hand, seemingly out of mid-air.

"Oh, thank fuck!" The vulgar curse word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and as Norah gingerly crept forward, she accidentally stepped on a twig that snapped, breaking under the weight of her boot, and immediately alerted the three centaurs to her presence.

She cringed, biting down on her tongue hard enough that she was quick to taste the metallic tang of iron and copper on her tongue and palate as the three centaurs swiveled their heads in Norah's direction in unison. Norah weighed the sword in her left hand, slashing it delicately at the air with a novice-like apprehension, and as she did so, the reflection of the orange ember flames of the fire danced warmly within the cool steel as she gripped onto the sword with both hands.

The handle of the sword was bound with black leather, the hilt decorated yet understated, adorned with bright red rubies, and the blade was a mid-sized blade. "Perfect for cutting _horse flesh_ ," snarled Norah.

She killed the first centaur quickly, slitting the wretch's throat before it even had a chance to throw back its head and whinny.

The second one screamed before she could kill it the same way, and the young blonde was quick to pry the edged sword from the centaur's sausage-like fingers as it let out a frustrated neigh and she whipped around to clash the arrow shelf of the centaur's bow, made from the wood of an elm tree, Norah's heightened sense of smell recognized the scent of the wood.

Norah let out a vicious, animalistic, wolfish snarl and bared her canines.

She held the blade even, a perfect, undaunted horizon, always leveled with the nose. Norah had stalled the centaur's strike, but watched as a wretched, blood-stained grin split the beast's lips as the blade of this mysterious weapon shivered under the brutality of his compelling strength.

 _"You_. Why am I not surprised, _dog_ , that you would save the life of a _human_ ," it growled, curling back his gums to reveal yellowed teeth. "Weapons do not belong in the hands of _women_ , _She_ - _Wolf_ ," the centaur throatily crooned, pressing closer to her face.

The arrow shelf of his bow practically cast a shadow in the dim moonlight, the moon having hidden behind a welly-placed cloud as the cretin brought it over his head and hummed a low tune when he brought it down.

"Say one more _word_ , _horse_ ," Norah snarled through gritted teeth, the tip of the blade digging into the centaur's throat, "and I shall ensure you _never_ speak again. I'll do you the kindness of removing your _head_. Let's see how much you talk the big talk then, you foul, loathsome _colt_."

The centaur's cracked and bleeding lips split unnaturally wide into a Cheshire-cat like grin and threw back his head and laughed, his laughter cruel and wicked, echoing, reverberating through the caves as the accursed four-legged beast backed itself into the mouth of the cave, with the young blonde wolf following its movements. She was _not_ about to let this one get off scot-free.

Norah froze, the sword still pressed against the centaur's throat as the blade was now the only thing holding it hostage.

She thought it strange that the creature did not seem angry at her arrival. In fact, the monster almost looked immensely pleased with itself as it became stock still, the only thing that occasionally gave a feeble twitch now and again was the creature's silky black tail.

The young blonde woman blinked owlishly, her attention briefly torn away from the centaur and peeked over the creature's shoulder, just long enough for her to locate the very person she had come here for, and now, it would seem, a second person that needed their ass saved.

Behind the centaur, lying limply on the cold stone ground of the cave was the young witch, though she was not alone. A handsome-enough chap with blackening stubble for hair that looked as though it was beginning to grow back, little more than peach fuzz, clutched onto Tonks.

He looked close enough to Tonks's age, late twenties, perhaps a few years old, maybe, and there was such a look of anguish in his brilliant sky-blue eyes as the Stranger blearily lifted his chin, though if Norah wasn't mistaken, a small ember, a flicker of hope against the cruel winds of despair, briefly flitted through his eyes, and his blue eyes widened as round as a dinner plate when he took sight of the ruby adorned sword that Norah held firmly in hand, still keeping the weapon trained on the column of the centaur's thick, beefy neck. Though her gaze remained fixed on Tonks.

Tonks seemed to be unconscious, the only indication that the young witch was still alive was the barely noticeable rise and fall of her chest, and her face was much too pale.

In the split second, the young blonde werewolf had to observe the witch, she noticed that Tonks had quite a bit of crusted blood on her face and a fair bit more on her abdomen and near her collarbones. She wasn't moving at all. Norah's face flushed red in anger as the centaur spoke.

"These two belong to you, _She_ - _Wolf_?" The centaur growled, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards in a cruel smirk as it nudged against Tonks's limp body with one of his hooves.

Norah bit down hard on her lip as she tasted the tang of blood as it welled and settled upon her tongue, wanting to spew black, putrid, vile curses of the darkest language at the horse.

It took almost all of her self-restraint not to. She wanted nothing more than to lunge at the foul beast right here and now, attack it and cut its bloody head from its wretched abomination of a body as fast as she could and get Tonks back to her partner, but taking on the centaur in such close proximity to Tonks and this He-Stranger, whoever the bloody hell this new guy was to Tonks, would be a dangerous and risky move on Norah's part. No, she needed to get it away from her.

That way, Tonks wouldn't be at risk of any further injury, and Norah knew she needed to hurry. Norah drew in a sharp breath of cold night air that pained her lungs, hoping she wasn't too late.

Remus Lupin was going to bloody _murder_ her himself if she was. For all Norah knew, Tonks was already dead, given how she couldn't even tell if the young witch and Auror was breathing. She thought she had seen her chest rise and fall but a second ago, but not anymore. So, Norah gave a curt nod towards the He-Stranger, who was struggling to get Tonks to her feet.

"Take her, get Tonks _out_ of here, take her to the path that goes to the left, back to her partner. Tall chap, way too skinny and malnourished, light brown hair, goes by the name of Lupin," Norah growled in a lowly, hardened voice that did not sound like hers at all. "And _go_!" she barked.

The He-Stranger clad in the tattered and ruined set of woolen black robes did not need to be told a second time, practically grunting with the effort to drape Tonks's limp arm around his other shoulder and haul her to her feet, ducking underneath Norah's arm and going as fast as he could, though Norah watched with a heavy, sinking feeling as her heart dropped to her stomach as the boy was practically shuffling, shambling along that suggested he had one or two cracked ribs.

Norah waited until the younger man and Tonks were a safe enough distance away from the entrance of the mouth of the cave and headed back in the direction that Norah had come from until she turned back towards the blue centaur currently commanding all of her attention right now.

" _You're_ the one this wretched little _witch_ was with, _weren't_ you, She-Wolf?" the centaur, one of Astelos's herd, Norah recognized this one, though couldn't remember the beast's name. "And now you've come to collect your precious little prize, is that it? Though you ask me, this one's a liability for you, She-Wolf. She's done nothing to you already but cause you trouble and strife."

Norah was not about to be goaded into responding to the creature's taunts. She owed this rapist beast nothing and did not want to waste her time arguing about Nymphadora's worth.

To her, it didn't mean a damn what this centaur thought of the witch. It was about to be dead anyway, and Norah decided quickly that she'd kick his own head off his body like a football with her own boot if she had to.

The centaur continued to smirk at the young blonde werewolf.

"Would have just been so much easier for the precious little dove if she would have just told me the truth. I don't know _why_ she got it into that pretty little head of hers to _protect_ you, _dog_." The centaur's sneer widened. A light seemed to ignite behind his beady, narrowed black eyes. "Perhaps she's taking a liking to you, _wolf_. Maybe she means to put a collar and a leash on you, Jameson, and keep you like the domesticated _pet_ that we all know you to be," he snarled viciously.

 _That_ did it. Norah felt her head whiplash sharply upward to regard the centaur, a cry of rage on her lips as she flung herself forward at the centaur, screaming at it. That was the breaking point of her patience, and in that split moment alone, the quiet had become like icy drops onto her already frigid cold skin. Norah had never liked even odds anyways.

If she was going to die now by this centaur's hand, then she could live with such a death. "As long as I take _you_ with me!" she yelled, swinging the sword hard across the centaur's bare, exposed, and vulnerable, thick neck.

The swing was a good one and effectively decapitated the centaur in one swift motion. As its head rolled to the ground and stopped at the edge of her boots, Norah scrunched her nose in disgust and pulled a face, and didn't even have to think about her next move as she hefted her leg back as far as she could and kicked the centaur's decapitated head like it was a new football.

The centaur's now-headless, bleeding body staggered backward for a fraction of a half-second before falling with a sickening, heavy thud against the Forest's floor.

"Merlin damn her."

The curse escaped Norah's lips as her head whiplashed sharply up to regard the young dark-haired man and Tonks, who, Norah was relieved to see was breathing again, and staring wide-eyed.

"N—Norah?" Tonks whispered hoarsely, her voice sounding rough and coarse, and feeble.

Norah felt her temper resurface in the confines of her chest, spiraling through her entire system as hot, boiling rage, hotter than molten lava, as she regarded the young, battered witch. Though, Norah was momentarily puzzled as Tonks's fearful expression was not fixated on that of her, which Norah had been expecting, or even at the centaur's now-decapitated body itself.

But rather, on the sword clutched in Norah's left hand, the tip of the blade now stained crimson with the creature's blood. Norah again scrunched her nose in disgust, pulling her wand from the interior pocket of her black leather jacket and procured a pristine white handkerchief from the air and proceeded to start to clean the mysterious sword, though she let out a startled scream and fumbled the weapon and dropped it, where it clattered to the Forest floor with a loud, resounding clang at the front of her boots.

A hand over her racing heart, the other over her mouth as it covered another muted scream, Norah craned her neck forward and looked with widened eyes.

"Is that…?" She heard the man's voice as he moved to stand just behind Norah to see for himself.

Norah couldn't respond. She bloody couldn't. As she felt her lips part open to speaking, all that came out was stammers and a strangled attempt at speech.

This… there was no way, right?

"Shit." The curse tumbled out of Norah's cracked and bleeding lips before she could stop herself. The three of them stared at the blood-soaked sword that now rested idly on the forest floor.

Though they weren't looking at any ordinary sword. The broad silvery metal was ice-cold to the touch as Norah shakily knelt to the ground to pick up the glistening weapon with trembling fingers.

Just as the moon, it reflected the moonlight itself, this sword that she'd wielded.

Of love's own energy and the duty of protection.

It was the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

* * *

**A/N: Whaaaat? Bet you guys didn't see that coming! I had to think for a looong time who I wanted to wield the sword. I knew I wanted it to make an appearance in the story at some point, but how was always a mystery to me until maybe a few chapters ago when I was planning this one out. :D**


	80. Of Tempers and High Tensions

**A/N: Slight warning ahead for some rough, coarse language ahead, but since it's coming from Norah's trash mouth, I don't feel too terrible about it. Norah is downright _ticked_ at Tonks for straying so far from the campsite in search of food, and in my mind, rightfully so, for obvious reasons, and…well, I won't say anymore. Read on, my lovely readers, and I hope you continue to enjoy it! **

* * *

** CHAPTER EIGHTY **

The aforementioned dark-haired Stranger maintained his firm grip on Tonks glanced upwards at the young blonde werewolf, finally managing to pry his gaze away from the discarded sword of Godric Gryffindor laying on the forest floor at the front of Norah Jameson's black boots, and nearly cried out in relief and joy at seeing their savior alive and unharmed.

He struggled to loosen his grip on Tonks's waist and stepped back a half-step, though the man close to Tonks's age made no move to relinquish his hold on her waist, wanting to hover nearby in case the young witch's equilibrium failed.

"Oh, thank _Merlin_! Someone bloody came for us both!" he breathed, his voice and body trembling.

The poor guy to Norah looked and sounded like he was on the brink of collapsing wholly.

"I—I need help, miss! I—I think Tonks, th—that's her name, Tonks, is ill! This stupid centaur did something to her. She—she was screaming earlier and struggling to breathe a—and then just…she just…she—she just…" he trailed off, his voice cracking and wavering, as was his resolve. "I—I don't know if she's d…"

But the poor man's voice broke and he couldn't seem to complete his sentence. He was practically near hysterics at this point, seizing what little tufts of his dark hair that was growing back from being shaved off, it looked like, and tugging on them hard.

Norah was quite sure slick tears would slip from the guy's lids at any moment, and she watched in silence as the poor boy buried his head in blood-covered hands in despair.

"Are you hurt?" Norah demanded, not so much as sparing the sword on the ground a second glance as she strode towards Ollie and Tonks, grasping onto the boy firmly by the shoulders and giving him a firm, rough shake to try to snap him out of his swell of a panic attack. "Kid?" she growled. "You gotta _talk_ to me, kid, and stay awake."

The poor man merely shook his head back and forth, his face still hidden by his hands. Norah ground her teeth in anger and pinched her front temples with her thumb and forefinger, feeling her temper rapidly swell in her veins, hotter than any dragon fire.

"Merlin's left saggy testicle, what the fuck happened here, kid? _Talk_ to me," she growled, letting out a hiss and bearing her canines. Her mood was _not_ improved by the sound of rustling leaves, a twig snapping, the sound of a human's voice cursing under his breath, and Jameson didn't even have to look behind her to notice that Remus Lupin had disobeyed her command and followed her here.

Her balled hands continued to stay clenched into fists at her side and she growled.

Norah shifted slightly at the waist just in time to see the other werewolf barrel through a, particularly thick brush, practically stumbling over himself in his haste to appear at his pregnant fiancée's side.

"I thought I _told_ you to _stay_ at the _camp_!" she shouted, finally lifting her gaze to meet Lupin's gaze, but the wolf wasn't paying her any mind. He only had eyes for his mate, and Norah watched as his face drained of color.

"Tonks? Where's…what happened?" Remus demanded, and then went rigid.

Off to the side, still barely able to stand up, was Nymphadora Tonks. Her head was turned away, so Remus could not get a good enough look at her face in this dim night light, but her body was twisted awkwardly in an uncomfortable tangling of her broken limbs.

However, it was the slight, uneven rise and fall of her chest, and her dislocated shoulder and wrist that were the most cause for alarm.

Drawing in a sharp breath that pained his lungs, Lupin tried to fight off his own rising mounting panic and anger.

In the effort to take some control, Lupin turned towards Ollie, and swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, finding the poor man ready to burst into tears.

"She…th—thank you," Remus managed hoarsely, extending his hand to Ollie and not even looking around at all the carnage around them, the four dead centaurs' bodies now lay lifeless and bloodied, scattered throughout the mouth of the old cave.

Ollie seemed stunned, though offered no comment and took Lupin's hand and shook it, making an odd muted, little strangled noise at the back of his throat and lifted a shaking hand towards the ground.

Remus furrowed his brows into a frown, noticing where Tonks's best friend was looking, and as his gaze landed on the discarded sword, his face paled.

"Is that—is that the _sword_ of _Gryffindor_?" he demanded, feeling his head whiplash sharply upwards to regard Norah, a stupefied expression on his face, as though he were seeing the blonde werewolf in a brand new light for the first time. "How is it that you just _happen_ to have the sword of Gryffindor, Miss Jameson?" Remus growled.

Though Norah was paying Remus no mind, her narrowed blue eyes fixed on Tonks. Norah stifled a growl and strode towards Tonks, who was thankfully regaining some semblance of consciousness, and ignoring Lupin's hardened voice and protests as he demanded to know what she was doing, Norah closed off the gap of space between herself and Tonks and seized a fistful of the young witch's red shirt and shook her _hard_.

" **TONKS**!" Norah bellowed, shouting her words through gritted teeth, as she shoved her wand in the interior coat pocket of her black leather jacket.

She pulled Tonks close so that the tip of her nose was almost touching hers. Norah could have sworn she heard Tonks whimper a little.

_Good_. She _ought_ to be scared of Norah.

She had this _coming_ , and this time, Norah didn't allow for anything to be held back.

"Fucking _shit_ for brains! The only fucking reason we're not _dead_ right now is _that_ for _some_ fucking _reason_ , the sword of Gryffindor decided to appear at just the right fucking moment! Maybe it was Merlin's grace or your _great_ sense of humor that saved your ass tonight, I don't know!" she shouted, her fingers curling into a tight fist on the material of Tonks's shirt. "Yeah, I _agreed_ to be your guard while you're in the Forest, but this is _fucked_! I could protect you through the fucking Battle of _Waterloo_ if I had to, but it's just not _possible_ to protect a girl who's trying so _damn_ hard to get fucking _killed_ all the time!" Norah roared, not giving a damn that she winced.

" _Norah_!" Lupin shouted, sounding thoroughly disgruntled, and when the man so much as set a single finger on her shoulder, Norah mentally snapped and spun around. "This is hardly the time to lose your temper! What happened was an _accident_! Leave her alone! What happened to her is _not_ Tonks's fault! She's in no condition to—"

Norah let out an instinctive growl that started as a low rumble deep from within the confines of her chest and promptly cut Remus off from whatever he'd been about to say next.

_"What_?" she barked wolfishly through clenched teeth, letting go of Tonks's shirt.

Norah was _not_ in a patient mood right now, so Remus had better say his piece or _else_. White knuckled from clenching her fists too hard, and gritted teeth from the effort to remain calm, though she was well beyond the point of no return right now, her rigid form exuded an animosity that was like acid—burning, slicing, potent.

Her face was white with suppressed rage, and when Remus set another hand on her shoulder, she lost it. "Your _mate_ almost got this boy and me here _killed_! Not to mention her _baby_! Oh, you half-witted, _blind_ , bloody _fool_ , Lupin, I _told_ you to stay _put_!" she cried.

She was _right_. Norah knew that she bloody was right, and they didn't _listen_. She could explain all damn day to Remus and Tonks of the dangers of the Forbidden Forest and they still wouldn't listen.

Her pale face had become rigid, jaw clamped tight, teeth grinding in anger.

It was time for her to get _out_ of here before she did something _stupid_ that she would regret, but first, she had to take care of Tonks first and tend her injuries.

Both Remus and the new boy were glaring at her like she _was_ the one who had done wrong by yelling at Tonks just now. Never mind the fact that Norah had just a nonnegotiable land mind just now by slaying, not one, but three centaurs.

This would spell hell for the rest of the wolves in the Forest if Astelos found out that she was the one behind it, and screwed over their plans to get Umbridge, never mind the fact that she had just saved all of their asses just now. Oh, _no_.

In their heads, this was a victory already. In their warped logic, the anger that was threatening to consume her, engulf and destroy the boundaries of loyalty and her moralities, meant that Remus was right.

Just because they kept their cool, it didn't prove the veracity of his argument. A small noise shattered the otherwise tense silence.

"Will—will she live?" The younger man asked, his voice faint and hoarse.

"And _you_!" Norah snarled, rounding on the dark-haired boy close to Tonks's age, who immediately shirked back and made a muffled noise at the back of his throat that sounded like a whimper, though he made no move to remove himself from Tonks's side, not even when Lupin murmured something to the boy about how he'd take her. "I've met _idiotic_ people in my life, and I've met _vicious_ people, but I don't know if I've ever been cursed with the misfortune to know a vicious _idiot_ like _you_ , kid! What in the bloody hell were you _thinking_? Trying to take on a centaur with no help at all? Are you _stupid_?" she growled, no longer giving a damn if she was offending anyone.

The boy did not immediately answer, though he steeled his facial muscles as a muscle in his jaw and behind his eye twitched, and he stood up straighter, frowning.

"Don't take this out on Tonks, _Wolf_ ," Ollie growled, the edges of his voice hardening and his sky-blue eyes darkening the angrier he got, almost cerulean in color. "This _isn't_ her fault, _dog_. The centaurs kidnapped her, Miss Norah," the boy snapped.

Norah blinked owlishly at the young man, startled as to how this He-Stranger knew her name, not to mention the rude insults this man-boy kept piling on her, reproach after reproach, though she shook her head to clear it and shoved that thought aside.

The younger man puffed out his chest slightly and lifted his chin upwards to better meet Norah's gaze. He flinched only once as he no doubt saw the shadow of the She-Wolf, that Beast within Norah, cross over the young blonde's pale features, but he did not back down or change his stance.

" _I_ was the one who came after Miss Tonks," he hissed. " _I_ was the one who behaved recklessly. Punish _me_ for this if you want, but _not_ her. She's _hurt_. She needs medical attention," the younger man snapped, sounding hurt.

"Oh, you _arrogant_ son of a _bitch_! This isn't about you! She put us in danger with no regard for the consequences of her own actions! **NONE**!" Norah yelled through clenched teeth, huffing in frustration. "Kid, you half-brained, _dim_ - _witted_ —"

But whatever the young She-Wolf had been about to spew out as poisonous venom towards Ollie and had a mind to say, died on her tongue as she heard Tonks make a muffled whimpering noise of immense pain. No one moved.

Lupin had knelt into a crouch and was cradling Tonks in his arms, whispering something inaudible in his ear. The poor man could barely hold his wand steady to try to do what he could for his fiancée in order to mend her wounds.

Norah ground her teeth and silently seethed, fuming in her anger, waves of fury rolling off of her as good as any thunderclap.

"Kid!" she barked in a wolfish snarl, throwing the command bitingly from over one shoulder as she turned away, her jaw tight and a muscle behind it twitching as she looked towards Ollie, whose expression darkened as he prepared himself for another of the She-Wolf's outburst. "Tend to Miss Tonks and treat her wounds. Remus is in _no_ condition to treat her wounds adequately enough. He's emotionally compromised. I'm going back to the campsite to make sure it's not overrun by more centaurs. Call me if something comes up. Send up a shower of red sparks with your wand if you run into trouble. Any _more_ trouble," she added darkly through gritted teeth. "Lupin. I'll see you back there in a while," she snapped, the edges of her voice hardened and sounding thoroughly _pissed_.

Ollie stiffened slightly at hearing the curt and clipped tone in the young woman's soft German accent as Norah Jameson turned her back on Ollie and Remus, shoving her fists into the pockets of her black leather jacket, grumbling darkly under her breath, kicking aside one of the centaurs' decapitated heads with her boot as though it were a football, though Ollie was not given a chance to respond as he moved to kneel by Tonks's side and Remus shot out an arm to stop him, a hardened look on his features.

" _No_ , Ollie." The command was just one word and escaped his lips in the form of a low threatening growl, courtesy of the Wolf within him, that demon, that Mad Beast.

Ollie froze, blue eyes wide and unblinking as he promptly stared at Remus, his lips parted open slightly in shock, though just one look at the older man's face was enough.

Remus did not tear his gaze away from Tonks, lifting a shaking hand to brush away a lock of her bangs away off her forehead to better assess a lump of congealed blood, not her own, that had gathered in her hair.

When he lifted his head, something within Ollie shifted and he felt himself relent as Lupin's hardened expression softened.

"Let me. Please. I _need_ to do this, Mr. Brennan. She—she's _my_ responsibility, _not_ yours. You have done _more_ than enough. You—you saved her life tonight when I was not there," he pleaded, swiveling his head to the right to look at Norah's retreating form, who was heading back to camp, the sword of Gryffindor clutched in her hands. "Go with Miss Jameson, Ollie," he instructed, hardening his voice so that there was a hint of steel in the former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor's voice that told Ollie he had to listen to Lupin. "She'll find you something to eat. Get some sleep. _I'll_ take care of Dora, Mr. Brennan. She's _my_ fiancée."

There was a finality in his tone that spoke on the border of indifference, and Ollie knew that Remus's mind was made up. Ollie bristled at the slight note of jealousy that seeped through the man's otherwise quiet and reserved tone, and his posture stiffened, though he made no comment on it right now, thinking it to be in poor taste.

Ollie offered a mute nod, though he couldn't seem to will his feet to move, for they felt as lead, firmly cemented into the ground.

He wasn't going _anywhere_ until he received solid confirmation from Lupin that his best friend was going to survive, never mind the She-Wolf's footsteps were already fading, and if he didn't catch up to her, and _fast_ , Ollie was likely going to lose Norah.

But he just _couldn't_. Not until…not until he knew for _sure_ if his friend was alive. He watched as Lupin knelt to one side of Tonks, gingerly taking hold of her uninjured shoulder and with his free hand, pressed as lightly as he possibly could against her hip.

Lupin rolled Tonks's limp form onto her back, using one of his hands as a brace to support her head, revealing a deathly ashen face, and— "Merlin's Beard," moaned Ollie, feeling his heart give an odd murmur as it constricted and tightened in his chest.

The warmth of his blood cooled almost instantly as he looked on his best friend's limp and unresponsive form. Tonks was not merely pale. No. She looked like Death.

From the corner of her delicate mouth, blood had congealed and dried, swelling from a rather nasty looking abrasion that Ollie recognized she'd gotten when the centaur interrogating her for more information had backhanded her across the cheek.

The blood didn't gush in a constant flow, but in time with the beating of Tonks's heart. At first, it came thick and strong, flowing through her fingers as they weakly clasped the ripped flesh.

Ollie wondered if Tonks felt the blood move over her hand, the thick fluid no warmer or cooler than her own skin.

After a few moments more the blood was still leaving Tonks's rapidly paling flesh, but the pulses were slower, weaker. Lupin raised his wand at her chest, taking a moment to try to steady the violent trembling in his hand, taking slow, deep, steady breaths and exhaling through his nose.

After a moment of battling with his troubled state of mind at seeing the woman he loved in such a horrible way, Lupin managed to steady his wand long enough, and when he spoke, his quiet, reserved voice was lowly, and the incantation he had uttered almost sounded like a song.

" _Vulnera Sanentur_ …" he murmured, almost whispering it.

Ollie watched, stunned, as the blood around Tonks's face, arms, and collarbones slowly vanished, and her wounds began stitching themselves up of their own accord.

Though it was her shoulder and hand that disturbed Ollie the most. If Lupin couldn't find the essence of dittany, it was going to scar, and then there was the painful process of popping the dislocated appendage back into the place where it rightfully belonged. He barely managed to repress a shudder, knowing it was going to hurt.

Lupin let out a hiss as he gently lifted Tonks' broken wrist in his hand not clutching onto his wand as he continued to treat his fiancée's various wounds.

The first thing he noticed was the incredible heat emanating in waves from the appendage. The second was that Tonks had somehow broken her wrist in two places.

Her hand, which she had fallen on not even a day ago and had sprained it, now fared in far worse condition that was going to take more than the Episkey Charm to fix.

Remus lifted his head, wanting to tear his gaze away from Dora's hand, flecks of blood, crimson scarlet, and ebony, dotted the pale surface of her delicate left hand.

"She—she used to her broken hand to fend off the—the centaur," Ollie managed to croak out hoarsely, noticing Lupin's look of dawning horror as he gingerly examined her hand.

Remus nodded silently and snapped his jaw shut with a hard crack, molars grinding. Lupin carefully pressed an ear to Tonks's chest, closing his eyes, listening.

He kept his eyes tightly shut to avoid looking at the sheer brokenness both body and in mind, of the woman he would marry in a few days. _If we get out of here_ , he thought angrily, teeth still clenched in anger, before James and Lily spoke to him again.

_Of course, you'll get out of this, Moony_ , James snapped, sounding annoyed. _You've been in tougher spots than this one before. Tonks is tough. She's an Auror. If anybody can handle a simple broken hand and dislocated shoulder, Tonks can, Moony_.

Lily's gentle, soothing tone piped up at the back of his mind. _Be mindful to be gentle with her, Rem. You don't know the full extent of the damage, and there's a good chance she's going to be hurt, scared, and confused when she wakes up, Remus_.

Remus shot a silent prayer to the heavens and his friends above. _Many thanks_.

Ollie drew in a sharp breath of cold night air that pained his cracked and bruised ribs and waited with bated breath as Lupin continued to keep his eyes closed, listening.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity spent in awkward, uncomfortable silence, Lupin did not stir, though, after another two minutes with his ear pressed against Tonks's chest, he rose and opened his eyes, letting out an exasperated, tired groan.

"She's unconscious, Mr. Brennan. Shock, if I had to hazard a guess," Lupin said, raising his chin slightly and offering Ollie a morose expression. He ran a tired hand along his face and raked his fingers through his hair before lowering it and settling it on the flat of Tonks's stomach. "But she's going to be all right. The sooner I get her back to the camp, the better. More light there and I can better assess her arm and her wrist."

"Oh, thank Merlin!" Ollie exclaimed, shooting out an arm to latch onto a groping tree branch nearby for support, relief washing over his ashen features as he swayed precariously on the spot, and had he not latched onto the branch, he'd have fallen.

"Tonks is stronger than she looks. Stronger than _anyone_ gives her credit for," Remus murmured lowly, returning his gaze to Tonks's form cradled in his arms.

Ollie nodded mutely, swallowing down hard past the lump in his throat, sensing that, as the man needed a moment alone, turned his back on the werewolf and made to leave.

"I'll tell the _Wolf_ the two of you are coming," Ollie muttered in a quiet voice. "I'm sure she'll have plenty to say about what's happened, but I'll try to calm her down," he grumbled, though even as he spoke the words, he knew his voice lacked the conviction to sell the argument he really wanted to make.

That there was _no_ calming that blonde bitch down. Her temper was already on a hair-trigger as it was tonight.

Lupin merely grunted in response, favoring silence as an apt response. He would deal with Norah Jameson later. Tonks's uninjured arm rested over her stomach, the other at her side, and he waited until Ollie's footsteps faded before making any kind of noise.

The first thing he noticed was how doll-like she felt, entirely too relaxed, loose. Her eyes were closed, delicately arched eyebrows knitted together with worry.

Tonks's mouth, still suffering from a nasty, bleeding cut on her lower lip, was pressed together in a slight pout and she was looking paler than normal, way too pale to be considered healthy, and Remus did not like it at all, nor did he _want_ to move her yet.

There was no telling the true extent of damage to unseen injuries she might have. No, he could not risk moving Tonks without examining her further, and he wanted to be alone for this next part. He wanted _his_ face to be the first thing Dora saw when she woke up. Not Ollie's, not Norah's, not the decapitated centaurs' heads. But _his_.

He shifted her in his arms and used the nearby bark of a tree he was behind to support his back as he shifted Tonks and used the crook of his elbow to support her head. With a somewhat shaking hand, Lupin lifted his free hand and laid it gently on his fiancée's chest, exhaling a relieved breath when he felt the steady rise and fall of her chest, indicating that the poor young witch was, at least, for the moment, breathing.

Remus allowed his eyes and hand to wander as he looked over Tonks's injured form more closely now that he was alone, noticing a few ugly purple splotches, nasty bruises alongside her abdomen and ribcage as his hand wandered beneath her red shirt.

The bruises, Lupin noticed, bore the shape of the centaurs hooves, and he sincerely hoped the sheer force of the blows Tonks had been dealt wasn't going to cause her body to become too taxed and stress and endanger her life or their baby's.

Remus let out a frustrated sigh that was more of a growl as he tiredly closed his eyes. Dora did not deserve this. Not for an instant.

Drawing in a breath meant to steady himself, Lupin forced himself to remain calm and get back to work of examining her.

Dora needed him to be the strong one right now, for him to be calm. It would do neither one of them any good if he allowed himself to become emotionally compromised.

Then her wounds wouldn't be able to be treated and could do further damage and run the risk of becoming _infected_ , and like her future husband and father to their baby, he could _not_ allow that to happen. Remus gave his head a shake to clear it.

There was no use in Lupin expending all of his energy right now focusing on the dark, twisted thoughts of revenge on the centaurs as it clouded his mind in a hazy fog, or giving in to the Mad Beast's ire, savage, rabid growling, and snarling within his chest.

Remus winced as he ran his hands delicately along the skin over Tonks's ribcage to check for broken bones, and he let out a hiss and drew his hand back sharply, as though the very touch of her skin against his burnt his hand.

He flinched as he realized just how hot poor Dora's flesh felt. Moving his hand to her forehead, she was definitely feverish. Furrowing his brows in a frown, he wondered if perhaps Tonks had lied to him if she had managed to consume a few of those Bleeding Mulberries Norah had warned them both against, since he recollected the blonde werewolf saying a mild to moderate fever was one of the consequences of consuming the berries, but this was the least of Lupin's concerns at the moment.

He needed to check for further injuries before worrying about what may or may not be a virtually harmless fever Tonks suffered from.

Lupin ground his teeth in anger as unpleasant visual images flitted through the forefront of his mind as he wondered what in the name of Merlin had happened to Tonks during her captivity in this wretched cave.

How the centaurs had kicked her all over. Any number of Tonks's bones could have easily been broken by those violent beasts who were known for their volatile dispositions and even more lustful behaviors.

Remus allowed the pads of his fingertips to delicately roam beneath the fabric of Tonks's shirt, over her ribcage and across the top of her abdomen, frowning when he realized perhaps for the first time just how fragile and delicate his fiancée truly was.

Her bones did not appear to be broken, thank Merlin, though that did not mean there wasn't some semblance of damage. If the centaurs had wanted to crack Tonks's ribs, all it would have taken was one swift kick, with virtually no trouble to them at all.

His frown deepened, even more, when he wondered if the centaurs had actually taken care to restrain themselves against killing Tonks. It wasn't usually in their nature to show any semblance of mercy towards a human, much less a female, though centaurs were a race that held a fondness for pretty faces, and in Lupin's mind, just Dora's face alone was pretty enough and held the power to stop entire armies frozen in their tracks.

Tonks's battered, broken body would mend, in time, though Remus knew he was going to have to make good on his threat from earlier and tether a rope to her waist and keep an eye on her that way.

"No more wandering off on your own, sweetheart," he snapped, aware that his voice came out gruffer, coarser than he would have liked it. "From now on, where you go, I go too."

He wondered if Tonks could even hear his words in her unconscious state. He hoped so. Remus knew that there was going to be some scarring unless he or Ollie or Norah could find the essence of dittany, and it was her dislocated shoulder that concerned him the most.

Lupin knew that centaurs were more than capable of such vicious acts of brutality, and Tonks, by comparison, was so small and delicate, like a fragile china doll.

Those centaurs could have _killed_ Tonks at their first opportunity, and the fact that they hadn't truly surprised him, though he was immensely grateful they didn't. Unless they had kept her alive just so their twisted psyches could enjoy having her as an abused little trinket, little more than a plaything for the lustful, carnal desires.

Lupin let out a wolfish growl at that unpleasant thought and shook his head to clear his mind, closing his eyes and letting out a tense, shaking breath through his nose.

It made him so…so _angry_ , to think of those creatures _hurting_ the woman who was going to be his wife in such a despicable manner, and for no other reason than to watch a human witch suffer because they believed her to have encroached on their turf.

Lupin continued his thorough examination of Dora's form, being as gentle but as thorough as he possibly could, all the while grinding his teeth in the effort to keep calm.

He could not allow his anger to consume his entire being, to prevent him from ensuring his fiancée was safe and relatively out of danger for the time being right now. He _couldn't_.

Drawing in another deep breath to calm himself, he continued, moving his hands over the rest of Dora's intact ribs (thank Merlin) before moving his hands down to her injured arm.

The second his hand hovered, pausing over her left forearm, her wand arm, as it were, Tonks's cracked, and bleeding lips parted open.

She stirred in his arms and let out a pained and muffled whimper, wrenching away from Remus's grasp so fast that Lupin flinched. He _swore_ he heard a muscle crack.

"Ngh—n—no! Get off of me, you—you _horse'sass_!" she screamed, eyes flinging wide open and seeing _something_ , though it quickly became evident to Lupin she did not see him. "P—please! L—let _go_! I—I told the truth!" Tonks gasped in a truly meek and trembling voice that sounded so incredibly small, it did not sound like Dora at all.

Remus's heart practically wrenched at how exhausted Tonks sounded, and so scared. And she did not seem to be able to comprehend in her panicked state of mind who she was talking to.

Tonks did not seem able to understand that he was right here. Maybe her eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet.

Maybe she was still in a state of shock, it was hard for him to tell. Due to the way the two of them were positioned, with the campfire that the centaurs had started, and the dimming light behind Remus, it was likely that Tonks could merely only see Lupin's tall, towering shadow, a silhouette.

"Dora? Love, can you hear me? It's Remus, it's _me_ , Tonks," Lupin spoke in what he hoped was a calm voice, though he swallowed down hard past the swelling lump in his throat as he recognized just how cracked and faltering his reserved voice sounded.

He felt anything but calm right now. In fact, he was furious right now, though not with Dora, never with her, but at the centaurs who had needlessly hurt an innocent woman, and one who was pregnant. Tonks could have been killed, so could their baby!

Lupin wanted to wrap his arms around her waist in a tight embrace and _not_ let this young witch go, though he didn't want to traumatize and scare poor Tonks any more than she already had been, so for now, his hands remained firmly resting on her arms.

"Y—you're alright, Dora," he murmured, whispering it into the shell of her ear. "I—I've got you. Deep breaths, nice and slow, that's it. You're _safe_. No one is going to hurt you. They're dead. The centaurs that took you, they're all _dead_. Norah killed them. They _won't_ hurt you, love, I _promise_. Not anymore. I'm here with you, love."

"Rem? Remus? Is—is that you?" Tonks managed to choke out in a breathy little squeak in an uncertain and heart-wrenchingly weak voice that made his stomach churn before practically barreling him over with her one good arm into Remus's chest, in a pitiful sort of half-hug, at least, as well as she could manage with only one working arm.

Tonks immediately began to sob into Lupin's shoulder. She sobbed into his chest unceasingly, hands clutching at Lupin's jacket. A tiny lapse let her pull away for second, blinking lashes heavy with tears before she would collapse again, her wails of misery worsening.

The pain must have come for her in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling her back into the outstretched arms of her grief.

"It's all right, Dora," Lupin soothed, resting his chin on top of her hair, attempting to reassure the woman that he loved as he rested his hand softly against the back of Tonks's head and pulled her as close as he dared, careful to be mindful of her injuries.

Remus swallowed, not entirely certain if his fiancée's tears were a result of the immense pain of her injuries, fear, relief that she and her baby were relatively unharmed, save for her dislocated shoulder and wrist, and the bruises on her face, or a combination of all three, or maybe it was something else bothering Tonks entirely.

But whatever the reason or reasons were, all Lupin knew was that he wanted to bottle and keep whatever grief and other negative feelings were causing Dora so much inner turmoil and anguish. Tonks needed to know that she was going to be just fine.

That Lupin wasn't going to let her out of his sight again, not even for a _second_ , and neither, if he had to hazard a guess, was Norah, given how volatile her temper was.

Tonks needed to realize that she was going to be just fine and that no further harm would come to her or their baby. She _also_ needed to know that Remus would be there to help her heal from whatever torture poor Tonks had just endured and suffered.

Her shoulders wracked with heaving sobs as another choked cry, muffled by Lupin's shoulder, echoed through the forest clearing the two found themselves in.

Her poor cries sounded so pained, like just drawing in breath was an effort. "Rem," Tonks managed to whimper in between heaving, gasping sobs and frantic, shaking breaths. If the young Auror had intended to say anything else, whatever it was that she wanted to say to Remus was lost as more uncontrollable sobs followed her.

"Shh," he soothed, his fingers curling onto the back of her shirt as he clung to her tightly, moving the fingers of his other hand through the short stray strands and wisps of her hair, wincing as he felt a good-sized lump the size of an Occamy egg at the base of her skull. "You're going to be all right, Dora. I _promise_. I'm not going _anywhere_ ," he added, noticing how Tonks's fingers of her one good, uninjured hand seemed to cling to the fabric of his jacket, as though afraid the Forbidden Forest would play another cruel prank on her and cause Remus to vanish again and separate them for a fourth time, afraid that in a split second, she would be left to her own devices once again.

"You're safe," Lupin reassured her in a quiet and calm voice, though he felt anything but calm at the present moment, pressing his lips to her forehead, visibly cringing as he pulled away at how feverish her skin felt, and how clammy she looked.

One way or another, he would need the truth from her. _Later, Rem_ , Lily advised quietly. _Right now, just focus on calming Tonks down and getting her back to camp_.

He offered his friend a curt nod of his head that Dora missed, given that she had buried her head in his shoulder and made a muffled, half-choked sobbing sound at the back of her throat. "I'm not going anywhere, Dora. I won't let you alone. I _promise_."

And _this_ time, he thought through clenched teeth as he held her, he aimed to _keep_ that promise.

* * *

**A/N: So, there you have it. Both Norah and Remus are annoyed and upset with Tonks for what happened, though for entirely different reasons, and both characters are going about handling their varying emotions in different ways. Hopefully, the two of them and Tonks will be able to come to an understanding and reconcile and move past this!**


	81. A Moment Alone

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE**

Lupin did not know how long the two of them sat in silence like this, with Tonks clinging onto him as though the young witch thought he'd disappear.

All Remus could do for her at this point until he was certain she was well enough to move was offer what he hoped were soothing, reassuring words, to whisper them into the shell of her ear and a soft yet firm embrace as Tonks continued to cry into his sweater and drench his collared shirt with her tears.

Poor Dora practically trembled in his arms as her cries didn't seem to show any signs of stopping anytime soon. She was in shock; he could recognize that.

Lupin could have waved his wand and conjured a cloak or a blanket for her, though that would mean signaling an end to their embrace, and something within the back of his mind told him that Dora would not appreciate that at all.

So, he told himself that staying put like this was more than justified, keeping his arms wrapped as tightly as he could around her waist, trying to be careful to be mindful of her injuries, enveloping Tonks in a tight embrace, and hopefully, just being this close to her, not to mention the fire that the centaurs had lit was still going strong, was apt to warm her up in the process. He hoped.

Eventually, Tonks's wild, hysterical, wailing sobs tapered down into soft sniffling's and her breathing calmed and resembled something more normal.

For a split second, Remus could not help but wonder, in Dora's state of shock, both in body and mind, if his fiancée had succeeded in crying herself to sleep.

"Tonks? Dora?" he murmured lowly, pulling back slightly to study her face, furrowing his brows into a frown as he glanced down his nose at Tonks.

Due to the somewhat awkward way that the two of them were sitting, and the way the slowly waning flames of the campfire flickered, he could make out the details of Nymphadora's face.

She was so still, that for a moment, he felt a panic swell in his chest, thinking how lifeless she looked, though the sign of her steady rise and fall of her chest and hearing how light and faint her breaths sounded gave him relief, and he exhaled shakily, raking his hands through his tuft of light brown hair.

He was sure after all of this, that the stress was going to be his undoing, constantly worrying over Tonks like this, and the nature of her unexpected pregnancy; Remus would be shocked if he didn't have a few more gray hairs.

"A—are they gone?" Tonks whispered quietly, her soft, hoarse voice muffled by the fact that her face was still buried in his shoulder, in his sweater. "Did the centaurs? Did they—are they gone? Did they leave? H—how did…?"

But Tonks's voice cracked, and she fought back a fresh wave of tears.

Lupin flinched, biting down on his bottom lip as he pulled back even further to try to gauge Tonks's facial expression, though not wanting to relinquish his grip on his fiancée yet either.

_He_ needed comfort just as much as _she_ did.

The insurmountable stress he'd been under when he'd woken up to find Dora not on the log next to the campsite where he and Norah had seen her last.

Knowing that any number of Dark creatures that dwelled in this Forest could and almost had done irreparable harm to her and their unborn baby had very nearly sent poor Remus over the edge and into a full-fledged panic attack.

"They're _dead_ , Dora," Lupin murmured, tightening his grip around Tonks's shaking shoulders. "Norah killed them. With the…the sword of Gryffindor." Even as he said the words, he himself was having trouble believing the carnage that he had stumbled upon with his own two eyes. Their guide through the Forbidden Forest was truly a remarkable young werewolf indeed.

It still remained a mystery how exactly the young blonde She-Wolf managed to obtain the sword, but then it quickly hit him that…he didn't exactly know _which_ House Norah Jameson had belonged to in Hogwarts.

_If_ she had even gone to Hogwarts at _all_! Though she possessed a wand and was a gifted and talented young witch and woman, if not a bit short-tempered.

Lupin flinched as Tonks let out a tiny hiss of pain and he recoiled slightly, afraid that he was doing further damage by holding her like this, but she made no comment as to what exactly it was that was bothering her and causing her pain.

He wasn't sure just how hurt Tonks was just yet, not until they got back to their own campsite and he'd have Norah and Ollie's assistance in checking her over for further injuries would he truly know the extent of the damage.

Though he could not simply ignore Dora's trembling and clinging fingers and obvious desire to be close to him at the moment, needing comfort.

"I wouldn't have let the centaurs leave this campsite alive even if they'd wanted to," Lupin growled in a wolfish snarl, his statement almost an afterthought, and he couldn't help but add, "and Miss Jameson had no intentions of letting them ever take another breath, by the…state of things."

Tonks made a muffled strangled noise at the back of her throat that sounded like a cross between a half-choked sobbing wail and a light laugh.

"Th—there were four of them, Remus," Tonks confessed in such a faint voice that at first, Lupin wasn't even sure that Dora had spoken at all, thinking her words to have been carried away on the cool night air, but then she spoke again, and this time, her voice was a bit stronger, more resolute.

Her grip on Remus's sweater tightened, and it became clear to Lupin that she needed solid confirmation that each and every one of her captors and would-be-killers was dead and would no longer be bothering her or Ollie ever again. "Four, Rem."

"And all four of them are _dead_ , Dora," Lupin reassured her, resting his chin on top of her hair and continuing to keep his arms wrapped around her back, the pads of his fingers stroking her spine gently and eliciting a tremor.

He was grateful that Norah had come to Dora and Ollie's aid when she had because if she had been waiting on Remus to save her, he feared he would have been too late.

Yet another thing that the two of them owed Norah for.

"I—I'm so sorry, Rem," Tonks cried, her voice a mere hoarse whisper. She sounded on the brink of another mental breakdown, and utterly exhausted.

Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, cracking and faltering, as was her resolve. Tonks's normally sweet, reserved tone was even softer and more subdued than before, and hoarse, as though she'd been screaming and crying.

Which, Lupin could tell, judging by her red-rimmed irises and tear tracts that had dried and stained her pale cheeks, Tonks had been. He didn't blame her.

He swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat as she spoke.

"I—I _suck_ at keeping watch, Rem. E—even as an Auror, I—I _hate_ keeping surveillance," she whispered, lowering her head, sounding utterly ashamed. "I—I was trying to—to collect more kindling for the firewood, a—and those four centaurs, they—they just showed up out of _nowhere_ , Remus!"

"Shh," he soothed, sensing the beginnings of another oncoming panic attack, watching as Tonks's breaths started to quicken and rapidly accelerate.

Though as he regarded his fiancée, at seeing her broken and anguished state, he shook his head to clear it as he silently pulled the young witch closer.

The details of what exactly had happened to Tonks and Ollie were a mystery, and he did not particularly care to know the details just yet, and even how _he_ had gotten into the Forbidden Forest was a mystery to him, though he suspected that Professor Dumbledore and Mr. Scamander were successful in their endeavors to remove the Obscurus attached to his soul, otherwise he would not be back at the campsite with Norah waiting for them to come back.

Although Remus was more concerned about Tonks's wellbeing at the moment than anything else, Lupin _still_ could not help but wonder just how in the name of Merlin's Beard did Tonks manage to get herself into such a precarious predicament without him or Norah waking up from sleep and hearing some kind of struggle? A scream, a shout, cry of pain, anything…

_It's the Forest playing tricks on you, Moony_ , James advised, sounding unusually grim and uncharacteristically serious, which Remus thought strange.

_It wants to divide you up, separate you all from each other, cause you to turn on one another when the only way to get out of these woods alive is to stay strong, believe in one another, and for Merlin's sake, stick together, Rem_!

Lily, as always, Merlin rest her soul, was right. Lupin furrowed his brows into a frown and pulled back to study Tonks's face in the dimming light of the waning campfire, which was casting a strange glow across her pale features.

Her skin was amber against the flames, and even battered and broken as she was, to him, she was still so beautiful. He let out a tired sigh and pressed his lips to her forehead before reluctantly pulling apart.

"Why didn't you call for help, sweetheart? Why did you go deeper into the Forbidden Forest when we told you…" But Remus paused, his breath catching in his throat as his temper flared.

He could not yell at Tonks. Not right now, when she so clearly already felt immense guilt for what had happened and was in far too much physical pain than another human being should have to suffer.

"I—why _didn't_ you, Tonks?" Lupin swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, cringing as he heard the faltering crack in his voice, and he found himself blinking back tears of his own.

_Three_ times— _three_ times in _one_ night—he had almost lost Tonks.

He just could not understand why Dora continuously, whether she was self-aware of this increasingly bad talent of getting herself into trouble or not, kept putting herself in harm's way while they were here in the thick of the Forest.

Surely, Tonks had to know, as an Auror, that attempting to take on not just one, but four adult male centaurs alone and unarmed sans wand was _foolish_?

So, _why_ then, had Dora done it? Vanity? Was it her wounded pride? What? Was she afraid that Norah and he would have been angry if Tonks had woken them up? Was _that_ it? That Norah would somehow think what Tonks had seen was just another figment of her imagination, a dirty trick of the wood?

Or did she, out of some misguided sense of independence, think that by asking either him or Miss Jameson for help, that Tonks would lose his respect?

Lupin ground his teeth and closed his eyes shut for a moment, willing himself to take slow, deep inhales of cold fall air, trying to quell the awful rolling nausea in his stomach that he knew was manifesting out of his unbridled anger.

"You should have woken me up, Dora," he snapped, unable to keep the note of bitterness of his quiet, reserved tone as Lupin practically felt and heard the anger dripping from his words. "You—you _know_ that I would have helped you. The whole concept of keeping watch and securing the perimeter, Tonks, is not to watch for danger and then try to deal with it all on your _own_ , Dora!"

Tonks pulled back slightly and blinked, and it was as if she were seeing Lupin in a brand new light in a way that she had not been able to see before. She furrowed her brows in a confused frown, and Remus could practically hear the frown in Dora's sweet voice.

"I—they had us outnumbered by _one_ , Rem. There were way too many of them, a—and none of them noticed you both."

She paused and exhaled a tense, shaking breath through her nose and glanced down, wincing at the immense heat that now emanated from the broken appendage that was her wand hand, not to mention her dislocated shoulder.

"I—I was too far away from camp to alert you and Norah without them noticing that you were there, too. They'd have gone after you both!"

Lupin stared with widening eyes, and the shock must have been evident on his face as he felt what little color was left in his already pale face, to begin with drain, and his cracked lips parted open slightly to speak.

"You—I _still_ would have _helped_ you, Dora!" he cried, exasperated, well aware that his voice was rising, though Remus knew that not even Tonks could stop it happening. "This is why we're traveling together as a group, you, me, Norah, and Ollie now, too. We look _out_ for each other, _defend_ one another, have each other's backs if it comes to it. What you did tonight could have gotten you three _killed_."

His words escaped him as a low growl, and before he even knew what was happening, his hand not wrapped around Tonks's waist to keep her firmly rooted in his arms drifted and settled on the flat of her still very flat abdomen.

Tonks's bottom lip quivered, and for a moment, he wondered if she was about to burst into tears, and he suddenly felt incredibly guilty for snapping at her and losing his temper. "I—I didn't want you to…get _hurt_ , Remus."

Her words escaped her lips as a hoarse whisper, and she did not seem able to meet his gaze, for she did not look him in the eye, but down at her lap.

Lupin frowned, hearing himself let out a tired sigh. "I am _more_ than capable of handling a few centaurs, Dora. So is Norah, and between the three of us, plus Mr. Brennan, now, too, I suppose, the four of us would have had a greater chance at success in taking on all four centaurs than you had _alone_."

"I…" Tonks's voice cracked as she blinked back tears and swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat. "I _know_ that, Rem." She still could not quite bring herself to meet Lupin's piercing, judging stare. "B—but I figured, they'd caught me anyways, a—and I wasn't going to make it, so…if there was a small chance that I could save your life, then…it would have been worth it to me. It would be better off for them to just kill me by myself than all three of us."

Lupin closed his eyes and felt his stomach give a painful little lurch in his already churning stomach like a coil in his gut twisted and flipped, as he thought about her words.

He did not think he could bear to live in a world without her.

"Do not _ever_ do that again, Dora," he growled, practically urging his fiancée at this point. He kept his eyes closed, though he pulled Tonks close and rested his chin on top of her shoulder, taking some small measure of comfort for himself as he felt Tonks bury her head in the crook of his shoulder once again.

Recognizing that his voice came out gruffer than he meant it to, he felt Dora flinch away in surprising hurt at how clipped his tone sounded, and he sighed.

"I—I would rather risk getting involved than leaving you alone, Tonks. I don't want you ever getting hurt again or _killed_ just for my sake, Dora. _Don't_."

Tonks blearily opened her eyes and looked at Lupin with an exhausted, defeated expression as her shoulders slumped in resignation and she nodded.

"All right," she finally relented in an exhausted, confused tone. "I won't."

Lupin nodded, and pulled back slightly, though still keeping a firm grip on her shoulders, looking over Tonks's battered form once more. "I—I know about your shoulder and your hand, darling, but where else did they hurt you?"

He fixed Tonks with a hardened, piercing stare as his light brown eyes practically darkened in anger as he looked over the worst extent of her injuries. His blood boiled in his veins at what the centaurs had done to his fiancée, and Merlin help them _all_ if he _ever_ ran into another of their kind again, for he was _not_ about to be kind, the existent treaty between their race and wizards be damned.

"Tell me the truth, Tonks. I need to know exactly what they did to you. Tell me what they did, where they hurt you, and if you think our baby might be…might be in danger." His voice cracked on that last part of his statement and he swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, though he fought it back.

Dora was the one who needed him to be strong right now.

"Being injured is _nothing_ to be ashamed of, no matter how it happened, and I _don't_ want you trying to hide anything from me for the sake of appearances."

Tonks's brow furrowed into a frown as she glanced down at herself, finally relinquishing her grip on fistfuls of Lupin's sweater and collared shirt underneath that she had been gripping onto tightly for support while she cried.

She flinched and bit down on her bottom lip as her one good arm clutched onto her dislocated shoulder, blinking back a fresh way of salty, stinging tears.

"I—I don't know," Tonks whispered hoarsely in a fearful and uncertain voice. Lupin waited, recognizing that Dora was still probably in a state of shock.

The young witch glanced down at her chest and allowed the pads of her fingertips to trace along with the small, shallow cut near her right collarbone.

"I—I don't think our baby is in any…any danger," she admitted, swallowing hard. "I—I think I would have f—felt it," Tonks stammered, blinking back the onset of fresh tears.

Lupin nodded mutely, not sure what to say, though he could not quell the prick of fear that pierced his heart at the thought of losing their baby.

"It _hurts_ , Rem," Tonks moaned through gritted teeth, letting out a tiny groan as she bit down hard on her lips and allowed a painful spasm to wrack its way through her body and send a shiver down her spine. "It really _hurts_!"

Remus tried his hardest to avoid focusing on the sole face that poor Tonks seemed so emotionally broken and distraught over what unsaid things had happened to her and Ollie as he leaned forward to closer inspect the slash mark near Tonks's collarbone, wondering how it was that he could have missed it.

Tonks continued to speak to Remus in a soft, low, shaking tone. "They—they wanted to know how I wound up here in the Forest, who I was traveling with. I—I wasn't going to rat you and Norah out, which made them even angrier with me, and…each time I refused to answer their questions, it only provoked them further. They…hit me, kicked me, b—but then…it put its claws on me, a—and it felt like bunches of tiny razor blades along my chest. It hurt, Rem, it hurt so much, and…I—I just wanted the centaur to _stop_. I _lied_ to them, told them Ollie and I were with the Ministry sent here to deal with a troublesome vampire that was attacking humans in the London area, but their leader knew that I was lying, a—and then he hurt me even worse than before."

Dora finished her winded, long, rambling explanation as her fragmented sentences seemed to tumble from her lips as one long strung together sentence.

Whatever had happened to her, it had clearly shaken her to her core. Remus frowned, lifting one of his hands and allowing the pads of his fingers to just barely graze the surface of the cut along her collarbone that he had missed.

"This one doesn't look too dangerously deep, Dora. I can mend those same as I did your other wounds, but…" He paused and glanced towards her dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist. " _This_ , on the other hand, is problematic."

Tonks nodded and flinched, wincing as her good hand cradled her injured one, and her lips parted open in shock.

No doubt she felt the extreme heat emanating off the appendage and was in such a state of shock, Remus wondered if Dora could even feel the immense pain that was no doubt wracking its way through her entire body.

"The—their leader kept grabbing my wrist, and…" But her voice trailed off, and she shook her head once to clear her mind and swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat and continued. "One of them noticed that I was already not feeling so hot," she mumbled, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks, which caused Remus's frown to deepen.

Was there more to this than Dora wasn't telling him? What was she hiding? "May I?" Lupin asked, gently nodding his head towards Dora's injured wrist. "I'll have to wait to tend to your shoulder when we get back to camp, but I can at least mend your broken wrist. Dislocated shoulders, on the other hand, are a bit more difficult to mend with magic but not entirely impossible."

Tonks nodded, though she hesitated, glancing down at her broken wrist and considered her fiancé's words for a moment, though something within her seemed to give way, as perhaps she realized that leaving her wrist in its current injured state was not at all ideal, and the best course of action would be to mend it, no matter how painful it was going to be, and finally offered her arm.

"I—I think it's broken. _Again_ ," she huffed in frustration, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout and brought her brows together in hurt confusion.

Lupin nodded, though he did not say anything. In truth, he was having trouble coming to terms with all of this. He found it rather strange that Tonks's countenance could shift so quickly, her demeanor changing almost in the blink of an eye.

Only minutes ago, she'd been near the point of hysterics, sobbing into his chest as though whatever the centaurs had put her through had devastated her, both in mind and body.

And now, here she sat cross-legged in his arms on the forest ground, speaking so blasé about her injuries like she was telling a story of what had happened to her in a totally different time and place.

Remus had always known that Tonks was exceptionally resilient and brave.

She had to be, considering her line of work as the best Auror in the office, and certainly the youngest, and for one brief moment, he wondered why the former Hufflepuff, given the immense courage she had shown throughout his time of knowing her, first as her partner, and then as a lover, and soon to be her husband, why Tonks had not been sorted into Gryffindor while at school.

Perhaps that was what he was witnessing now. Either that or Tonks was still in such a state of emotional shock that she did not quite know how to process what it was that she was feeling.

Regardless of whether or not that was indeed the case, it was still incredibly disconcerting for him to witness how his wife-to-be and mother of their unborn child's concern for her own physical well-being was so rapidly depleting. He wondered if the Forest affected her.

Remus frowned as he carefully ran his fingers over Tonks's wrist, being mindful to be as gentle as possible while assessing the damage with a trained eye.

"Well, it's definitely dislocated. I can pop your shoulder back into place in a moment, love, but I'm not going to lie. It's going to hurt, and I'll have to put it in a sling so the rest of your bones can heal properly for a few weeks, but…" he paused, finishing up running his fingers carefully over Tonks's arm. "Your wrist, on the other hand, I don't think it's broken, love. Maybe a bit more swollen than before, but count yourself lucky, Dora. You and your…talent for trouble got off much better than you could have. I don't know that I've ever encountered a centaur before who'd have not _delighted_ in treating a human female witch like a…"

Remus couldn't say it. He coughed once to clear his throat, and Tonks blinked, seeming to get his message.

"They—they _would_ have if—if Ollie a—and Norah hadn't come when they did," Tonks sighed, emanating a tense exhale as she closed her eyes, while Lupin continued to stare incredulously at the young witch who held his heart, unable to stop himself as he shook his head to clear it.

Did Nymphadora _not_ understand?

Did she not realize what those centaurs had come so incredibly close to doing, and would have succeeded were it not for Ollie helping her when he had?

_And Norah_ , his conscience reminded him as his brows furrowed in a frown, wondering if the young blonde werewolf had calmed down ever since she'd gotten back to camp, though he shoved aside thoughts of Norah Jameson for right now.

Centaurs, most of them, from what he knew of them, from Hagrid, Professor Dumbledore, and during his time as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, were incredibly violent and lustful beasts, not known to show kindness or mercy towards humans, _especially_ not that of human females.

He could only imagine their vested interest in keeping Tonks alive as a tiny, fragile, defenseless humans, perhaps even all of them taking turns with poor Dora.

Lupin ground his teeth in anger, not aware he was sending a shower of blue sparks from his wand into the air until Remus felt Tonks' small hand on his arm.

Remus paused and promptly lowered his wand. Tonks had no idea what those monsters were capable of. Lupin felt his temper surge within his veins.

He wanted to yell at the young witch, to tell her never to wander off alone on her own without him or someone else present again, to scream at her for scaring him like that, and for putting herself, their baby, Norah, _and_ Ollie at risk.

That while _yes_ , the centaurs had been tough on Tonks, rough and cruel, judging by her current physical state, it was nothing close, nowhere near compared to what could have happened to her if Ollie hadn't come when he did.

Tonks needed to _understand_ that, but he knew that conversation was best saved for another day, when Tonks was in a more coherent state of mind and not recovering from so many injuries and bruises and able to think more rationally.

Right now, however, his fiancée was looking absolutely miserable, and in more pain, than he could possibly imagine with her sprained wrist and dislocated shoulder, and a stern talking to and him yelling at her was _not_ what she needed.

He started by waving his wand and conjuring a spare handkerchief out of midair and took great care to dab at the blood welling from a cut on Tonks's bottom lip. Tonks's eyelids fluttered open and stared at Remus as he worked, finally finishing in cleaning the blood away from the cut on her lip, waving his wand and the now-bloodied and soiled handkerchief vanished from his hands.

"Undo the buttons on your shirt, love. I need to take a look." Recognizing his voice sounded curt, he sighed and lifted his chin to meet Tonks's gaze, and when he saw the nervousness and trepidation laced through Dora's gray eyes, he felt something within him shift. "It's just you and me out here, love. _Alone_."

She nodded, after some hesitation and relented, fumbling with the buttons on her simple red collared shirt and showed no hesitation in exposing what Lupin had already seen for himself to him for a second time, though this time, in better lighting. Remus felt his frown deepen as he took a better look at Tonks's wounds.

Her chest and abdomen were covered in blackening blue and purple bruises, one of them near her pelvis in the shape of a hoof-mark, which sent his temper aflame in his veins for a third time in one night, though Lupin tampered it down.

Though it was her dislocated shoulder that was worrying Remus the most.

"I need to…I need to pop your shoulder back into place, Dora," he suggested, carefully wrapping his fingers around her arm, biting down on his bottom lip.

Tonks let out a tiny moan and squeezed her eyes shut. "It's going to hurt, isn't it?" she guessed with a pained grimace, peeking one eye open to look at him.

She exhaled a tense breath through her nose and jerked her head towards her arm. "I guess it can't be any worse than my Splinched arm, Rem. Just do it."

Remus nodded and offered Tonks what he hoped was a sympathetic smile.

"It will, love, but not any worse than leaving your arm untreated as it is. You feel ready?" Lupin watched as Tonks offered the tiniest of nods, clenching her jaw shut and squeezing her eyes tightly, holding her breath as Lupin gripped her dislocated arm as gently as possible and with a sickening _pop_ , set it right again.

Tonks let out a whimper and allowed a single tear to roll down her cheek as her fingers gripped onto fistfuls of Remus's jacket sleeve for support as her shoulder was popped back into its socket, her body rocking and forth with the pain, though her movements became still after a moment, and she opened her eyes, letting out a tense and relieved breath, her eyes wide and huge as she stared at Remus. "Th—that wasn't so bad. Th—thank you, Rem," she whispered.

"Good as new." Lupin forced a smile, though he knew it did not reach his eyes. Tonks had no idea, the profound effect she had on him, on the others.

How she had worried all of them tonight, especially him, and he was going to have to come up with some way to make her understand that she had been in the wrong, going off on her own like that. Lupin frowned as he helped her up, draping one of her arms over her shoulder, though not before conjuring an arm sling and helping Dora ease her dislocated shoulder into it. "You'll have to wear this at least a couple of days. I'd try not to move it around too much if you can, Dora."

Tonks nodded mutely, biting down on her bottom lip as she allowed Lupin to take her by her uninjured hand now not in the sling and guide her back to their campsite.

She could sense the irritation and anger emanating off him in waves.

Though he wasn't coming outright and saying what was bothering him, Tonks knew that she was the root cause of his agitated, fretting state of mind.

And somehow, Tonks knew that accident or not…it was all her fault.


	82. Aftermath

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO**

Lupin could not help but notice as he draped Tonks's one good arm over his shoulder and slowly helped her walk back to their campsite how pale she looked.

She continuously kept casting uneasy glances towards her stomach and resting her hand on the flat of her stomach, which sent another surge of panic through his veins and a stab of terror pricked his heart.

"Dora? What is it? What's wrong?" Remus wondered out loud, sincerely hoping that something wasn't wrong with their baby. "Is it…is it our baby?"

"N-no," Tonks stammered hoarsely, and she lifted her chin and hesitated. "I…I feel sick," she whispered, biting down on her bottom lip in a slight pout.

Tonks tossed her now-shoulder length wavy hair over her shoulders and out of her way. She shivered as beads of sweat began to form on her brow. "I…I haven't been…entirely truthful with you and Norah, Rem," Tonks confessed, ashamed.

Remus felt his eyes narrow in suspicion, wondering if his fiancée was finally about to confess the truth, that she had, in fact, eaten a few of those Bleeding Mulberries that Miss Jameson had warned her against eating.

He had suspected as much, upon seeing how pale she was and how hot and feverish her poor skin felt.

Though he wanted to hear the truth from her lips. Lupin guessed that Tonks had eaten a few of the berries before actually knowing what they were, and he almost shook his head in immense disappointment at Tonks's serious lack of judgment.

Surely, she would have gotten into her mind to perhaps ask Norah, who'd lived in the Forbidden Forest her entire life, if they were okay to eat?

The fact that Tonks hadn't was beyond Lupin's current ability to comprehend, though he supposed that, for the moment, he should just feel relieved that she was otherwise unharmed, and their baby was in no immediate danger, and he aimed to keep the two of them that way for the rest of their time here in the Forbidden Forest, if he had to tie her to his waist, he'd keep her safe.

Lupin let out an inaudible sigh through his nose as he looked into Dora's red-rimmed, feverish gray irises and waited for the young witch to spill the truth.

"Earlier, when I went further into the Forest and found those berries that I brought back, I…I might have eaten a few. I—I thought they were blackberries, Rem, and I'm not _stupid_ , so please don't look at me like you _think_ I am," Tonks begged, biting her bottom lip, taking note of the scrutinizing look Remus was currently giving her for her serious lack of judgment in not asking Norah if the berries were safe for consumption before deciding to eat them, not knowing if they would harm her or her baby. "I _know_ berries, Remus. Those _were_ blackberries, I _know_ what I bloody _saw_!" she protested, curling her one good hand into a fist, and flexing her fingers. "I—the—the Forbidden Forest was playing another trick on me or something a—and made me think they were."

Remus nodded. That explanation he supposed he could accept. It certainly wasn't the _first_ time he'd been led to believe over the span of a single evening in this cursed forest that it had ill intent towards humans who were not supposed to be within her borders.

He could not quite explain it, but this place felt… _cursed_. Evil. Dark. Wicked. Lupin blinked and shook his head to clear it, forcing a small, sarcastic laugh, though he knew it did not quite meet his smoldering eyes.

"Thank you for finally telling the truth, Dora… _finally_ …" he growled darkly, though he reached out his free hand not draped over her arm as he supported her weight to help her walk to feel her moist forehead. "You've got a fever, Tonks, though something tells me that you already know that, don't you, sweetheart?" he sighed.

Remus looked away for a moment to compose himself and swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat that made it feel like it was hollowing and constricting air to his passageways.

He closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breathing, trying to force his temper to calm down, though at some point, he and Tonks were going to have a much-needed and serious discussion about what she had done tonight, and what had almost happened not just to her, but Ollie.

"I—I'm sorry I didn't bring it up sooner, Rem," Tonks whispered, frowning. No doubt she had seen the immense annoyance and agitation in Remus's light brown eyes, for she swallowed down hard and blinked back tears. "I—I thought that I could handle it…and well…I didn't exactly count on running into a small group of centaurs, and I—I didn't know what to do, Rem!"

Lupin sighed and glanced over at Tonks out of the corner of his eye and offered her what he hoped was a genuine smile. "You should have told me. I don't expect you to handle everything on your own, Dora. You're good, but no one, not even Professor Dumbledore, is _that_ good. It was an honest mistake, and you not recognizing what those berries truly were could have happened to anyone, and especially to those of us who don't live in the forest like she does."

He watched Tonks flinch, and he knew his fiancée was thinking of Norah. How angry the young blonde She-Wolf had been.

Remus swallowed and continued, not liking how rapidly his temper was swelling, but nor could he let what was ruminating through his mind right now go unsaid.

Tonks, like it or not, needed to hear this. "The Forbidden Forest is known to get people confused. I don't know what kind of dark enchantments exist in these woods, but whatever it is, it's powerful. And you should have _told_ me or Norah that you ate a few of the berries, Tonks. I—I wouldn't have thought any less of you for it if you had. And next time you see something suspicious, whether that's another centaur or a spider or Merlin knows what else lurks in this place, please, please let me know, Tonks. No matter what," he growled darkly. "You _cannot_ face anything like this alone again."

Dora frowned, though she quickly nodded, gesturing to him that she understood. "I just…didn't want them to hurt you or Norah, Remus," she whispered hoarsely.

Lupin stared incredulously at Tonks. Was he really worth her _life_? He wasn't.

"And I don't want you to get _hurt_ , Dora! Do you…do you have _any_ idea what your life means? Now that you're pregnant. Running off like that, putting yourself at _risk_ without telling me or Norah what happened? It was pretty _stupid_ of you, Tonks."

Remus stared at his fiancée and felt the edges of his voice harden, and heard his tone become sterner as he glowered at her, narrowing his eyes until they were slits.

Lupin could sense Tonks's growing discomfort with the unpleasant turn their conversation was taking, and he did not especially like how Dora seemed to be attempting to make excuses for her behavior as if to somehow justify to herself that what she had done by attempting to be brave and not give up his location, was justified.

As much as Remus did not want to lose his temper with Dora, especially considering the immense amount of physical turmoil and mental anguish she had just suffered at the hands of those wretched centaurs, it seemed like this conversation was going to happen now, and Lupin swallowed hard, thinking that he would rather hurt Tonks's feelings than not say something at all and end up losing his future wife in the process.

"I _don't_ want you running off on your own again, Dora. You will speak up and say something to one of us next time you spot another centaur, or anything else you think might be a danger to use while we're here trying to get Umbridge back," he snapped. "I don't think you realize just how _serious_ a threat this is to you, Tonks."

"No, _you_ don't understand, Remus!" Tonks frowned, blinking back briny tears, and not realizing that they had made it back to the campsite, nor was she aware that both Ollie and Norah's heads swiveled in their general direction, hearing her yell.

She blinked back tears and swallowed past the lump in her throat. Tonks had fully been expecting that Remus would be angry with her, and she had been expecting some form of wrath from him in regards to what had almost happened to her tonight, but it was certainly nothing that the two of them couldn't talk through, considering the second they stepped foot outside of this wretched Forbidden Forest, they were getting married here on Hogwarts soil. They were going to have to open up to one another.

Trust each other wholly and get through this together, come out stronger for it. All the while when Remus had helped Tonks walk back to the campsite, Tonks had barely been able to contain her racing heart as it thrummed erratically against her chest, or the beads of sweat gathering on her temple, no doubt from the fever the berries caused.

Still, she could tell that Lupin was angry. She could see that quite plain as day.

When they were walking back to the campsite, Remus had not spoken of his anger, but then again, he did not need to. Tonks, as his fiancée, liked to think she knew the man and werewolf well enough by this point to know when Lupin was very upset.

His light brown eyes had darkened slightly in their coloring, his irises red-rimmed, and he was swallowing hard and looking like he was practically blinking back his tears.

Lupin's eyes were filled with an immense sense of betrayal and anger towards her, and an antagonizing hurt as he regarded her silence, though recognizing she did not know what to say, let out a sigh and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"You were _wrong_ tonight, Tonks, not to call for help earlier. I needed to be involved in this. So did Norah," he added darkly, jerking his head back to where the young blonde She-Wolf sat perched on the log across from Ollie, shooting Tonks's former partner an immense look of distrust at the man's sudden arrival in the Forest every now and again, though sensing that Remus was growing angered, the young blonde witch heaved a heavy sigh and forced herself from her spot off of the log.

"Mr. Lupin, sir, why don't you, um, go get some rest. It's been a long night for all of us. The kid over there's agreed to take second watch. In fact…" Norah paused, her voice trailing off, and Tonks could tell that Norah still had plenty burning on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to say to Tonks, though Tonks felt her eyelids begin to droop, and perhaps Norah sensed that perhaps that conversation was best saved for another time, she sighed and pinched at her nose. "We should _all_ be asleep. _You_ should be _asleep_ , Tonks," she said growled in a tone that matched her icy-blue glacier stare.

Tonks nodded her head, though before Remus could turn his back on her and walk towards the campfire, she felt her arm shoot out instinctively of its own accord and yank him back towards her, almost violently, and she shot out her other arm to steady him by his shoulders to prevent him from barreling backwards into her again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, before pressing her lips to his in a gentle kiss. She heard him sigh into the kiss, though she broke it off as she heard Norah clear her throat.

Tonks flinched and relinquished her grip on Remus's arm as he walked away, sensing the two women needed a moment, and he shook his head as Ollie shot her a concerned look with furrowed brows, half-rising from his spot on the log to walk over.

She could tell that Remus forgave her, though judging by the stone cold look the young blonde was giving her, her arms folded across her chest and one leg crossed over the other as the She-Wolf shrunk into her black leather jacket for warmth, that Norah Jameson, was not so quick to forgive, and Tonks shot Norah a furtive, guilty look.

"Y—you saved my life," Tonks stammered, not sure how else to begin. She stood rigidly, rooted to her spot near their camp's fire, trying to ignore Ollie's questioning stare and Remus's piercing, disappointed look that threatened to burn a hole in her skull.

She tried her best not shiver while waiting with gritted teeth for the blonde female werewolf to finally turn around and face her properly and say her piece.

She wanted this, whatever 'this' was shaping up to be, to be over with quickly, for her to receive whatever hateful, scornful words Norah Jameson wished her to accept, before retreating to that sweet blissful abyss that was hopefully going to be sweet sleep.

It was clear from the tension that was wrought on Norah's pale face and the hardened exterior that Norah was welly aware of what had transpired between Tonks and the centaurs, or would have, had Norah not shown up to help her and Ollie when she had.

Whether she felt disapproval towards Tonks and Ollie for what happened, she could not tell, but she suspected, judging by the way the woman's facial muscles tensed and a muscle in her jaw twitched, that she was equally ticked with both friends for their reckless behavior, but especially Tonks's.

Though Tonks's guilt at what she had done was _gone_ the second she sat down on the log, after Norah pointed a slightly shaking finger towards the log and she swore she heard the werewolf let out a wolfish growl.

" _Sit_." Norah barked the command hoarsely, sounding utterly disconcerted. As Tonks moved and slowly approached Norah, the light from the campfire dimmed and waned, and Tonks could not stop the tremor of fear that ran down her back as she sat.

Tonks mutely sat on the log next to Remus, folding her hands in her lap, or as well as she could, given the arm that had been dislocated and mended by Remus now rested in a damned insufferable sling, for Merlin only knew how long she'd wear it.

Though Tonks had felt an overwhelming sense of guilt when Remus had walked her back to the campsite, it was _gone_ by the time she sat down on the log, feeling Lupin's hand intertwine with hers, the other resting protectively over the flat of her stomach.

She had spent the duration of her walk justifying her actions well enough so that Norah, if the She-Wolf were to attempt to accuse Tonks of doing anything beyond the scope of what the young witch and Auror thought was logical, she'd be able to answer quickly enough and shut down any crap the werewolf would subject her to.

So far, however, Tonks mulled as she continued to stare at Norah Jameson, the young blonde still continuing her habit of restlessly pacing in front of the campfire, back and forth like an unruly Wolf, Norah had said very little, which surprised Tonks, really.

Norah gave Tonks a withering look of immense annoyance and irritation before turning her back on her and shoving her gloved hands in the pockets of her jacket.

She heard Norah huff in frustration as she slowly turned around and sat on the log next to Ollie, blankly and listlessly staring into the flickering yellow and orange flames of the fire, as though she could not see either of them looking at her, waited, watching.

After what felt like several minutes spent in an excruciatingly long silence, Norah finally lifted her chin to look Tonks in the eye, the irritably expression within still intact.

The young blonde looked exhausted, dark circles prominent underneath her eyes, and sallow-looking, as though she had not slept a wink when Tonks was on watch.

"I don't think I need to explain to you why your behavior was _stupid_ ," Norah spat.

Norah Jameson's voice sounded strangely soft, which in a weird way, put Tonks at ease. It gave the young blonde She-Wolf a tangible sense of vulnerability, which had otherwise been absent in the short time the two witches had been acquainted with one another. The She-Wolf lifted her chin and rested her cheek in her right fist, angered.

"Why didn't you wake me or Remus up?" Norah growled, her voice lowly, soft.

Tonks blinked owlishly at the young blonde, as the witch's scathing voice back her back to the painful and present unfortunate reality of her present dilemma at hand.

It was not exactly the question that she had been expecting, and she did not adequately know how to respond, much less what she would say to put Norah at ease.

Tonks swallowed nervously and looked towards the young blonde over the flickering flames of the campfire. She barely felt Remus's hand as it settled on her thigh, nor did she hear his whispered words of comfort.

The only thing she focused on was her. Tonks furrowed her brows as she felt the beginnings of a slight scowl form on her face.

"You saved my life tonight, Miss Jameson," she began hesitantly. "I—I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me and Remus. For Ollie," she added, nervously casting her gaze towards Ollie, who offered Tonks a small half-smile that caused the edges of his still cracked-and bleeding lips to turn up, though the gesture pained him, she could tell.

Tonks flinched and forced her attention to return back to Norah and she sighed. "You—you followed me and those centaurs into the Forest's path, and took down and faced four, fully-grown adult male centaurs all on your _own_."

She sighed and twirled a lock of her hair, having changed it to a dark burgundy color, wavy and shoulder-length, her natural hair for a change, at least its length and layers, and Tonks gulped as she looked towards the sword of Gryffindor, which still remained in Norah's possession, at the metal as it glinted and shone in the flickering flames from the fire as shadow and light danced an unending dance as long as the fire remained welly lit.

Tonks could sense that Norah was not satisfied with her answer, if judging by the low growl the blonde She-Wolf emanated from the back of her throat was any indication, and she swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat and continued.

"You did all of this tonight, just to save my life. You knew fighting centaurs without a wand probably wasn't going to bode well for you. You knew there was a chance those _animals_ could _kill_ you, but you fought to save my life anyways, Norah. I—I did the _same_ thing that you did. I took the _same_ risk by not telling them a word."

She heard the sudden sharp intake of the cold night air as Norah lifted her head and took a moment to process Tonks's words. Tonks clenched her jaw tightly shut as she fully expected the werewolf to yell at her for her foolishness, to ask her why she had done such a stupid and horrible thing.

"Norah, before you get angry," Tonks raised her hands in defense as she watched Norah slowly rise from her spot on the log. "Just—just please let me _explain_ ," she stammered, following in the other witch's footsteps, and standing. Tonks was hardly aware of Remus following her lead, a hand on her shoulder.

Tonks fully expected the werewolf to interrupt her, to yell at her, and refuse to let her speak, but Norah Jameson did not such thing. The young blonde woman's posture remained stiffened and rigid. Maybe she was willing to listen to Tonks's reasoning, then.

"I did the _same_ as you!" Tonks protested hotly, biting down on her bottom lip. She breathed in a deep breath and continued. "I couldn't just let them come after you both!"

Her voice was practically shaking, as she knew anything that she said might anger the werewolf further and provoke her to past the point of no return right now.

"I did the _same_ thing that _you_ did, Norah. The _exact_ same thing, the very _same_ risk!"

Tonks barely heard the breathy little squeak that escaped from her lips as she heard the blonde She-Wolf let out a low warning growl and Norah stomped her foot in anger.

"No," Norah snarled savagely. "There is a _huge_ difference from the risk that I took in _saving_ your sorry little _ass_ and what _you_ did, Tonks. You were _stupid_ tonight."

"Miss Jameson," Remus started to say, more than a hint of disapproval laced throughout his voice as Tonks felt Lupin's hand come to rest on top of her uninjured shoulder. "Don't you think this conversation can wait until the morning when she's had rest and is of better mind to talk with you?" Lupin retorted, anger dripping from his words, though his voice trailed off when he felt Tonks's hand rest on his upper thigh.

But Norah held up a hand and promptly cut Remus off from whatever he had been about to say next, actively averting Lupin's piercing stare and having eyes only for Tonks. "You weren't just risking your life and your little wolf cub's tonight, _witch_ ," she spat, unflinching as the venomous words dripped from her tongue like pure poison. "You were sacrificing it with _no_ regard for how Lupin might feel if the wolf lost you. You have no _idea_ what those centaurs are capable of, Tonks. The things that they would have _done_ to you." Norah's words escaped from her lips as a low, wolfish growl.

Norah shook her head to clear at as visions of all the unspeakable and unimaginable horrors flitted through the forefront of her mind that Nymphadora Tonks had narrowly avoided becoming a victim of tonight by her showing up when she had.

"Norah, you—you _have_ to listen to me," Tonks practically begged the young blonde werewolf, feeling her breaths becoming more frantic as Norah strode over to Tonks and yanked Dora to her feet so that the tip of her nose was almost touching hers.

The fact that Norah had lashed out at her just now was disconcerting and unsettling.

"Please, just—just let me _explain_! Just give me a chance to _talk_ to you! I—I ran! I tried to lead the centaurs away from the campsite, and I hoped the Forbidden Forest would pull another one of its bloody tricks and help me to lose them. E—even if I got lost in the process, it would have been worth it if it meant you and Remus would be safe. I could have gotten away. They—they caught me before I could. It was a risk that I was willing to take, and you know what? It was _worth_ the risk, Jameson. I'd do it all over again if given a second chance," Tonks retorted hotly, desperate to make the blonde werewolf hear and listen to her side of the argument. "I took the exact same risk that you did when you killed those centaurs. You didn't want me to get hurt, so you killed them. I didn't want either one of you to get hurt, so I led the beasts away. It's the same thing, isn't it?" Tonks let out a muffled squeak as Norah, without any kind of warning, shoving Tonks backward, her fingers pushing on her chest as she shoved her.

She heard Lupin let out a low warning growl and immediately stepped in front of Tonks, an arm out in front of her as though Remus thought it would prevent Tonks from further danger.

Currently, the only barrier standing between Tonks and the worst of Norah's wrath was Remus. Tonks swallowed nervously and looked toward Norah.

Ollie had moved off from his perch on the log and was gingerly tugging on Tonks's uninjured shoulder, murmuring something softly into the shell of Tonks's ear, but his voice was too low to make out whatever her best friend was trying to tell her.

"It's _different_ from me, you _idiot_!" Norah bellowed, balling her hands into fists, ignoring the fact that Remus and Ollie exchanged an uneasy glance with one another. "We're not bloody _arguing_ about this!" she screamed, her cobalt blue eyes darkening, almost cerulean in color the angrier she got.

Norah tugged on Lupin's arm, trying to shove past Remus but he wasn't budging, and she snarled and bared her sharp, pointed canines at Remus the moment the man set his hand firmly on her shoulder, keeping her rooted to her place and preventing the werewolf from taking another step towards Tonks.

Norah's normally soft German accent that was, up to this point during their short time of her and Tonks knowing one another, usually quiet, was now risen in volume, and Tonks winced as she could hear just how _furious_ Norah Jameson was.

So ticked, in fact, that if she hadn't known it for herself, Tonks would have pitied anyone who dared contradict and challenge the young blonde woman's views at this point. Norah's eyes narrowed until they were practically mere slits and she continued.

"Next time you spot something, you've got to tell me or Remus or the kid," she snarled. " _Immediately_. It's not a matter of saving your pride or deciding whether to fight them off or lead them away. There's no _fucking_ choice to be made!" Norah growled, ignoring the withering look that Lupin shot her for her choice of words.

Neither Remus nor Tonks had any time to react as Norah shot out an arm and ducked away from Lupin's surprisingly ironclad strength, no doubt courtesy of the Wolf within him, and shoved Tonks roughly forward, ignoring Tonks's pained gasp of pain.

Lupin shot out his arms and wrapped them around Norah's waist, practically grunting with the effort to keep the furious She-Wolf off of his fiancée in her anger.

Ollie, meanwhile, caught Tonks around the middle before she could fall completely to the ground. Tears pricked at the corner of Tonks's eyes as she blinked.

"Let _go_ of me, Ollie!" she begged, biting down on her bottom lip, urging her best friend frantically, fresh tears spilling down her eyes at the thought of yet another friend in her life refusing to stand up for her. Ollie held onto Tonks in an inescapable grasp, in what was almost considered a hug, before pulling her backward, away from Remus and Norah. Ollie wrapped an arm around Tonks's shoulders and pulled Tonks closer.

Norah was continuing to rave and scream at Tonks during her fit of hysteria.

"What the fuck were you _thinking_? Guess what? That's the _last_ favor you're gonna get from me, _witch_!" Norah screamed, almost beside herself with hysteria. "Next time you want to be saved, you'd better ask _Merlin_ for favors, because next bloody time, you're on your _own_! Don't look to me to save your sorry _ass_ a _fourth_ time!"

Tonks shrunk down slightly at Norah's tone, exchanging a nervous glance with Remus. She dipped her head and offered a muffled apology. "Fine," she murmured.

She turned her head to the side as she felt a light tugging on her uninjured shoulder, and realized Ollie was trying to pull her away from Norah and Remus.

"I'm not gonna let her hurt you, T," Ollie promised soothingly, whispering it into the shell of Tonks's ear as Tonks allowed herself to be led away. "I know you can't understand Miss Jameson's actions right now, but she _does_ care. In her own way. You need to give her space to _deal_ with this. Let Lupin handle her. Remus can handle the werewolf."

There was a hardened edge to her best friend's voice that gave Tonks pause.

"You read her mind?" Tonks breathed, glancing at Ollie with wide, fearful eyes.

"Well, _yeah_ ," Ollie grumbled, sounding thoroughly put-off by Tonks's disgust at the natural-born Legillimens reading Norah's mind without her knowledge or consent.

Ollie glanced towards Tonks and shot her a furtive little wink. "She'd never _dare_ admit it, but she thinks I'm _cute_ ," he snorted, rolling his eyes, and offering a sly smirk.

Tonks bristled, staring at Ollie incredulously. "Isn't that an invasion of privacy? She's five years older than you, Ol, you don't think she'd _mind_ that she's older?!"

" _So_?" Ollie snapped, sounding put off. "Your Lupin is ten years older than _you_ ," he pointed out, clapping her arm, and continuing to steer her away from Norah.

Her best friend shot her a withering look that had Ollie the ability, would have turned her to stone. His attention was briefly drawn back towards Norah and Lupin as the pair of friends heard Norah let out a vicious-sounding growl of anger as she made a move towards Tonks and Ollie, and it wasn't until Lupin shot out an arm to restrain Norah that the young werewolf finally ceased her attempts to attack Tonks again.

"Get _out_ of my way," Norah growled in an animalistic voice that did not sound like her own as she pushed past them and made her way towards the opposite end of their campsite.

Lupin shot Ollie and Tonks a questioning nod, and only followed after Norah when Ollie offered Remus the tiniest of curt nods, silently telling him to go.

Ollie scoffed, repressing the urge to roll his eyes, and turned back towards Tonks, furrowing his brows in a frown. "You good, T? You okay? Are you still hurting?"

Tonks nodded, exhaling slowly through her nose. "Yeah. I—I'm all right," she murmured, breathing out a shaking breath and then forcing a light laugh from her lips. "Just tired. And light-headed…and… embarrassed, Ollie. I—I shouldn't have done it."

"Don't worry about that," Ollie said, offering Tonks what he hoped was a genuine smile as he wrapped his arm tighter around Tonks's shoulders, casting a weary glance towards the spot where Norah and Remus stood conversing in low tones.

He pursed his lips into a thin line, and Tonks didn't even have to look to know that the Legillimens was reading her mind.

"Norah is the one who should feel shame, _not_ you. She should not have behaved like that," he growled, shooting the wolf a withering look. "Did she hurt you? Can you move at all? Can you walk?" Ollie asked, looking at Tonks with no small semblance of worry in his glistening, bright, sky-blue eyes.

Tonks nodded.

"Okay. Good. I'm going to take you someplace where Norah won't see you, T. I think the _wolf_ needs her space. Let your partner deal with him. If she sees you, it's just going to be a danger to both of you at this point. Let her cool off for a while, Tonks."

Tonks let out a tired sigh and hesitated, glancing back towards Remus and Norah. "I—I should go back," she murmured, twirling a curl of her shoulder-length hair in her fingers. "What if Remus can't control her, Ollie?"

Ollie shook his head no in response. "No, Tonks. You're all right now, T, as long as I'm by your side, but you're not going to be if you keep standing next to Jameson."

Ollie offered his best friend a grim stare and clucked his tongue in disappointment, gently tugging on Tonks's uninjured arm. "Come on. Nothing's going to be solved just yet anyway. Come. You should sleep, T. We've _both_ had a long day. You need to _rest_."

Tonks nodded and reluctantly allowed her friend to lead her to an even patch of grass free of twigs and pebbles, where Ollie, using what little strength was left within him, used nonverbal magic to conjure a pair of blankets and pillows for the two of them.

As Tonks settled down, her gaze flitted next to Ollie, whose head was resting against the pillow, his blue eyes staring up at the forest canopy, and at the night stars.

"Thank you, Ollie. For everything. For saving me. And…for being you," she murmured sleepily. Ollie said something in response, but it was becoming harder and harder for Tonks to focus as her eyelids drooped, though she was surprised when Ollie closed off the gap of space and rested his head against her uninjured shoulder, sensing that Tonks needed the comfort right now, hoping that Lupin would harbor no ill will towards Tonks seeking comfort from Ollie if he were to discover the two like this.

"Mmm," he murmured lowly. "Love the hair, T. Lupin won't admit it, but he does too," Ollie confesses, reaching up a lock of Tonks's wavy hair and brushing it back over her shoulder. "Are you gonna keep it like this?"

Tonks nodded, not bothering to stifle her soft smile. "Yeah. It's time, Ol." She twirled a lock of her hair, "this _is_ me. Who I _really_ am."

Ollie nodded, though she could already see his lids beginning to droop.

From the weeks of barely getting any sleep, Tonks had expected this. As his head lolled onto her shoulder, his eyelids finally slipping closed; she smiled. The rest of him slowly leaned into her, the rest of his body going limp. Tonks could finally see him sleep. Without the complex workings of his conscious mind he looked so vulnerable and childlike, it took a few seconds to register that it was Ollie laying on her lap. His breaths were even and calming, the expression on his face no longer stressed and worried about her, but relaxed. His eyelids fluttered, but he was too out of it to notice.

Tonks tried to keep her eyes open, she really did. But it was hard, and the blankets and pillow Ollie had conjured was comfortable. Soon, that was all she was aware of.

The warmth of the blanket, the softness of the pillow beneath her head. Her eyes began to drift closed. She was blissfully unaware of what was going on around them.

Then, it was just her and her dreams.

* * *

Norah emanated a tense exhale through her nose as Remus relinquished his grip on Norah once Lupin sensed the young blonde woman was slowly but surely calming down. He staggered backward and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"You and I need to _talk_ , Miss Jameson," Lupin growled angrily. " _Now_."

Norah nodded mutely, watching as Ollie continued to lead Tonks away to the other side of the campsite and out of view of Norah's line of sight and hearing for now.

She heaved a heavy sigh as Remus motioned for Norah to follow him, slightly away from the campsite, at the edge of its borders, so as to not wake up Tonks or Ollie.

Norah hadn't liked being so agitated and harsh with her words towards the young witch, but the Auror needed to understand that Norah was not going to tolerate Tonks's talent for trouble and her attempting to be the hero and continuing to get herself into one dangerous situation after another like she had done to herself tonight.

She was _furious_ with Tonks, but she did not want to be. Tonks did not deserve to have her angry with her. Norah was at the very least, in her silent, seething anger, able to recognize that she was so pissed with Tonks because she'd felt so much unbridled fear and rage for the young pink-haired witch that she was offended that Tonks did not seem to hold high regard for her own well-being and safety, or for that of the little wolf cub growing inside of her as much as Norah and her mate, Remus clearly did.

Norah honestly hadn't thought much of the young witch when she'd stumbled across the young woman in the Forest, though she instantly developed a high regard for the girl the second she saw the Auror break Astelos's nose with her own bare fist.

And when she had saved their baby, she thought that was the end of it, and now that it wasn't, now that this witch and Remus Lupin were perhaps her only chance at getting out of this Forest and having a shot at living a semblance of a normal life if the two would talk to Minister Scrimgeour for her once the all rescued that pink-wearing bitch.

She bared her teeth and let out a lowly snarl, too low for Lupin to make out.

It still did _not_ sit well with her that they were rescuing that old pink toad, that _hag_. After what Dolores Jane Umbridge had taken from Norah, the lives of her own family, her mate and their precious, sweet one-year-old son whose life had just started, Norah was content enough to let Astelos and the rest of his herd keep the old _bitch_.

Norah was not about to stand for Tonks or anybody else in this little company of theirs that they had formed continue to make choices that were so damned self-destructive. She couldn't.

Norah swallowed as she continued to follow Remus down the path, thinking that for a moment, when she had reached the mouth of the cave, that Tonks and her little cub within her belly may have been killed, that she was too late.

Tonks had been so still, so lifeless back there by the time Norah had gotten to her, and Norah did not think she would soon be able to forget the horrible, swooping sensation in her stomach, that sick feeling of dread that churned her stomach and crept down her spine that she had felt when she first Tonks and the kid looking utterly _trashed_.

_Helpless_. That cold, sinking feeling the witch would never draw in-breath again. That feeling was not one that Norah cherished, and she had not felt it since the day her husband and child were murdered in front of her very eyes by the _bitch_ herself.

It was a terrible, crushing emotion, dread and fear were, wondering if Tonks, a young woman who had, in such a relatively short amount of time, proven herself capable and resilient, could possibly have much such a violent and gory end as _that_.

Norah wasn't angry with the vivacious young pink-haired witch for any other reason than the fact that Nymphadora Tonks had scared her and Lupin so much.

That was a fear that she never wanted to deal with ever again if she could help it.

* * *

**A/N: So, there you have it, my lovely readers! Both Norah AND Remus are feeling incredibly conflicted over what's happened and the chapter with their conversation should be an interesting one for them to have. Norah's relieved that Tonks is for the most part going to be okay and Lupin was pleased to see that Tonks wasn't too upset for longer than a few minutes after their initial reunion of getting separated AGAIN, though I love how they continue to keep finding each other, they're magnets.**

**As for Norah, yeah, she might be coming across as kind of a jerk and insensitive here and there, but her fear for Tonks's sake was manifesting itself as anger since she was scared for her sake. Norah especially feels anger towards the centaurs for what they did, and anger in Tonks at not waking up her or Lupin or staying closer to the camp.**

**I think too she might even feel a little bit of guilt as she wonders if there was anything she could have done differently to prevent what happened, considering she knows the centaurs, their methods, how they operate, how they think, given she's practically been forced to co-exist alongside the different herds in the Forest for years now.**

**Of course, she also feels doubt and fear in that she wonders if Tonks is able to fully comprehend just how much danger she was putting herself and her unborn child in, given once her initial shock wore off, she acted like she forgot it happened.**

**All of this aside, Norah is having trouble in learning just how to deal with these overwhelming mixes of emotions. Norah never anticipated or expected that she would grow to care so much about Remus and Tonks (but honestly, once you meet them, how could you not like them, I don't care who you are lol!), but now that she does, there's nothing quite as scary as caring about someone new in your life, especially when the said person continues to put themselves in precarious positions like Tonks's talent for trouble does.**

**Coming up in Ch. 83, will Remus and Norah be able to come to a mutual understanding with one another? A difficult conversation to be had, but yet better than leaving all of these emotions pent up and left unsaid, for sure.**


	83. A Difficult Conversation

**CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE**

Tonks blearily awoke to the crackling sound of a campfire that crackled nearby, projecting long shadows on the surrounding area.

The light cast by the flames danced across the dark, gnarled, and twisted trunks of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, twisting and curling in obscure shapes and providing a small radius of orange and yellow faint light, almost a dim glow, a mere ember flame, but it was better than darkness.

The fire itself was pulsating, the glowing embers seemed to move in rhythm with the flames, matching every dip and sweep. It was mesmerizing to watch, colors of orange and red gave way to yellow and white near the center of the fire in its pit, where the emanating heat was the greatest.

It was this warmth which roused Tonks from her sleep as her consciousness slowly awoke and allowed the young witch to return to the land of the living.

She blinked, rather forcefully at first, in an attempt to rid her lashes and lids from the crusted 'sleep' that had accumulated sometime in the night.

It was that the young Auror was able to deduce that she must have been out for longer than she'd initially thought possible, that and the occasional chirping of birds.

Tonks slowly sat up, trying to ignore the swells of dizziness and nausea that wracked her slender frame, or how her skull pounded at the base of her head and at her front temples, and the crusted gunk from her eyes did not easily want to be removed, and she had to scrub it away with the heel of her hand.

Tonks let out a pained hiss, grinding her teeth upon discovering the hand she was currently using to rid her lids from sleep was in fact, her injured hand, the one her arm was still bound in a sling.

This had to be _what_ , the third or fourth time she'd injured this arm by now? Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and furrowed her brows, flexing her fingers of her uninjured hand. She looked to the left and right.

No signs of Ollie, Norah, or even Remus, and for a moment she panicked, thinking that this was another cruel, malicious _trick_ again.

Tonks parted her cracked lips to try to make a noise, a cry for help, a call for either one of them to come to her aid, though no words were coming out.

Just a strangled attempt at speech when she did try to speak, and the young woman found that her throat felt on fire, hollowed, and constricted, and unable to make much noise at all. But what she wouldn't _give_ for a cold drink of water! _Just a small sip…_ Tonks let out a sigh and glanced down at the blanket in her lap, momentarily confused, and then it hit her.

She remembered. "Ollie?" she croaked hoarsely. Ollie had been the one to conjure the blankets earlier and helped her get to sleep, while Remus had been left to bear the brunt of the worst of Norah and her wrath, but where were the two of them?

She supposed if anything, the blankets were a sign that she was safe. If something had happened to Remus and Norah and Ollie in the middle of the night, and something or someone _had_ kidnapped her again, Tonks _highly_ doubted that her captors would have gone out of their way to trouble themselves in order to ensure her comfort.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and stared into the depths of the fire. The darkness of the forest surrounding her and their campsite swirled around her curled form, tendrils of inkling bleak reminders of her current state of involuntary solitude.

Had Ollie abandoned her? Had they all just left her out here, gotten together in the middle of the night and decided she was too much a risk and not worth it, a liability and not a good asset to have in their group? Had they left her and gone after Umbridge?

The silence echoing in her ringing eardrums was the constant white noise that was not shutting up. Her head swam in the fire burning inside, the only smoldering embers of a time when there had been other presences with her, around her, and inside her.

But now, in her panicked state of inner retreat, the void had been slowly filled with a cold, howling storm of fear that currently refused to let up. Tonks felt like she was completely and utterly alone in her mind, body, soul, and most of all, the Forest.

Tonks let out a tiny whimper as her mind dragged her back to last night, as flashes of unpleasant memories, ones that she would sooner rather forget, interrupted the brief moment of tranquility, thrusting her underneath the hovering hoof of an angry centaur.

A horrible, tightening constricting feeling began to claw at her throat as it hollowed and constricted, feeling like as it tightened, it cut off air to her passageways, and the feeling only intensified with even the slightest movement, and as Tonks reached up to undo one of the buttons on her red collared shirt, she let out a sigh as the pads of her fingers on her right hand accidentally grazed over the yellow gold wedding ring she wore on her left that would very soon become the symbol of her marriage to Remus.

Tonks lowered her gaze and held out her left hand in front of her, up to her eye level to better study Remus's mother's ring, a beautiful little thing that had been in his family for generations.

And now it was _hers_ , and Tonks felt herself emanate a tense, shaking breath as she allowed for thoughts of the man who would be her future husband the second they stepped outside the boundaries of this damned cursed forest to calm and ground her.

Though the moment did not last long as the visions continued to swarm within the tormented confines of her mind, threatening to break her down.

How the blood flowed, thick and sluggish from a slash across the centaur's neck, a slash that she had made, spilling out crimson liquid all over her hands and her face.

"He deserved it. Repeat it to yourself. He _deserved_ it." Tonks's mind conjured up visions of maggots, flecks of doughy white nestled within mangled flesh, feverishly squirming into chunks of gore. "He deserved it. Repeat it to yourself. It deserved it."

The centaur's once-handsome features were spotted in her mind with angry bruises, and Death had frozen his pale lavender face into a rigid snarl, a final, eternal lamentation to the heavens.

"He deserved it. Oh, he bloody _deserved_ it. He deserved…" Her voice trailed off, her words escaping her lips as a series of whimpers that transformed into choked sobs.

The cold look reflected on the creature's face gave Tonks the shudders. How his strong hands had wrapped strongly and squeezing on the column of her throat as he had almost succeeded in strangling her to death. It had seemed to have no sense of humanity.

His heart seemed to be made of stone, the blasé way he had acted towards taking a human life. Tonks wasn't sure she would ever be able to forget the glint in his beady black eyes. The centaur had smelled of blood. Of danger. He was a murderer.

These horrible swarm of memories flitted through the forefront of her mind in seconds, leaving Tonks feeling quite breathless and exhausted. She felt as though she'd only lain down to sleep, Ollie had fallen asleep beside her, she remembered that much.

Feeling his head lay down and rest on the crook of her uninjured shoulder, just feeling his weight, the pressure of his body against hers had been enough to calm her.

Though without Ollie here beside her side to comfort her right now, given the shared trauma of what had almost happened to both of them, they had experienced together, and he was not here beside her, Tonks felt the panic starting up again now.

Although she was conscious and sitting up, staring into the fire's depths and trying not to look at the Forbidden Forest's clearing around their campsite, it felt as though her sense of acute awareness had dimmed horribly, like candlelight that had been extinguished, and she stared into the depths of the flames, feeling her eyes gloss over, not really seeing it. Her mind felt like a frayed down an electrical wire, fallen, but surging.

The sound of a twig snapping somewhere in the distance in front of her caused her mind to spring forward, and it felt to the young witch and Auror as though the Forest had just now come rushing up to meet her, flooding her olfactory senses.

Sounds came to her eardrums in crisp clarity. The sounds of the crickets and other insects chirping. The distant howling of what she suspected was a wolf, though a regular wolf or a werewolf, she could not quite tell which.

The fire crackling in the way that fires do sound louder than before as the flames caused the logs to pop and settle.

The rustling of the leaves on the trees clung to their branches, and there was a timorous voice that whispered to her, echoing in her eardrums, faint but… _familiar_.

Like…like she _knew_ this voice, this person, trying to reach her conscience. Several different smells assaulted her smell, causing her nostrils to flare in agitation.

The waxy scent of pine and fir needles tended to calm her, gently and soothingly lulling her into a sort of a safe, hazy daze which for the moment, Tonks decided she didn't mind. The crisp cleanness of the air in the Forbidden Forest, which she'd not noticed before. In the fresh air, Tonks's lungs expanded as if on automatic refill, and with the rising and falling of her chest came with it an eerie sense of calm.

As she further explored this strange and unfamiliar sensation, the image of waves gently rising over wet sands comes to her thoughts, and with them the sound of water and the song of sky-borne birds.

To further explore the eerie sense of calm the Forbidden Forest bestowed upon Tonks, she allowed herself to inhale as deeply as she could, wincing at the pain in her ribs, as she could already feel where the centaur had kicked her in the side starting to bruise.

Tonks inhaled, holding her breath for several long minutes. Her hands trembled and eyes watered as she glanced wildly around her, searching for the source of the noise that was causing twigs and leaves to snap and crunch behind her.

Something was behind those bushes and it was anything _but_ good. Her body felt hot and sweat started trickling down her brow. She could feel the sweat drench her skin, the throbbing of her eyelids. Her fingers were curled into a fist, nails digging into the sensitive flesh of her palms. Tonks could not hear her rapid breathing, but she could feel the oxygen flooding in and out of her lungs. In. And out.

Repeat this a few more times until she felt her breaths start to slow and resemble something more normal, and Tonks exhaled slowly.

 _Good_ , she thought. Focus on just breathing normally. _Just…just breathe. That's it_. Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to relive the memories from just several hours ago, it was way too soon for her fractured mind to revisit what happened.

Doing so, Tonks felt sure would send her into a panic, and panicking in her already stressed state of mind wasn't good for her _or_ her and Remus's baby growing in her belly, and putting their child at risk was something that she could not afford.

Not now. But if she did not address these feelings, then _when_ was a good time? She was going to have to confront these doubts and fears sooner rather than later, it felt as though her lungs were heaving, straining for air that was simply not coming to her lungs, and it felt as though she were drowning in her fear, suffocating in it.

Tonks's fear was escalating to utterly paramount levels, and she had _no_ idea what to do about it.

Tonks gritted her teeth, grinding her molars until they snapped shut and squeezed her eyes tightly closed, feeling like the fear that stabbed and pricked at her heartstrings was running rampant and she was no longer able to control her emotions and keep them at bay. She felt like she was breaking, shattering into a million little tiny pieces.

And there was no preventing it, no stopping the storm that was coming for her. Brick by brick, the walls around her hardened heart came down. The tears welling at the corners of her lids stung and blurred her vision, marring it with her hot, salty tears.

Tonks exhaled a tense, shaking breath through her nose and with reluctance and shame, closed her eyes and allowed herself to perhaps for the first time tonight, fully feel it, and let her mind collapse in on itself in an effort to move past this and go forward.

Her brain now free as the walls collapsed and tore through her like shards of glass, each one sharper than the last, her myriad of emotions ranging from anger towards Norah and Remus's reactions earlier, to sadness and despair at seeing Lupin worry for her, to wondering if she had inadvertently put their baby's health at risk, to pure rancor at the centaurs for doing what they had done, not just to her, but to poor Ollie as well.

She just broke down. The sobs punched through, ripping through her muscles, bones, and intestines as her stomach lurched and churned, twisting as coils in her guts.

Tonks allowed her heart to yank in and out of her chest. It pulled back in like one of those Muggle yo-yos. Over and over. In and out. Tonks felt horribly hollow. Her life crumbled in her fingertips. Her memories flashed, uncensored, in rapid succession.

Visions of Barty Crouch Jr.'s handsome but twisted face, Ollie's face, the centaurs, seeing Lord Voldemort himself up close and personal back at Crouch's estate, Snape…

"Tonks?" A young man's voice spoke up nervously, coming from behind her. Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upward, a startled cry upon her lips as she slowly swiveled at the waist to see who it was that had spoken and caught her attention.

Then, suddenly, Ollie was there, patting and rubbing her shoulder, kneeling at her side on the log, reaching into her hollowness, and trying to pull her out of this hazy fog. Tonks blinked owlishly at Ollie Brennan's face as his handsome face swam into her line of sight as she forced her bleary vision to try to clear and focus solely on him.

At least this time, instead of seeing Ollie's bruised face wrought with worry for her, this time, his face held such a sweet smile, that aside from Remus, she was sure no other man on this Merlin's green earth held such a smile, it was like a warm sunset. Though Ollie's smile to her was strained, showing the tightness around the man's eyes and it did not quite reach his brilliant cobalt, sky-blue eyes like that of a robin's egg.

It was still a smile nonetheless and comforted Tonks more than she cared to admit. Ollie, Merlin _bless_ this man, had pulled her back. Brought her back to reality, was showing her now just by sitting with her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, that things were going to be all right in the end, once she talked to Norah and Remus and hopefully, caused the two of them to come to an understanding.

Tonks parted her cracked lips to try to speak, though all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech, and the words themselves clung to the inside of her throat, her tongue refusing their release, unwilling to come out and speak what was on her mind.

She blinked rapidly as more tears threatened to burst forth and escape from her lids, which eventually spilled forth and down her pale, ashen cheeks in graceful tracts.

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down Tonks's face. She felt the muscles of her chin tremble like a small child and she looked towards Ollie, as if just his face could soothe her.

There was that horrible static in her head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress that she lived with. She heard her own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside.

It took something out of Tonks that the young witch didn't even know she had left to give. That's the way it was when she was hard.

It was like theft of the spirit, an injury that only she allowed Ollie to see right now. Tonks was not afraid to cry, tears of both relief that she and her baby were safe, and Ollie too, and wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of this damn Forest.

And she wept too for the centaur's life that she had taken, brutish as he was, and maybe he did deserve it, but that did not make what Tonks had done any better, really.

Tonks clung onto fistfuls of Ollie's black woolen robes like a lifeline, as intense tremors of fear and regret and stress at the life she had taken, at what had almost happened to her a few hours ago, rocked her to her core, leaving her mind reeling.

The memories and emotions swirled through her in vast waves of pain and agony, and Tonks wasn't totally sure if she would ever be okay, but having Ollie here helped.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, and the rustling noise as Norah and Remus slowly came into her line of sight, though still keeping their distance, caused her to wonder if that Miss Jameson would forgive her, in time.

She could only hope so.

* * *

Lupin exhaled a tired sigh and raked his fingers through his light brown hair, perhaps the only visible indication of his utter exhaustion, as he wanted nothing more than to go to Tonks and comfort her, though judging by one look, Mr. Brennan seemed to have things under control, and he still needed to have _words_ with Norah.

"Miss Jameson, I think that you and I need to have a _talk_ about your actions, don't we?" Remus began hesitantly, flinching at how cold and harsh his tone sounded, and he recognized that it was courtesy of that Mad Beast, the Wolf within.

Lupin turned slightly to regard the young blonde werewolf regarding Remus in silence as she rested her back up against the bark of a twisted gnarled old elm tree, with her usual standard for her, impassive expression, though a muscle in her jaw started to twitch.

"Mr. Lupin," Norah responded in kind, keeping her voice calm, despite the growing storm welling within her darkening sky blue eyes as the hues of her eyes darkened and shifted to almost cerulean in color the more upset the She-Wolf got.

Lupin narrowed his eyes and regarded the young blonde woman for several moments in a thick, tense, and uncomfortable heavy silence as unspoken words lingered in the air between the two of them, with Norah feeling still furious over Tonks's actions tonight, and Lupin's anger with Norah for how violent she had been to Dora.

Norah, for her credit, did not back down nor flinch away from Remus's gaze, though after a few minutes of each of them staring at the other, and yet neither wanting to be the first one to break their gaze, she huffed in frustration and stomped her foot.

The young blonde werewolf turned away from Remus, her gaze drawn toward what sounded like muffled whimpers and tiny sobs, and she flinched and let out a small hiss and bared her canines as she realized the disturbance was coming from Tonks.

"I—I did not mean this," she whispered, her tone softer, more subdued than before. "I…recognize that I lost my temper with your fiancé, and I should not have."

When Norah spoke to Remus, her voice was soft and hoarse, her words quiet, barely above a whisper, and for a moment, Lupin thought that her words were wind, so faint and hardly audible that he was of a mind to believe that she hadn't spoken at first.

Norah dipped her head in submission, suggesting to Remus that the blonde werewolf was genuinely ashamed of how she had allowed her volatile, violent temper to get the better of her. No doubt the adrenaline from her encounter with the centaurs back at the mouth of the cave had still been wildly surging through her veins.

But still… Even now, as Lupin allowed himself to silently observe the blonde young witch, her hardened exterior and outward appearance betrayed nothing of her inner turmoil, which Remus knew, judging by the shimmering, glistening moisture in her eyes, lay just beneath the surface, threatening to break free at any given moment.

Remus knew that Norah Jameson was conflicted, and not quite sure how to act.

"No," he admitted, surprised to hear the hardened edges of his normally quiet, reserved voice.

Lupin swallowed down hard, recognizing that his own temper at the way their guide had treated the woman who was soon to be married to him was in danger of potentially imploding if he could not maintain control of his emotions.

"You should _not_ have, Miss Jameson, but that does _not_ change the fact that what is done is _done_." He flinched and ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth and hesitated. "You have berated my fiancée to the point where she is now clearly shaken from you _yelling_ at her the way that you did, on _top_ of the unknown trauma and abuse that she experienced at the hands of those vile _beasts_ ," he spat, unable to keep the note of hatred out of his tone as visions of seeing the gory state of things when he'd gotten to the campsite to find Jameson had slaughtered all of the centaurs, flitted through his mind. "Now Dora is _injured_ , and far beyond the ability to be reasoned with at the moment. But…despite your inability to understand her, _or_ me, and your lack of compassion for us up to this point, Dora is safe, as am I. Though, if she has any hope of recovery that I would _hope_ would reach its fullest, the two of you are going to have to learn how to trust one another, though I believe the fault fully lies with you. I think Tonks already trusts you, Miss Jameson. Therefore, _you're_ the one who needs to learn to trust _her_. To let her in completely, and in a _clear_ manner, I might add, because if we start fighting amongst ourselves in a damned cursed Forest that _already_ wants to divide us, then we're _doomed_." Lupin fell silent and bit down on the wall of his cheek, studying her face.

She pursed her lips into a thin line and scowled, folding her arms across her chest, and seeming to shrink into her black leather jacket as much as she could for warmth. It seemed to take Norah an eternity to find her voice, and when she did, hers was so soft, that had Lupin not already been hanging onto her every word, he might have missed.

"How could Tonks possibly come to trust me after…all of _that_?" she growled lowly, uncrossing her arms and gesturing towards the open air, and glancing down at the sword of Godric Gryffindor that rested against the bark of the tree by her feet.

Norah's tone reflected a sense of bitterness and self-hatred that, as a fellow werewolf, Remus was all too quite familiar with by this point in his adult life.

Though she gestured towards the Forest's thick path that lay ahead of them in the morning, her gaze remained unwavering and unabashed, her eyes fixed on Tonks and Ollie. "You _know_ that I don't say this with any lightness, Remus," Norah scowled.

"I'd consider you a _fool_ if you didn't, Miss Jameson," Remus retorted immediately, folding his arms across his chest and resting across the bark of a different tree, all the while watching Dora's former partner try to do what he could to calm her.

For the briefest moment, he felt the familiar flicker, that hot fire-seed of anger and jealousy at seeing her best friend in such an intimate embrace with _his_ soon-to-be-wife.

Though he quickly gave his head a curt shake to clear it as his friends' voices filled his already troubled mind, with Lily coming to his rescue first, for a change in pacing.

 _Tonks is marrying YOU, Remus_ , Lily chastised, and Lupin flinched at hearing how clipped and curt sweet Lily's voice sounded. _Not Ollie, not Sirius. She chose you_.

 _Yeah, Moony_ , James's unusually somber and quiet tone piped up, though it did not escape Lupin's attention that he sounded strangely fed up with Remus's jealousy. _I don't think now is the time to let your insecurities get the better of you, Moony. If Sirius were here, he'd tell you the exact same thing. This forest is evil, Moony. I'm sure you've been able to figure that out for yourself by now, but there's a REASON it's 'Forbidden.' It wants to divide you; separate you till you're all at each other's throats. Now isn't the time to get into a fight with that little twerp_ , James snapped, and Lupin barely stifled his smile as he imagined James scrutinizing Ollie's handsome, stocky build.

 _You could take him, Moony. The kid might be well-built, but he's no match for your 'furry little problem_ ', James teased, and Potter fell silent as Lupin let out a low growl.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by Norah, who quirked a delicately arched brow Remus's way, though if she was suspicious of Lupin's little outburst, she did not voice her concerns.

Lupin coughed once to clear his throat and turned his head away, fighting back the light pink blush and incredible heat that crept its way along his cheeks.

"Allow Tonks a moment to _breathe_ , Jameson. She needs to let herself _feel_ it otherwise…" His voice cracked and broke as his gaze remained fixed on Tonks and Ollie's huddled form by the campfire. He could have _sworn_ that Ollie briefly lifted his head and met Remus's gaze and offered him what he thought was a sympathetic nod.

"Otherwise I don't know if Tonks will be able to cope with it later. It's apparent that she hasn't properly sorted through her emotions and addressed the current situation. Her life ever since in this Forest, and even before that, was and is always in a constant state of change, always changing, always moving, and she's hardly had time to _breathe_ , much less adapt to all of these changes that she's been forced to meet head-on and expected as an Auror to handle with dignity and composure. She _cannot_ be expected to carry these burdens without repercussions, and I need to be there to help her through this, just as much as _you_ do. _This_ ," Remus growled, letting out an animalistic, wolfish snarl, courtesy of the Wolf within him, as he gestured towards Tonks and Ollie's direction with a curt wave of his hand, "what you're looking at right now with me is the manifestation of those repercussions. _This_ is what happens when she refuses to allow herself to really _feel_ it. Though, I will give my fiancée credit, Miss Jameson, where it's due. Ever since we set foot onto the Forbidden Forest's soil, Tonks has shown remarkable bravery and wit."

"She has," Norah offered quietly, nodding with Remus, showing that the young blonde witch and werewolf agreed with his statement. "She should have been sorted in Gryffindor. Didn't you say when she was at Hogwarts, she used to be a Hufflepuff?"

"Yes." Remus furrowed his brows and glanced down at the sword of Gryffindor, which still rested idly by Norah's feet. He was still _itching_ to hear how it was that this young wolf had ended up with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, though that was a story for a different time and place, once things had been patched up between all three of them, but especially, between Norah and Tonks.

The animosity between the pair of young witches was beginning to become smothering, and the sooner the two attempted to make amends, especially if Norah apologized for her treatment of Tonks, the better.

"Mmm." Norah made a non-committal noise at the back of her throat that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a snort as she continued to rest against the tree. "She is. Maybe the Sorting Hat got her priorities wrong, though, on the other hand, I've never seen a more loyal friend and mate. I've not seen a human witch so…"

Norah hesitated, her brain struggling to form the right words to describe what exactly it was that she thought of Nymphadora Tonks, and Remus, intrigued, swore he caught a hesitant flickering of uncertainty in the young blonde She-Wolf's expression.

"I _know_ ," Remus spoke up, concurring with the unspoken statement that Norah could not seem to bring herself to say. "Dora is unlike any other young woman I've ever met before. She's different from most witches. She possesses a fierce sense of independence and a certain kind of courage that makes me believe that you're right about her. Tonks should have been in Gryffindor, as I'm sure you've noticed for yourself. Even under pressure from those centaurs and then with Crouch, she never gave in or backed down even once. And as for her being a Hufflepuff, well…her loyalty to those fortunate enough to call themselves her friend is unmoving and firm, as I think you can see for yourself by the way she behaves around Ollie," Lupin grumbled.

Remus watched with no small measure of amusement in his light brown eyes, though thoroughly still feeling very much disgruntled towards the turn this horrible night had taken, as what little vulnerability currently lingering within Norah Jameson's hardened exterior and furrowed scowl on her pale pretty features promptly vanished.

He let out a sigh, watching as the frown slid off Norah's face like Stinksap, only to be replaced with a strange expression of cold silent fury and what Lupin could only describe as something of a warning as she turned her head, her gaze piercing Remus's.

"The kid cares for her, for your mate, and she for him, I think." Norah's words were blunt, uttered without any kind of inflection or hesitance on the She-Wolf's part.

Now it was Lupin's turn to frown, though the man was not fooled by her attempt to dissuade his annoyance and steer the conversation in a completely different direction.

"Think what you like of the young man, Miss Jameson, but if it weren't for Ollie Brennan on _more_ than one occasion, Tonks would have been _dead_. The two of them are best friends, and aside from myself, Ollie has been the only person in this group to show Dora _any_ kind of respect and kindness whatsoever, so I don't know why you're giving me that look. Don't act so _shocked_ , it should _hardly_ come as a surprise. If you'd been willing to give Dora a chance right from the very beginning instead of keeping the both of us at arm's length and constantly pushing us away, but you did not do that, instead you've berated her, insulted her, and you do not appreciate her efforts in helping us get Umbridge back so far, and if you'd at least allowed yourself a chance to get to know her, then _maybe_ you'd be in Dora's good graces along with Ollie and me, Miss Jameson. But you haven't managed to do either _one_ of those things, and it's no secret that Dora isn't. Nor am I, for that matter, but guess what? I don't _care_ what you think of me. At the end of the day, all _I_ want—all Dora wants—is to get _out_ of this forest, get married, and go home and hopefully _never_ set foot in these woods ever again," Lupin snapped, feeling his temper begin to swell, and he bit down on his lip, though he did not deter from what he knew the werewolf needed to hear. "She does not know it yet, but I plan to get married right here, in this forest, before anything else happens. I'm going to send a message to Dumbledore and the others asking them to meet us here. I had planned for us to wait until after we get out of here and got Umbridge back, but considering what almost happened to Tonks last night, I don't want to wait anymore. I'm hoping that you...that you will be by her side when the two of us get married, Miss Jameson."

Harsh though his words were, it was the plain truth, and the plain truth of the matter was, Norah and Tonks _needed_ to come to a mutual understanding with one another if they held a prayer of getting out of this cursed Forest in one piece with Umbridge in tow. Remus's words did not please Norah in the slightest, and Lupin could have sworn he heard the blonde young werewolf growl and snarl as she bared her sharpened canines.

He instinctively felt the fingers of his wand hand curl over it as his hand rested inside the interior pocket of his jacket, sincerely hoping they wouldn't come to blows.

He was not entirely sure what he had been expecting from the young witch, though for Norah to let out a tense breath through her nose and slump her shoulders in defeat, all the while keeping her sharp, wolfish sight fixated on Ollie and Tonks's figures as the two friends sat by the campfire, conversing in too low of a tone for her to make out, for Norah to turn her head back around and look at Lupin with such a tinge of melancholia in her light blue eyes was…not quite exactly what he'd expected from her.

"You know that I will, Remus," Norah sighed exasperatedly. "Your fiancée's condition is of more importance right now than a grudge," growled Norah, huffing in frustration and folding her arms across her chest. "If what you tell me of Tonks that she heals fast, then by morning, she ought to be well enough to walk and you can send a message to the Headmaster then. Get married tomorrow, but allow her tonight to _rest_. Your wife will thank you for it, I'm sure. Her fever from eating those damned berries should have surpassed her by now."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, noticing Lupin's look of stunned, utter horror. "You didn't even _have_ to tell me, Mr. Lupin. I _know_ she ate a few Bleeding Mulberries. She's feverish, not really able to keep much down. Dazed and confused. You tend to forget I've lived in this forest practically my whole life," she snapped. "I know those berries and I know the symptoms that go along with eating them, Remus. If you and Miss Tonks hold a prayer of getting that pink-wearing hag back, then we're going to _have_ to pick up our speed," she growled, cobalt blue eyes narrowing angrily. "It's not going to take Astelos long to figure out those few in the scouting party are missing, and when he or anybody else in his herd finds their bodies like that, well…"

Norah shuddered and allowed her voice to trail off, not completing her thought. Lupin nodded. She didn't need to say a word. He had witnessed the centaurs' brutality for himself, as did Tonks and Ollie and he did not fancy getting another surprise visit.

"Fine," Remus heard himself say in a hardened, agitated voice that still did not quite sound like himself. He sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before lowering his hand and moving to head towards the fire to join his soon-to-be wife and relieve Ollie of comforting Tonks.

He lifted his head and cast Norah a sharp, withering look. "I suggest that you speak to Dora in the morning, Norah. I don't care what the two of you talk about as long as you're able to come to some kind of understanding with one another, and as long as you don't ridicule or mock my fiancée to the point where her fears and injuries are in an even worse state than they are now," he warned threateningly, and he turned and fixed her with a pointed glare.

Norah, for her part, said nothing in response. Remus frowned and continued. "Because if _that_ happens, then not even _Merlin_ will be able to save you from me, Miss Jameson. As much as I think she hates to admit it, Tonks in her current physical and emotional state, not even coupled with the fact that she's pregnant, _is_ fragile, and if you provoke her or say the wrong thing, or Merlin forbid insult her again, I wouldn't put it past my partner to retaliate in ways that I can't even imagine right now."

And with that, Lupin strode away from Norah and headed towards Tonks, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets without so much as sparing the young blonde a second glance behind over his shoulder, leaving Norah alone to mull over their talk.

* * *

**A/N: I wanted Tonks to have kind of that mental wilderness breakdown that I thought she ought to have, sort of a delayed reaction in response to what she's done, as well as the mental and physical trauma that she experienced earlier that she did not allow herself to feel up until this moment in the chapter. I also wanted Ollie to be the one to pull her out of it and not Remus, because though Lupin is her partner and soon-to-be husband (hint, hint ;)), he doesn't really know the true extent of what Tonks suffered, but Ollie was there for her through all of it, even the worst parts, and she trusts her best friend completely, and I haven't really given them too many nice moments yet aside from Ollie saving her butt several times now throughout the course of this really long Odyssey tale.**

**Now comes the tricky part ahead for Tonks, how to re-establish a semblance of trust between herself and Norah? They have each made poor choices.**

**1) Tonks really should not have left the camp to investigate the centaurs, even if she was really only looking for food. It was a _disaster_ waiting to happen, and it did. **

**2) Norah shouldn't have allowed her temper to get the better of her and gotten physically violent with Tonks, no matter if it WAS the 'Wolf" within her. She should not have been so cold, treating Tonks as a stranger and an enemy when Tonks has done nothing to earn Norah's immense distrust.**

**Also, I felt like Lupin was the only one who could have this difficult conversation to be had with Norah, given how he's a calm and rational man by nature of his character, and I figured since he's a werewolf too, he would have known better how to handle Norah's mood swings than Ollie or Tonks would.**

**Both Remus and Norah feel responsible for what happened to Tonks and Ollie and have taken the first step towards reconciliation, now here's hoping Norah and Tonks can come to a mutual understanding with one another and hopefully, in time, become friends.**


	84. In Which Amendments are Made

** CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR **

Tonks shivered and tried to control the incessant chattering of her teeth the following morning as she huddled on top of the log as she watched Remus and Norah use their wands to collectively move the fire a little bit closer, so they could all benefit from the warmth.

She was struggling not to feel so damned bloody _useless_. She wanted to help, she could contribute, though her body was not-so-politely suggesting otherwise. At the present moment, she felt way too exhausted and weak to help out. Tonks had a bad habit of twirling her now-shoulder length dark maroon hair in her fingers, curling the waves until they kinked. She'd made the change shortly after Ollie found her, thinking she was tired of hiding.

_This_ was who she was. Now that she was about to be married, she no longer wanted to hide behind her Metamorphing abilities anymore.

Her body ached and stung, sending fiery swells of heat all throughout the crevices of her body, sore from being shoved and pushed so harshly, her mended shoulder and wrist still throbbed, and her abdomen stung where the centaur's fingernails had raked down alongside her side, and she still felt quite feverish from those damned berries, despite throwing them up earlier.

Tonks could barely keep her damn eyes open, let alone try to be of any assistance to Norah and Remus. But still, Tonks tried really hard. She watched as their guide waved her wand and caused some of the larger logs to tend to the fire's kindling to float seamlessly through the air, and carefully set them down with a flick of her wand, and pointed her wand at the flames and engorged them.

She stared unseeingly into the flames of the campfire that Norah was building. Her hands tightened, and she hissed in pain, a firm reminder of why she ought not to be straining the wrist that she'd broken just last night, around the small mug of makeshift stew that Norah had charged her with eating, but she couldn't stomach it.

Norah had insisted there were no rats in it, though the clumps of meat suggested otherwise, and Tonks's poor stomach gave a painful lurch at the thought of eating _rats_. Tonks's eyes squeezed tightly shut and ducked her head low, feeling her breaths and her heart rate quicken as her mind dwelled on images she'd soon rather forget.

A decapitated centaur, staring at the bottom of its hoof, feeling certain that she had been about to meet her end, and then hearing her screams as she had murdered it. Dead. It was _dead_ , that centaur. She had taken its own dagger and plunged its tip into his throat. What did it matter that the creature had tried to _kill_ her and Ollie?

That she had no choice? Tonks, as an Auror, understood these things, but the matters of her burdened heart and mind, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. Her conscience refused to let it go, and Tonks found she could think of nothing else.

A half-choked cry of misery escaped past her bruised lips, and she sucked in a ragged breath of cold October air. Her fear threatened to consume her, and yet…Ollie had brought her back, and visions of her best friend's handsome face and bright blue eyes flitted through the front of her mind, and thoughts of Lupin as well.

And then, there was the matter of dealing with Norah. The only way she could see any of this coming to a satisfactory end was to formally apologize to Norah Jameson.

The young blonde werewolf had been so ticked with her, furious beyond belief, earlier, which Tonks, in her mind, didn't think was fair at all. She had _protected_ them! Tonks had only tried to keep the centaurs from going after Norah and Remus and being killed, and _this_ was the thanks she got. To be brutally yelled at and shoved around, talked down to in a condescending manner like she was a twelve-year-old kid.

Why did it feel like, no matter _what_ she did in her life, it was _never_ good enough? By Tonks's ability to justify this in her mind, the way she saw it, Norah Jameson should have been relieved and happy with how Tonks and Ollie handled the situation.

She'd dealt with it the best way she knew how given she'd been kind of wandless at the time. She had refused to give up Norah and Remus's location to those _animals_. Besides, if Tonks had yelled out for Lupin or Norah to save her, they would all be dead by now, since that would have alerted the centaurs to another presence in the Forest, their territory or not be damned, though, on that regard, Tonks couldn't say.

She had no bloody idea where in the Forbidden Forest they were, only that she wanted to get out and marry Lupin before anything _else_ could bloody happen to her.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and shivered, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle to keep herself warm, though Ollie had taken off his cloak and had insisted she take, saying he had no need for it and couldn't in good conscience wear it to stay warm when his best friend was pregnant and freezing in this cold, dark forest. The young witch was grateful, at least, that Norah had managed to wave her wand and give Tonks a fresh change of clothing.

Now dressed in black skinny jeans and boots, with a long-sleeved black shirt that would keep her warm better than the red shirt she'd worn when she'd made her escape with Ollie from Barty Crouch's estate, it was a much better choice and already, Tonks could feel some warmth start to return.

She raked her fingers through her shoulder-length wavy hair, a dark brown chocolate color this morning, flecked with streaks of butterscotch and blonde highlights to give her pale features some warmth. Tonks didn't think she was quite in the mood for pinks and purples today, and more to the point besides, she knew at some point, she and the blonde She-Wolf were going to have to hash things out and talk this thing through.

And in her mind, Tonks thought that Norah Jameson saw her as unprepared and somewhat immature, so maybe that was the reason she had changed her hair color to something more natural and appropriate this morning. She wanted to be taken _seriously_.

Tonks let out a tense sigh and fidgeted with her fingers, twirling the little yellow gold wedding band on her finger, and praying to Merlin they got out of here, and _soon_.

She wondered what would have happened to them all if she had told the centaurs the truth. If Remus and Norah would have been killed. Or maybe, just _maybe_ , there was a slim chance that the group that had taken her would have let her go? Tonks sniffed at that thought, finding it incredibly difficult not to roll her eyes a little bit.

Tonks _highly_ doubted that they would have. And for her part, Tonks had refused to take the easy way out by squealing on their location, Norah, and Remus's.

Instead, she had risked not only her own life but that of her unborn baby's well-being in order to keep Remus and Norah safe. If the centaurs had found them, they would have killed both werewolves and not lost an ounce of sleep over it, either.

Lupin and Norah both with their skilled dueling skills (well, at least Remus was, so far, Tonks had only seen Norah fight with the Sword of Gryffindor, and just that alone was enough to send a chill of fear down her back and beads of sweat start to form on her brow. If she could do all of that with just a sword, then what about her wand?) would have been more trouble than they were worth for the centaurs to keep them.

Remus and Norah weren't at all like Tonks, especially given her weakened physical state and emotionally compromised state of her mind at this point in time. She had never felt so… _weak_ , weak enough to not even be a problem for them, those stupid, vile, boorish, vicious bloody centaurs. The whole group of them was dead.

_Thanks to Norah_ , Tonks thought and clenched her teeth as another shiver of fear traveled its way down her spine at what felt like a petty crawl, a slow snail's pace.

The centaurs had only seemed way too thrilled to enjoy the fact that Tonks was a female, and not strong enough and was at the time being, way too scared to fight back until she was pushed to the brink and over the edge, _forced_ to fight to save Ollie's life.

They surely _had_ to have known that Norah Jameson, that She-Wolf, that _witch_ , who'd lived in the Forbidden Forest just as long as they had, that she would have been too much of a hassle and had proven as such when she'd chopped all their heads off!

Her stomach gave a painful little lurch and twisted, churning as a coil in her gut, and Tonks tasted bile on her tongue, though she swallowed it back down and continued to watch as Norah collected more kindling to tend to their precious fire.

Remus and Ollie had gone off in search of more wood for the fire and something that they could cook for breakfast before starting back down on the path to go and retrieve Umbridge, though Tonks wasn't _fooled_. She'd seen the look in Lupin's eyes earlier.

He knew just as well as Tonks did that the two women needed to hash this thing between them out, and he had shown her a modicum of respect by volunteering to take Ollie to go in search of food to allow the two women a few minutes of privacy.

A noble and somewhat bold gesture on Remus's part, though Tonks highly doubted that it wasn't going to work, as Norah this morning did not especially appear to be in a talkative mood. The young blonde witch and She-Wolf kept grumbling under her breath to herself, occasionally shooting Tonks dirty looks that would have wilted and frozen over a blooming flower, which made Tonks begin to feel uneasy.

Tonks stuck out her bottom lip and bit down hard on it in a slight pout, eyebrows knitted together as she continued to watch Norah's movements from across the campfire pit, hugging her arms around her middle and shrinking into Ollie's cloak for warmth as much as she possibly could, though the cloak did little against the cold.

She couldn't seem to stop her violent shaking spells or the incessant chattering of her teeth.

At this point, though she'd remembered throwing up those damned Bleeding Mulberries, Tonks thought she couldn't be sure if the poisonous berries were still in her system somehow and were affecting her body and already frazzled mind worse than she'd thought. Her shivering could also have manifested from her state of shock, she supposed from nearly having her and her baby been killed, and Ollie too, she thought.

Or maybe it was due to the frigid October air around them. It was hard to tell. Tonks's frown deepened as she thought of the way Norah had spoken to her, the awful dark, fuming look in the young blonde's bright blue eyes, and how she had shoved her. The werewolf seemed to think that she, as an Auror, was stupid and foolish, and had implied that Tonks had no idea of the true implications of the danger she had put herself and her baby in last night.

Though Norah could not have been farther from the truth. She _was_ aware of what those accursed, wretched _beasts_ could have done to her. The leader of the group had certainly made his intentions well known and was _not_ shy about vocalizing what he and the others had planned to do to her and Ollie.

Just knowing that she could have been hurt way worse than she was, and there was every possibility of her baby getting killed in the process of all of this happening was enough to send another feverish, violent tremor down her spine and she whined.

As much as she hated to admit, Tonks recognized that she owed Norah an apology. If the blonde witch wouldn't have found her and Ollie when she had, there was no telling what kind of physical and mental anguish and torment she'd have suffered while in the captivity of the centaurs, and probably would have suffered for days on end before finally— _finally_ —being granted the mercy of a quick, painless death.

Tonks clenched her teeth and glanced nervously to her left and right, both looking for signs of Ollie and Remus's return as well as signs of any more centaurs.

Norah had already proven she could handle her own against three fully-grown adult centaurs, but this time what if _more_ showed up? What if this time, twenty or a hundred showed up? She had no idea how many centaurs even lived in the Forest!

Tonks in her current physical state and the fact that she was a young woman with a pretty face was the ideal kidnapping victim for a herd of ruthless, lustful centaurs looking for something small and helpless to viciously torture and question why they were in their turf. She could not help but wonder if they were to, unfortunately, run into more of them if they would be like the one's Tonks and Ollie had encountered.

Just as violent and savage, and Tonks would almost prefer being quickly murdered as the more favorable ending outcome in an encounter with a herd of centaurs, and she wondered, for the briefest of moments, if Umbridge was suffering.

What they might be putting the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic through, and if it was anything like what those three had tried to do to Tonks, or if, considering Dolores Umbridge's intense prejudices towards all things half-blood and inhuman, if it was worse. Much, much worse. There was a sick part of Tonks's psyche that severely hoped so, considering that Umbridge had tried to rid Tonks of her baby.

While the _other_ part, the humane, forgiving, selfless part, hoped she wasn't. Tonks hadn't really _realized_ this until recently, her exposure to the beasts up to this point has been incredibly limited, but centaurs were probably the most terrifying thing she could imagine next to the giant Acromantula spiders that lived in the Forest.

The things that were rumored to live in this Forest…giant spiders, other werewolves, ones who might not be as kind as Norah or as gentle as her Remus…

Just knowing there were more centaurs out there, who was probably going to be royally ticked when they found the lifeless, decapitated bodies of their comrades near the mouth dwelling of the cave, was enough to make poor Tonks feel sick with dread.

The sound of a leaf and twig crunching underfoot a boot heel caused Tonks to glance up as Norah cautiously and nervously approached her, an apprehensive and reluctant look on her pale face. She flinched, sincerely hoping the She-Wolf didn't scream and yell and shove her again. Tonks had had _more_ than enough manhandling.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as the blonde's inquisitive, sharp blue eyes like that of a hawk's met her gaze, and she swallowed down nervously past a growing lump in her throat. The way Tonks saw it and ran through it in her mind, she was justified in her actions last night.

She'd really only _had_ two choices: run towards Norah and Remus while they were sleeping, and probably get all three of them killed in the process, or run away from them both and likely only get herself killed by the centaurs.

Either way, Tonks _still_ firmly believed that she had made the right choice and had to stick by her resolve, no matter what new claims the werewolf would unload on her, and Tonks stiffened as she felt a muscle in her jaw and behind her eyelid twitch.

Norah and Remus had been asleep at the time the centaurs had noticed her. Both of them upon waking up would likely have been dazed and confused, and way too groggy to just grab their wands and start dueling a small group of three centaurs. How, Tonks wondered, could she have worked it out so that by leading the centaurs towards Norah and Remus, it would have given her a better chance at escape? Such an act would have been cowardly and selfish, something that she did not condone at all given her work as an Auror for the Ministry. No. Way. Anything she could to save her fiancé's and Norah's life, she would do it, after everything so far…

Tonks frowned as she was able to recognize that Norah had been right in that it was usually best to face adversaries and enemies as a group when it was at all possible, but sometimes that just wasn't an option, and last night, she didn't have a choice at all!

Norah stood up slowly from her position in a crouch as she had knelt to tend to the fire, occasionally sending a burst of flame from her wand to make the fire higher.

The young blonde She-Wolf looked down her slender, petite nose at Tonks before speaking, and thank Merlin, the edges of her tone this morning were not as hardened, nor was her voice curt and clipped, which suggested to Tonks she was not about to be on the receiving end of yet another lecture for her actions last night, for which Tonks was immensely grateful. She already felt guilty enough as it was, really.

"Do you…do you think that we could talk, you and me? I—I have something that I think I need to say, and I think you need to allow me to say it, Miss Jameson," Tonks asked nervously, and she was not at all surprised to see the young blonde flinch.

The thirty-year-old She's Wolf's reaction was, as Tonks supposed she ought to have suspected, was an instant weariness and a dimming in her brilliant blue eyes.

Tonks watched as Norah's posture stiffened, and she seemed to shrink into her black leather jacket for warmth, and she heard herself let out a sigh of exasperation.

"You could have left me out there in that cave to die, you know," Tonks began hesitantly, glancing down and fidgeting with her yellow gold wedding ring. Her words were soft, unassuming, and carried, she hoped, no hint of blame towards Norah now.

And despite the coldness of Norah's cerulean blue orbs, she continued to keep her gaze fixated on the young blonde as she studied Jameson with a cautious, raised brow. She did not want her words to lose any semblance of meaning. She meant this.

Tonks watched with furrowed brows as Norah's posture immediately stiffened, and her gaze hardened, her stance becoming more guarded, and Tonks caught the unmistakable flickering and shadow of the Wolf that Norah really was as the dark look flitted across the young blonde's pale features. Though, Tonks swore that as Norah blearily lifted her gaze to regard the young Auror in silence for a good long moment, her tough expression, once so certain and solid, cracked and crumbled slightly under the look that Tonks was currently giving Norah, and she could tell Norah felt unhinged.

The tough, glistening look soon gave way to a look that Tonks could only describe as bewilderment and confusion as the emotions touched Norah's blue orbs.

Tonks drew in a sharp breath of cool fall air, and though the young witch was intrigued by the blonde werewolf's countenance, this sudden shift in her behavior, she said nothing and chose to ignore and pretend that she did not see the look in her eyes.

Tonks rose to her feet, rolling her neck to crack it, before moving to sit on the same log next to Norah, daring to scoot a fraction of an inch closer, desperate to try to make that kind of connection. She did not know how, but she knew that she had to _try_. If nothing else, then she owed to Remus to at least try to understand Norah better. Norah was, like it or not, their only hope of getting Umbridge back alive and hopefully, relatively unharmed, though Tonks would be first to admit she deserved it.

Tonks sighed and continued, playing with her pinkish tipped fingers to keep them warm. "But you didn't leave me or Ollie to die in that cave, Miss Jameson," Tonks continued seriously and with just the briefest tinges of affection in her tone. "You killed those centaurs when you knew the dangers associated with the risks. You brought me back, helped treat my wounds. Saved my baby. After all the trouble I've caused you, you still saved my life." Tonks felt her words and her breaths catch in her throat and fought back the urge to toy with her wedding ring out of a nervous habit. "I have not once deserved your kindness, but I want you to know that I'm grateful for it."

Tonks dipped her head and bit down on her bottom lip in a slight pout, nervously playing with the cuticles of her thumbs, not sure how Norah would react.

Her words were spent, and she felt as if she had nothing more to give or say. Tonks had hoped, at the very least if nothing else, that she'd steered the conversation in the right direction, though now as her words were left hanging in the crisp fall air between the two young witches, for the thirty-year-old werewolf to forgive her.

Or at _least_ address and acknowledge her, that Tonks was willing to try, though she knew better than most, as did Remus did, that nothing else was going to be resolved if Norah did not want to talk, though the young blonde spoke after a minute.

"We're going to need to try to do something to bring your fever down," Norah spoke up in a soft, dulcet tone, folding her arms across her chest and zipping up her black leather jacket. "I'll build up this fire and you'll be warmer in no time. Promise."

"You sure that's a good idea, Jameson?" Tonks frowned, pursing her lips into a thin line. "What if…" Her voice broke and she hesitated. She didn't want to appear any more scared than she already felt, but neither did she particularly relish the idea of another unexpected visit from yet more centaurs. "What if there are more of them?"

But Norah immediately shook her head in response to Tonks's concerns at the possibility of another herd of centaurs in the nearby vicinity. "There _aren't_. Trust me. I would hear them," she added, shooting a wolfish grin Tonks's way as one of her slightly pointed, almost elfin-like ears gave a twitch and she froze and became stock still, and for a moment, Tonks felt a stab of a fear prick at her heart as Norah became unmoved.

Though Tonks allowed herself to relax when she saw Norah's shoulders slump.

"It's just your mate stepping on a twig." She paused, closing her eyes, and her pointed ears gave another cute little twitch. "And a chipmunk rustling in the brush. They're getting us some food. I don't think you need to worry, Miss Tonks. If any more centaurs come, I'll protect you. We won't have to worry about them, Tonks."

Her blue eyes drifted, somewhat uneasily, towards the sword of Gryffindor, which had not left Miss Jameson's side once throughout the entire night. She'd been careful to always keep it on hand, though she had no sheath in which to keep it.

Tonks carefully nodded, though something about the tinge of melancholia in the young blonde's tone gave the young Auror pause, and before she could stop herself, the question that had been burning on the tip of her tongue ever since meeting her poured out, unchecked from her lips, and as the words left her mouth, Tonks flinched slightly.

"Why do you hate her so much? Umbridge. I can see it in your eyes and on your face whenever I bring her up, you hate her, but…what has she done to you? You hate her, and I can't help but wonder… _why_?" Tonks asked, leaving her question hanging uncomfortably in the air for what felt like several long, awkward minutes.

To her surprise, as Norah sat down on the log on the opposite end of the fire, just across from Tonks, the young blonde groaned and thumped her palm alongside her face in exasperation. "It is…not a pleasant story, Tonks, but…if it helps you to understand." She swallowed nervously and coughed once to clear her throat, glancing down at her long nails and absentmindedly began to preen at them, picking at them.

When she spoke again, Norah kept her gaze fixated on the fire's flames so she wouldn't have to look Tonks in the eye. She exhaled a shaking breath and spoke softly.

"I wasn't much older than you at the time. Twenty-six, I think. I can't remember, it's been a few years now, but to me, it feels like…just _yesterday_ , really. I met my husband, Wes, when the two of us were in our seventh year at Hogwarts. I _saved_ his sorry _ass_ when he got into a squabble with another wizard once he found out what he was. The other wizard had conjured a leash and collar with his wand and was humiliating Wes, trying to strangle the poor Ravenclaw with it to death in the courtyard, calling him a _dog_ , saying that he should parade him around like his little _pet_ for all to see," Norah growled angrily. "He—Wes was like me, a Wolf too, and some of the students didn't take too kindly to have us on Hogwarts Grounds, mingling with _normal_ witches and wizards."

The note of bitterness in Norah's voice was almost unmistakable, and Tonks felt her heartstrings give a painful lurch. She didn't know how she knew but considering Norah had a run-in with Umbridge at some point in her life, and she was up to this point in the short time of knowing each other, reluctant to talk about, that her story did _not_ have a happy ending. Norah drew in a shaking breath and reluctantly continued.

Tonks coughed once to clear her throat and nervously pointed towards the sword of Gryffindor. "You um, weren't sorted into Gryffindor by any chance?" She managed a nervous little chuckle and reached up a hand to tuck a stray strand of her hair back behind her ear. "That's…that was really _something_ last night. I've seen plenty of duelists in my time _and_ fights, but I don't think I've _ever_ seen someone decapitate someone's head off with the sword of Gryffindor. That was a _first_ , Norah, truly," Tonks murmured softly, recollecting seeing Jameson decapitate three centaurs' heads from their bodies with nothing but pure skill and an instinct for survival. No magic. Just pure talent. Norah blinked, her gaze following Tonks's as her blue eyes rested on the sword.

"I was," Norah muttered, though her blue eyes glazed over at the admission of the truth. She sighed and raked her fingers through her blonde pixie before continuing.

"Wasn't long after we graduated that we married and had a son. Jax," she murmured, lowering her voice an octave and something in her tone softened a little. "Whenever I was around my family, I forgot how the rest of the wizarding world saw us. I forgot about _everything_ except for Wes and Jax," Norah explained, her gaze lowering a bit, and her fingers fidgeted with the plain silver wedding ring she wore on her hand. Tonks noticed this, and how her blue eyes softened and looked affectionately at it, though she made no comment, sensing that there was more to Norah's story now.

Her voice cracked and broke, though she tampered down the urge to burst into tears, blinking them back. "They made me forget about everything. The horrible names that people called us once they found out about our…our _problems_ ," she grumbled. "How we were always waiting for them to scream at us, call us names, try to cage us. But we didn't get it, at least not when we lived in our home, in Scotland in the hills. Until…Umbridge found out about our marriage and our son. We—we didn't register for her ridiculous Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act and the two of us married illegally…"

Tonks frowned, seeing those gravity-drawn shoulders of Norah's painting a picture of the young woman's heart as if neither her heart nor her soul would welcome a beat from that stubborn corded muscle within her chest.

She could see it all in Norah's eyes, that her mind had built some new walls with her so lonely on the other side as she kept people at arm's length. She hoped that in time, Norah would allow Tonks to give her a chance, to tear down this brick wall bit by bit and start to treat her as something of a friend to her. Maybe. Previously, she'd believed Norah Jameson to be rather cold and heartless, given the hostile way that Norah treated her and Remus.

Treating them as burdens, inconveniences in her life, having to save them, and guide them through the worst of the Forbidden Forest in order to get Umbridge back.

Norah's blue eyes shifted to the side again and stared into the depths of the fire as though she could not see Tonks, and her eyes had become glazed, blinking back the onset of briny tears that threatened to escape the confines of her lids, revealing her mood.

This was perhaps the first time Tonks had seen Norah exhibit any sense of vulnerability or emotion other than pure rancor and disdain towards Tonks and Remus.

To see her like this was very, _very_ new, and almost unheard of. No doubt this was a painful story for her to tell, and Tonks did not blame the young German woman in the slightest for burying this part of herself deep within, but still…she wanted to hear.

Norah bit her lip tightly in an attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from her mouth, and Tonks felt her heart sink to the pit of her churning stomach that she knew had nothing to do with the cup of stew she'd been forced to eat this morning.

Her lower lip quivered as the next words slowly made their way out of her mouth. "My…my son, my husband, that old _bitch_ , she…she…" she began, yet what followed was engulfed in a single tremor as she ground her teeth in anger and hurt.

"It's all right, Norah," Tonks uttered in what she hoped was a soothing voice. "You don't have to continue if telling the rest of your story makes you uncomfortable."

" _No_." The single word escaped Norah's lips as a low, wolfish growl, and Tonks shivered, knowing better than to interrupt the young blonde. "It's—it's all right," she stammered, her pale face now flushed a deep crimson red, though whether it was out of a sense of embarrassment at almost breaking down in front of Tonks or something else, something that Norah was not vocalizing her discomfort with to her, she didn't know.

"Tell the rest," Tonks urged in a voice that she hoped was not unkind, though by this point in the conversation her curiosity was piqued, and she wanted to hear it.

"Umbridge came to our home with a team of Aurors in the middle of the night, told me what would happen to us, to my family, if we refused to register under her act. I—I refused. And first," Here, Norah pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger as she swallowed down past the lump in her throat. "Umbridge had the two Aurors hold down my husband. My—my sweet Wes, and…she slit his throat. Though when she got to my son, my precious little _boy_ , h—he was only _one_ , Jax was, a—and… she thought that a 'lesson' needed to be learned here, and I must not tell _lies_ , and I had told one by refusing to register myself and Wes under her _stupid_ fucking legislative bill," Norah whisper hissed her statement through her ground and clenched teeth. "She—she had one of the Aurors drag me outside, while she took my son by his arm. He—Jax was only _one_ , a—and he didn't _fucking know_ what was happening to him and he didn't even have time to _scream_ before Umbridge bashed his head against the bark of a tree. He—Jax didn't have a chance to call for me to help. She—she made me _watch_ , and the last thing that _bitch_ said to me before she Disapparated, leaving me with my son and husband's bodies, was to think about what I had done, that my actions have consequences, the next time I chose to disobey Ministry standard procedure."

Norah's head lowered, and Tonks couldn't be sure, but she could have sworn she heard the young werewolf whimper, much the way a dog would when injured.

She coughed, feeling as though her throat were suddenly tightening and constricting, cutting off her ability to breathe. When she lifted her head and bared her canines at Tonks, there was such an immense look of heartbreak, Tonks couldn't stand it, and as her lips parted open, she said the first thing that came to her shocked mind.

"I—I would have _killed_ her if she—if she did that to me. Oh, my _Merlin_ , Norah, how have you managed all these years? I—I can't even fathom what that must be like for you. How did you not…how have you been able to go on?" Tonks cried, blinking back tears. Norah blearily lifted her head and regarded Tonks, not bothering to flick back the single tear that rolled gracefully down her pale cheek as she sniffed once, twice.

"I—I _haven't_ ," she croaked hoarsely. The pain laced throughout her voice was so great, heavy enough that Tonks immediately felt guilty for thinking of Norah as heartless. Their conversation didn't exactly make her feel any better, and now… _this_.

"I-I had no idea," Tonks cried, flicking back her tears with a practiced flick of her finger. "If I had, if you would have been honest, I _never_ would have suggested…"

But Tonks's voice cracked, and her voice trailed off, and she didn't finish her sentence. If she would have known right from the start, Tonks might have been inclined to agree with Norah and Remus and allow Dolores Jane Umbridge to rot in the forest.

It seemed to take Norah Jameson several minutes to find her voice, and when she did, her German accent was so soft, so faint, that Tonks thought she hadn't spoken at all. "It is all right," Norah murmured gravely. "You did not know the truth, and you couldn't have known my reasonings until this point, but _don't_ change the subject. You're a curious witch, Miss Nymphadora Tonks," Norah murmured, fidgeting with the hilt of the sword of Gryffindor as she rested the weapon between her feet.

Though her tone was bordering on biting, Tonks could swear as the young blonde lifted her gaze and reached up a hand to brush her bangs off her forehead, that there was…something else lingering within, though what it was, she didn't know.

"Given your pregnancy, for the first fight with less than a full herd of centaurs, you did well." Norah almost snorted as she heard Tonks make an odd strangled noise at the back of her throat. She did not necessarily blame Dora for such a reaction, given her own behavior towards the witch and her mate and the kid hadn't spoken kindly of her. Norah shifted at the waist slightly and turned to regard Tonks in silence a moment. The young blonde witch did not miss the careful way that Tonks's injured hand curled instinctively into a loose fist, where it rested idly on her lap, shaking a bit.

Despite being prepared for expecting the young Auror to possibly not trust her fully yet, Norah could not help but feel a strange sense of antagonizing hurt within.

Remus Lupin had not been wrong last night in his assumption that Tonks, to some extent, was _afraid_ of her, and she would have to choose her words carefully to avoid inflicting any further emotional damage on an already fractured, shattered mind.

Norah let out a soft hiss as she was able to recognize that something within her expression must have relayed her overall awareness of the simple observation, because Tonks made a habit of flexing her fingertips, removing her arm from the sling Lupin had given her, and chucking it to the ground, crinkling her nose in utter disgust for it. She let out a sigh and raked her fingers through her short blonde pixie cut, finding it difficult to look Tonks in the eye, though still, she had to at least try to.

"Miss Tonks," Norah began gently, purposefully lowering her voice. "I know that my behavior towards you and your mate and now this Ollie friend of yours has been rather cold and less than desirable as of lately. My actions don't reflect well on my personality, and for that, I…I'm _sorry_ ," she murmured, speaking the words through gritted teeth, as though just uttering the apology was causing her pride great pain.

She lifted her head and flinched, seeing Tonks's purple, bruised wrist, and she could have sworn she saw her own claw marks near her collarbones from last night, where she'd grabbed onto Tonks and had shaken her in a fit of unbridled anger. "I—I did not _mean_ this," Norah murmured, lowering her head, not seeing that Tonks was continuing to frown as Norah Jameson rose from her spot on the log and beginning to walk away from Tonks, sensing the young witch needed a minute alone.

Tonks offered a mute nod. "I know," Tonks whispered hoarsely. "I…forgive you," she said softly and offered the young blonde She-Wolf a seemingly small smile.

Small and slightly twitching, but a genuine smile, nonetheless. It was good enough for Norah for now, who returned the smile and turned her back on Tonks.

"Tonks," Norah spoke up after a moment, glancing back towards the fire she had carefully built, just as Ollie and Remus were spotted in the not-so-distant clearing, with what looked like a dead rabbit or two in their hands. Not much, but better than nothing. She must have noticed that Dora was growing worried at the thought of more centaurs popping up without any warning. "You're going to be all right. You should sleep. And finish that. _All_ of it," Norah growled lowly, jerking her head towards the chipped mug of makeshift vegetable stew clutched in Tonks's hand. "You're eating for two, remember. I won't have either one of you starving to death in this damned forest. Just…try to get some rest. I won't let anything else get to you. I solemnly _swear_ it."

Tonks nodded, still not fully convinced, her mind feeling like it was reeling. She hadn't known of Norah's backstory with Umbridge, how the Senior Undersecretary had brutally murdered her husband and one-year-old son, and if she had known…

Then she never would have suggested this, but it was already too late to turn back now, though her temper swelled and bristled at the thought of what happened.

She hoped that Umbridge rotted in Azkaban Prison in a cell for the rest of her miserable, wretched life, as a minimum. Though Tonks was too exhausted and hurt to keep herself awake for too much longer. She didn't necessarily want to fall asleep, per se, for a strange fear that she'd wake up to more centaurs all around her, but she supposed that she could rest her eyes, just for a minute, once she finished the stew.

Once she'd finished her cup of stew and set the mug down by her feet, she was barely aware of Lupin moving to sit next to her, pulling her close and allowing her head to rest against the crook of his shoulder, only faintly hearing his murmured words of love as he whispered them into the shell of her ear, urging her to get a little bit of sleep.

So, she rested her head against Remus's chest and allowed her eyes to close…

* * *

A few hours later, Norah furrowed her brows into a frown as she restlessly paced the forest floor of their campsite, back and forth she went until she knelt down in front of the young witch. Tonks was apparently asleep, as was her mate, but shivering as she rested against Lupin's chest, and Norah squinted her blue eyes in contemplative thought, pondering.

Resting up against the bark of a shaded elm tree like this for the two of them didn't look particularly comfortable, and Tonks, despite Lupin giving her his cloak, was still cold, judging by the way she kept shivering and twitching slightly in her uneasy sleep.

Her frown deepening, the young blonde werewolf reached her hand out to feel the young witch's forehead, hoping that most of her fever had dissipated by this point.

Tonks's skin was still warmer and feverish-feeling than Norah would have liked, but hopefully, Lupin's cloak and just the heat emanating from his own body as he cradled the young witch in his arms, both of them sound asleep, would quell her fever.

It was when Norah pulled her hand off Tonks's forehead that she noticed the young witch flinching slightly under her touch, and she was worried to see the Metamorphmagus's wavy hair change to black in her sleep as she mumbled soft whimpers in her nightmare-induced, uneasy and fitful sleep.

"Ngh…don't… _touch_ him…" Tonks squeaked in a soft voice that sounded out of breath. Norah jerked her hand back as though it had been burned and frowned, wondering if Tonks was speaking to her, telling her not to touch Lupin. "No…leave…Ollie…alone…horse's _ass_ …let go of him. Told you...truth..." she groaned in a soft, meek, shaking voice.

"Tonks, you're _okay_. You're all right," Norah murmured in a quiet voice, trying her best to assure the sleeping young witch of her safety, all while hoping not to wake up Remus, given that the man himself hadn't slept much over the last several hours, and she hoped to break Tonks out of whatever vicious nightmare that she was enduring.

"Norah…?" Tonks's voice sounded so hurt and utterly confused, and the young blonde She-Wolf could swear, she was sure, yes, she was sure, she saw tears building up underneath the witch's closed and fluttering eyelids. Norah frowned and let out a sigh.

She slumped in between Tonks and Remus, wedging herself in between the two, careful not to wake either one of them, and she _almost_ snorted as she saw Ollie sleeping steadily across the way. All of them were asleep except for her, though she couldn't.

As gently as she could, she rested her hand on the witch's shoulder, wondering what the hell prompted her in sleep to involuntarily change her pixie from the simple brown it had been to almost a jet black in color. "Everything's okay," she promised her. Norah didn't want to wake up Tonks if she didn't have to, but if Tonks was going to continue to act like this, she thought she'd have no choice but to wake her and Lupin up. Neither of them would get any rest if she were plagued by nightmares.

Luckily for her, Norah's gentle words, coupled with her soft, sometimes soothing German accent when she wasn't yelling, seemed to have calmed down Tonks enough.

Norah heaved a heavy sigh as she rested against the bark of the tree, silently observing Tonks. Bruises were all over her battered and beaten body from her run-in with the three centaurs from Astelos's herd. Tonks's face was paler than usual, dotted with small cuts and scratches and markings on both sides, and her bleeding lips looked cracked.

It pained her to think that members of Astelos's own tribe could just hit the poor young woman like that, especially coupled with the fact that she was pregnant, though the three she had encountered back at the mouth of the cave hadn't exactly known that.

Not that it would have done her much good. If anything, their violence upon learning she was pregnant would have only worsened their rancor and wrath towards her.

Tonks's almost strange sense of innocence as an Auror broke Norah's heart. The thought of the young witch alone and wandless, facing three fully-grown centaurs made her blood boil within her veins and caused her to feel a wave of overwhelming hot anger within. The pregnant witch had been completely at the mercy of those brutish animals, who were well-known within the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest to be utter savages.

Centaurs were _cruel_ , and Norah couldn't quite bring herself to comprehend this.

There wasn't nearly enough communication between the two of them, not even after their conversation a half-hour ago by the fire, and Norah would be lying to herself if she did not admit that she did not want anything like this to happen to either one of them again.

Especially given her current physical condition, Tonks needed to understand that whenever she kept watching, she could and should always call out for help if she saw something that was a potential cause for alarm. Norah and Remus needed to be made aware of any perceived danger immediately before things were allowed to escalate further.

Exhaling a tired sigh through her nose, she glanced to her left at Lupin, then to her right at Tonks. Like it or not, these two needed to be protected in this damned forest. That much to Norah was clear, they were outsiders. Strangers here, even if neither of them, particularly Tonks, wanted to admit it and ask for help, Norah knew she had to be ready to provide whatever assistance that she could.

The thought of the young witch who was, unbeknownst to her, already worming her little way into the confines of her heart as something akin to the closet thing that Norah could think of as a friend, getting hurt and being in danger like she had last night totally ripped at Norah's hardened heart.

While she'd been incredibly pissed at and frustrated with Tonks for daring to stray off the path of the campsite and into the woods to look for kindling and something to eat and getting the attention of those damned three centaurs, Norah was surprised to find herself growing even angrier with herself by the minute.

She supposed she ought to have been clearer about how a night watch in the Forbidden Forest was supposed to go, though she had been under impression that the young witch was a top-ranking, highly skilled Auror, that Norah had not needed to explain how it was supposed to have gone down.

Though she should have expected as much. Tonks had no wand with which to defend herself, and, from what little she and Remus had told her, that Dark wizard from earlier that the Aurors had arrested had caused her such mental and physical anguish, that Norah was surprised Tonks was still able to carry on as she was insisting that she try to.

Out of everyone here, Tonks was currently the most vulnerable, given that she was pregnant, and Norah could not help but feel a prickling stabbing guilt at her heartstrings, feeling that she should have done even more than she already had to protect her new friend. _Friend_. Just that thought alone plastered a quiet vibration underneath her skin.

_Were_ they friends now? She glanced back towards the young witch, who was now breathing more regularly and softly as she and Lupin slept underneath the shaded tree. It pained her heart almost, to see how much the two loved each other, just as she'd dared to love Wes once. And her sweet little Jax. Both of them ripped apart from her… Norah shook her head and ground her teeth in anger to clear it, determined not to think of them right now.

She couldn't. She needed to get through this trek with a clear head, and thoughts of her dead husband and son would not help her here, right now. Norah forced her attention to return to Tonks's peacefully sleeping form next to Lupin, still worried that Tonks did not see the situation quite like Norah was able to, or the kid.

Her gaze briefly flitted towards Ollie, who stirred from sleep though didn't wake. Both of them had been incredibly lucky to walk out of that cave alive, especially Tonks.

With no other injuries to speak of saving for the dislocated shoulder, broken wrist that had been easily mended by Lupin, both of them, and a few minor cuts and bruises. It was clear that those two could no longer remain ignorant of the brutality and utter viciousness of the race of the centaurs, or even _worse_ , the fucking Acromantula… She swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, wondering if she should tell the others that at some point, they were going to have purposefully trek through the spiders' section of the Forbidden Forest and into their territory in order to reach Astelos.

Norah shook her head. _No. I can't. Telling them would only send them into a panic. No. It's best that they don't know_ , she told herself, as she wildly searched for her resolve. Norah stifled a groan and looked out at the dense, vast Forest ahead of them all, closing her eyes tiredly for a moment and shook her head again in order to clear her mind.

There was no point in staying this way, in remaining angry with herself, and at Tonks. What was done was done, as Lupin had so pointedly told her earlier last night. As long as those three centaurs were dead and the others in Astelos's camps weren't made aware of what had gone down, then the centaurs hopefully were no longer a threat. The _important_ thing was that Tonks, Remus, and Ollie were safe and sound now, and Norah was not going to let something like this happen to them again, no matter what. Even if it cost her own life in doing whatever she could to make that happen for them.

Regardless of her newfound strength and resolve as Norah closed her eyes and allowed her mind to float away, to drift into an unsettled sleep filled with awful dreams, she could not quite shake the feeling of guilt that settled and lingered heavily on her chest.

Like somehow, this was all her fault…

* * *

**A/N: Yaayy the ladies sort of came to an understanding with one another! Sad they killed off Norah's husband and baby! :( Hopefully, Umbridge gets what's coming to her!**


	85. Strangers

** CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE **

Tonks let out a tired groan and forced her eyes open. How long had she been out? Had she even fallen asleep? And if she had, for how long? A half-hour, an hour, five hours?

She couldn't remember, which bothered her. Tonks hadn't exactly _meant_ to pass the hell out, and she recollected at first feeling too terrified to fall asleep, thinking that she should be awake to help Remus, Norah, and Ollie in case more bloody, vicious centaurs showed up.

But it seemed like her exhaustion and aching body had won over her desire to stay awake and try to help wherever she could, though it seemed like Lupin and Norah had things under control.

She blinked as she slowly sat up and took in her unfamiliar surroundings, raking her fingers through her hair as she forced her mind to try to un-muddle itself from her hazy fog of sleep. She frowned, not sure if she felt safe or not.

Or what had happened, and it occurred to her that as she was doing what she always did whenever she was nervous and needed to think, as she carded her fingers through her thick hair, that it was a different color this morning. Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as she glanced down at her outfit.

Someone, hopefully, Norah, had changed her clothes in the middle of the night, and now she was dressed in a long-sleeved black button-down blouse and a pair of black-wash skinny jeans and black boots, and her hair this morning was a luscious chocolate brown color, wavy, and cascaded loosely in soft, gentle, face-framing layers to her shoulders.

Tonks's frown deepened, and she became confused at the change in her appearance this morning. She must have done it to herself in sleep but… _why_?

For what purpose? And _when_? Tonks let out a tired sigh and twirled a lock of dark chocolate wavy hair in her fingers to twist it while she pondered her new appearance.

Normally, she didn't mind changing her appearance on a whim, though involuntarily like this had come as a bit of a shock to her.

Tonks heard herself cough once to clear her throat, and Ollie glanced up from where he sat resting against the bark of an old elm tree, absently preening his fingernails.

He furrowed a quizzical brow in his best friend's way, no doubt have noticed the confused look on Dora's face, and Tonks watched, feeling somewhat relieved, as her best friend relaxed in a wide and bright smile, and his cobalt blue eyes twinkled playfully.

" _Relax_ , T, you're all right. Nothing happened," he reassured, wincing as he uncrossed his legs and rose with a stiff groan to stand up, bringing Tonks a plate of what looked like scrambled eggs. "Here. Eat these. Your Lupin made them, says I'm to make you eat _all_ of it or he'll jinx me with a Bat-Bogey Hex. As for your hair, love, well…you can blame _me_ for this one, Tonks. Not Norah. I suggested you change your appearance while you slept with my… _abilities_ ," he confessed, a pained look in his eyes as he gave his head a tap. "It was _my_ idea, Tonks," he murmured under his breath.

Ollie cast a somewhat distrustful and suspicious glance the young blonde werewolf's way, who was in the midst of eating her own breakfast and conversing with Remus about something, though both their tones were too low for her to make it out.

Sensing that Tonks was still confused as to the sudden change, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

" _Why_?" Tonks pressed, continuing to twirl with a lock of her dark chocolate hair, not really caring that she looked different this morning, or that Norah had changed her clothes, at least they were comfortable, but wanting to know the reason behind it.

"Because we're venturing into the centaurs' territories even further, and Norah is going to be the one to deal with their leader, Astelos. She says you had a run-in with him?"

Ollie smirked and found it difficult to repress his eye-rolling as he watched Tonks's face flush bright pink with shame and embarrassment as visions of the centaur who'd held the knife to her throat flashed in front of the young witch's mind, the very same creature who had ordered and led the attack on the abduction of Dolores Jane Umbridge herself.

Tonks made a non-committal noise that sounded like a grunt at the back of her throat, though she offered no verbal reply, she could tell by the concentrated look on Ollie's face and his furrowed dark brows that the Legilimens was reading her mind.

Ollie snorted and shook his head to clear it, and Tonks was finally able to tear her gaze away from her best friend for a moment as his abilities slowly left him as he forced his mind to focus on other things that Tonks's interpersonal thoughts of those vicious brutes.

"Because Astelos, if I'm getting his bloody name right, is smarter than he looks and is going to recognize you from earlier if you walk into his territory with your love of dark pinks and purples, but _I_ think if you use your Metamorphing abilities to look…like _this_ , then we _might_ stand a chance at getting Umbridge back and he won't recognize you," he mumbled, a pink blush of his own creeping along his cheeks as he gestured wildly with his hands towards Tonks's new natural look, his gaze lingering on her wavy hair, and for a moment, his lips parted open in shock as he stared at his best friend, unable to help it.

He knew Tonks preferred vibrant colored hairstyles but seeing her like this was….

Really something. Even after all this time, and the several years of knowing Dora since their first year of Hogwarts, Ollie Brennan still felt too nervous to eye her for long.

His round, unblinking blue eyes darted from Tonks to the forest floor beneath their boots, but there was no denying the fact that his best friend was a _gorgeous_ woman.

And for just a fleeting moment, he could not help but feel jealous of Lupin, who, he could practically _feel_ the older man's slightly suspicious glower burning a hole in the back of his skull as Ollie watched over Tonks, making sure she ate her scrambled eggs.

The pink sunrise as another day slowly but surely crept over the horizon framed her beautifully, which only made the young witch and Auror look much more ethereal.

A warm feeling rested in his heart as he gazed at Tonks, who remained completely and thankfully oblivious towards Ollie's feelings as she was focused on eating breakfast.

His heart sank and his stomach turned and twisted as he pondered over that thought. Ollie knew that he was holding onto a fool's dream, that she'd see him that way.

Why _should_ she, when she was due to marry _him_ and bear his son or daughter currently growing within her belly?

Ollie felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, though he swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, thinking that he needed to let her go, though he felt like he couldn't.

As much as he needed to, Ollie couldn't.

He ached when he saw Dora's bright white smile. Ollie wanted it to be directed towards him. _For_ him. _Because_ of him. _He_ wanted to be the one to bring her joy, not him.

Be the source of those lit grey eyes and dimpled cheeks, that white, kind smile that always, and even now as she noticed him staring at her, made his heart pound against his chest.

Ollie, throughout the years of their friendship, had watched Tonks bring so much happiness to those around her, and she didn't even realize the effect she had on people.

Feel the warmth she'd given him. He'd taught her how to find beauty in a cruel world. Tonks tried so hard to do well. She worked so damned bloody _hard_ , harder than any other witch Ollie had ever met in his entire, miserable, wretched existence, really.

She fought for every step, even if it wasn't always in the right direction. She wanted to fly and now she was soaring with Remus Lupin as her soon-to-be-husband.

And there was a big part of Ollie that felt afraid for Tonks. That she'd crash, and that Ollie would have to watch it happen to her all over again. He _ached_ to think there was no way for him to help her if she did. He still watched over Tonks. Like right now.

Or even earlier, in her sleep, he'd used his Occlumency skills and tried his hardest to probe into Tonks's mind and send her peaceful images to help her avoid nightmares.

He still watched her. Sometimes, especially right now, it became a source of guilt. If he had no place in Tonks's life anymore, then why did he still follow her around like this? If Tonks noticed, Ollie was scared of what she'd think of him, like really think of him.

And if…if she knew the truth of his feelings, she wouldn't _want_ to be his friend.

He'd never been heartbroken before. For that, Ollie was sometimes glad he knew she wouldn't. They could never be together. Not like _that_. It was probably a good thing.

If he told her the truth, if they… _talked_ , Ollie wondered what Dora would think of him. That's what scared him the most, that this relationship, this friendship, the bond they shared, everything would change.

Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if he would have stayed away from her during Transfiguration the first day of class. Maybe it would be better if Ollie had let Tonks fade from his life, back out of it as she'd never been there.

But he couldn't. He couldn't let this witch go. Not now. So, perhaps against his better judgment, here Ollie sat, watching Tonks finish her eggs.

He knew that to develop an unattainable desire was not at all wise, far from it, really. Ollie knew it when they started.

But he had to keep on moving, and put his feelings for Tonks aside, because it was obvious to him, judging by the ring she wore on her finger, and the affectionate little glances she and Lupin kept shooting each other, that was how it was supposed to be, that Tonks did not care for him in the way that he hoped.

But still, the ache wouldn't _fade_.

Ollie let out a sigh and hesitantly lifted his slightly shaking hand to hers. After a moment, he finally met Tonks's much smaller hand and drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he squeezed his eyes shut, grinding his teeth.

He wasn't even aware of what was happening to him until he heard her gasp. His eyes flung open and he stared, gawking slightly, at the simple beautiful white lily now outstretched in the palm of his hand, pristine and perfect. Such a delicate thing.

Their fingers brushed slightly from the simple interaction as he gave the flower he'd conjured nonverbally to his best friend in the hopes he could lighten her mood, though it was obvious by the startled look on Tonks's face, neither of them had expected the sudden touch between the two friends, and neither did Lupin or Norah, who noticed. Remus's brows were furrowed in a suspicious frown, though he said nothing.

_Good_ , thought Ollie meanly because _nothing_ was going to stop this. Absolutely _nothing_.

He heard Tonks let out a hiss as she pulled her fingers back quickly, though she did not hesitate to take the simple lily in the palm of her hand and finger it tenderly.

Tonks's blue-eyed partner glanced from Tonks back to the flower in her hand, parting his lips to speak. "T...For you," he murmured, trying his hardest to ignore the light blush speckling along his cheeks before turned away and grinding his teeth in annoyance.

He needed to cut this out. Tonks wasn't his, and _never_ could be his. Not like _that_.

Tonks blinked, and then glanced down at the flower in her hand before closing her eyes, furrowing her brows in concentration, and Ollie was surprised to see Tonks's soft display of nonverbal magic as the gentle lily floated into the air above her head for a moment, before perching itself almost delicately so right behind her ear, which set off the dark chocolate hues of her new simple hairstyle.

_"Well_?" she teased. "How does it look?" She smiled kindly at Ollie and glanced down at her lap, all while carefully brushing a lock of her dark brown hair back behind her ear, careful not to upend the little lily.

Ollie froze, biting the inside wall of his cheek, well aware he could feel both Lupin and Norah staring at him, and he flinched as Lupin rose from his perch on the log near the campfire and moved to sit next to Tonks, almost possessively so, like a dog protecting his prized bone.

He _almost_ sneered, though Ollie stopped himself. It wasn't Remus's fault. _Beautiful_ , Ollie said, using his skills in Legilimency to convey what he wanted to say and wanting to keep the moment shared between himself and his friend quite _private_.

Tonks nodded, though she did not offer up a verbal response, telling Ollie everything that he needed to know. That his best friend heard his words and listened.

"Thank you, Ol," she murmured, letting out a sigh as Lupin draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer, and she rested her head on the crook of his shoulder.

Ollie nodded, thinking that Tonks was really pulling out all the stops today, wasn't she? First with her new hairstyle that he had, in a moment of selfishness suggested to her subconsciousness, knowing that Tonks had always balked at natural hair colors, especially the rich chocolate brown that made her resemble her mother, Andromeda, or her aunt, Bellatrix, though Ollie had always thought Tonks's natural hair, as it was right now, gorgeous.

_This_ was the Tonks that he knew and loved, the version that he had fallen in love during their sixth year at Hogwarts.

The version of herself that the young witch tried so hard to repress and hide, by changing her hair by tending to favor the wild, vibrant colors as a means of distancing herself from the Black side of her ancestry.

There was a warmth her brown hair brought to her features, a simple frame for that smile and eyes that held more love than she would ever admit to.

The hue altered as the strands curled and moved, as free as autumn leaves playing in the day shine. Her hair was a lovely whisky, the color of fallen leaves browned and sleek with the first rain of autumn.

How such a tint could play with the light, like peering at the sun through a jar of pine honey.

There is beauty in every color of hair, even the greatly despised "mousey brown." That subdued earthy tone was like a song softly played, bringing him to recollections of autumn.

He knew some witches had hair with brighter tones, inflections of vibrant red or gold streaks that catch the sunlight, he loved those too.

But Merlin's green earth herself has a beauty not to be ignored and to wear the color of her soils was an honor, not a misfortune, and it was that selfish reason alone that he had asked Tonks while she slept to look like this.

To look upon her as she was, _naturally_ , not hiding behind the mask that she wore for others, and he could tell that, while her partner, Lupin, was surprised by the change, even Ollie could tell the werewolf appreciated the change, as the man reached back and brushed a lock of her dark brown shoulder-length hair off of Tonks's shoulders.

Ollie could not even to this day fathom what pulled him towards her presence. Tonks was like a magnet, her polarity still going strong, and he felt gravitated towards her. All his life and even now he was judged for what he was.

A Slytherin, coming from a family of snakes in the night, an entire group of Death Eaters. But not Ollie, the black sheep of the family, who'd adamantly _refused_ to serve under Lord Voldemort's thumb.

They had tried to plead their case, insisting he would want for nothing, the master dueler that he was, that he had a natural talent for dueling in addition to his Occlumency.

The former Slytherin had defied his family and was disowned in his fifth year as a result. He'd gone to live with Tonks and her parents, having nowhere else to go.

This beautiful, compassionate witch saw him for what Ollie really was.

A strong, sensitive, caring man who happened to be more comfortable with a wand in his hand than around women.

He emanated a tense exhale as he recognized his presence, for the moment, at least, was no longer needed, and he furrowed his brows in a frown as he turned away.

_What could a guy like me ever really offer? Why should I even bother with her_?

Shoving his hands and balling them into fists in the pockets of his set of thick woolen black robes to keep from striking out at something in anger, he let out a sigh and walked away.

"I'm…going to get some air," he grumbled, hardly aware of the blonde She-Wolf watching him, her blue eyes meeting his own with a sense of critical interest.

"In the _forest_? Oh, _yeah_ , kid, because fresh air in the Forbidden Forest is _so_ hard to come by," Norah scoffed, her gaze briefly flitting towards the dense canopy above her.

Ollie bristled, fully tempted to tell the thirty-year-old witch to quit calling him kid, he was twenty-six, and only four years younger than she was, _not_ a kid, he was an _adult_ and was half of a mind to embarrass the werewolf in front of the others by telling Lupin and Tonks her dark secret. That she did, in her own way, find him kind of cute.

But he didn't. He couldn't. "Whatever," he heard himself grumble in a dark voice laced with a sense of bitterness and jealousy that did not sound like himself at all. Not a bit. Ollie didn't even have to glance behind him to sense that Tonks was hurt right now.

And she would blame herself for what he was feeling, whatever…whatever that was. He didn't even know himself, and he thought he really needed to sort this thing out.

_Soon_ too if the looks that Remus Lupin was currently shooting him were any indication. Ollie let out a tired sigh and froze when Remus murmured something in Tonks's ear, whispering into the shell of her beautiful ear before he rose to his feet.

Ollie inwardly groaned. He really did not want to deal with Lupin. Not right now. "I…" he started to say, though Brennan fell silent when Lupin held up his hand.

"There's no need. I wondered if you and I could speak in private a moment? Not to worry, Miss Jameson," Remus added, no doubt having noticed the young blonde's pointed ears perk up in interest and her nose give a little twitch as she rested against the elm tree. "We won't be long and then…whatever you wanted to say to him in private, you can…"

Norah's eyes widened, and her lips parted open to speak, and Ollie barely repressed his snort of amusement. Lupin wasn't even a Legilimens like _he_ was, but the unspoken words must have lingered in the young blonde's brilliant blue eyes, for she furrowed her brows into a frown and nodded, biting down on her bottom lip in anger.

The She-Wolf quickly composed herself and folded her arms across her chest, though not before offering Ollie a curt, and somewhat suggestive wink.

"Fine, Lupin, but don't take too long. We've got maybe a few more hours to rest before we'll have to get moving, and..other things seem to be on your mind this morning. I don't want the centaurs catching up to us. There's a good chance they _know_ ," she added, a dark look overcoming her features.

Ollie didn't even have to read Norah Jameson's mind to tell the she-werewolf was thinking of the ones she'd killed.

Ollie smiled, and Norah almost startled at the simple but kind enough gesture.

Her heart fluttered unexpectedly as Ollie's white smile caught Norah by surprise. The kid really did look better when he smiled and wasn't so miserable and mopey all the time.

He simply nodded to her and allowed Lupin to lead Ollie slightly away from the campsite, but not so far off the beaten path that Norah and Tonks couldn't see them at all.

A hesitant smile played on Norah's features, the edges of her lips curling upwards. The kid's smile was kind of contagious, she'd give Mr. Brennan that much, at the least.

Norah thought it kind of strange how she'd known the younger man a total of a day at best, maybe a day and a half, it was hard to keep track the passage of time in this bloody Forest, even for her, who'd lived most of her damn life in this wretched place.

Less than a day, and already, Tonks's new friend was already leaving an impression on her. As the time had passed, the overwhelmed man and Obscurus was slowly finding it easier to look upon Norah for more extended periods of time.

_Huh. What a guy_ , Norah thought to herself in amusement as she leaned against the tree, one leg crossed over the other, ignoring the questioning look that Tonks was giving her as she eyed her friend.

Ollie risked one more glance back over at Norah Jameson, intrigued by her sudden interest. He could sense the first few times he had dipped into the young blonde's mind, unbeknownst to Tonks, for he knew the Auror would give him seven shades of holy hell about it if she knew what he had done while he'd watched the blonde She-Wolf sleep this morning before the sun rose, that Jameson carried a deep hurt and immense pain within herself.

Though her business was _hers_. Ollie jumped and glanced at Tonks the second he heard her voice inside his head, giving him one last piece of advice as he allowed Lupin to lead him away, wondering if the werewolf meant to kill him right now.

A surprisingly gentle breeze blew through the clearing around them. It felt cool and inviting, refreshing to Ollie's shattered spirit and frayed nerves. He could not help but get the sinking feeling in his churning stomach that Lupin was about to warn him.

To stay away from Tonks, or else… _Or else, what_? He would kill him, then?

_Don't let Remus intimidate you, Ollie_ , Tonks warned, squeezing her eyes shut, though when she opened them, Lupin and Ollie were nowhere in her line of sight.

Ollie sighed through his nose and nodded, glancing at Tonks before returning his attention to the young blonde thirty-year-old, whose expression had softened just slightly.

Enough for him to notice. He watched as Norah deepened her lean against the bark of the tree that she was seeking shade under, her inquisitive, sharp blue eyes never leaving him.

The surprised man blinked hard and fast as his blush deepened as their eyes met and their gazes locked. He was well aware he knew Jameson thought he was cute.

But…he knew…she was stopping him from acting on it. Until he could put Tonks behind him, he couldn't do that to Norah. To use her like that to his advantage.

It wouldn't be fair. To her _or_ himself. He huffed in frustration, feeling like his heart was thrumming and hammering against his chest, though whether out of a sense of strange elatedness that another witch thought he was handsome, which never happened.

All his life, he was scorned for what he was. A Dark Wizard. But for some reason, this blonde She-Wolf did not see him as such.

His damned heart beat so loudly within the confines of his chest that he was surprised Norah couldn't hear it, and he took a hitched breath as he pulled his gaze away.

If Lupin noticed Ollie's sudden discomfort as he led him further down the side path, then Remus made no mention of hearing it at all.

No matter how long he gazed back at Jameson, the former Slytherin and broken man could not find a single strand of distaste, fear, or skittishness in her bright blue eyes.

His head felt like it was spinning and reeling from all the blood rushing to his cheeks. He really needed a moment, though it seemed Fate, that cruel bastard, had a different kind of a 'moment' in mind for him.

Mainly, one _alone_ with Tonks's fiancé.

_Great_. That wasn't particularly a conversation he was looking forward to having. No doubt the man was about to unload and unleash a series of claims that were all _his_ fault.

"I'll uh…see you…in a second?" Ollie grumbled, moving to step forward to follow Lupin, addressing Norah and Tonks simultaneously, but was tripped by his cloak.

He would have fallen had Lupin not shot out an arm to catch him. Yet another thing he owed the man for, Ollie thought, disgruntled. He hated owing Lupin _anything_.

Norah, for her part, held back a tiny snort as she watched the blue-eyed tall man stumble over his words, and himself as well, though a small part of her found it charming.

She pressed her cheek into her palm, an affectionate smile snaking its way onto her pale face. Norah could have sworn, not paying attention as Tonks rose from her spot on the log and moved to stand next to Norah, that Ollie Brennan looked back at her.

_Hell of a start to this day_ , Ollie grumbled darkly to himself internally as he followed Remus, not sure what the man wanted of him or what kind of dialogue the two were about to have as words were sure to be exchanged, though he sensed it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Unbeknownst to him, the young blonde werewolf watching them go had the same thought, feeling rather flustered and not at all like herself.

_What a morning…_ Norah thought to herself before turning back around to join Tonks at the campfire, not knowing that Tonks was thinking the exact same thing as them.

* * *

**A/N: What do you guys think of Tonks's new look? :D I kind of always wanted to address her Metamorphing as a way that she hides behind her abilities as a sort of facade, wanting to hide how much she looks like her mother/Bellatrix, but also I want her to be able to be comfortable in her own skin.**

**Though there is a method to Ollie's madness in regards to Tonks changing her appearance, it's not all just for him and it comes up later in a future chapter . :)**

**Will Lupin be furious with Ollie, or will the two men be able to come to a reconciliation regarding each other's feelings for Tonks? And how do you think Ollie will inevitably react to the news that Tonks and Remus's wedding is happening much sooner than he thought?!**

**Coming up in Ch. 86 :)**


	86. To Talk as Friends

** CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX **

Ollie wasn't exactly sure that he would ever fully get used to _not_ hearing Master Crouch's screaming voice in his eardrums, or on those relatively short occasions where Crouch had been in a _good_ mood, the dry, uncaring voice that filled his wretched ears.

How people like Remus Lupin and Norah Jameson now looked at him like he was 'normal', just like any other witch or wizard they might pass by in the streets of Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.

Given that most of the world, at least the limited view while he'd been trapped inside of Crouch's estate, only knew him as the Obscurus, this felt…strange.

To be _free_. To sleep underneath an open sky, no walls, no prison cages. To be able to walk through Hogwarts the moment they got out of this damned bloody cursed Forbidden Forest as a free man was positively exhilarating, just the thought of it.

The former Slytherin student and Nymphadora Tonks's former partner flushed as Lupin paused, finally deeming the two men a safe enough distance away from whatever was about to transpire between the older man and the younger.

Ollie bit the wall of his cheek and frowned. He had hoped by this point in their relatively short, what, week and a half of knowing one another, if even that, the two men could have worked aside their bloody differences.

His heart still wrenched painfully and pounded against the confines of his chest when he thought of the thirty-five-year-old werewolf now standing in front of him with an unusually nervous and somewhat apprehensive expression on his handsome but prematurely lined face _touching_ Tonks, _kissing_ her, the way he wanted to, well, this caused resentment to well as putrid black vile deep within his wretched heart.

"This is far enough," Remus spoke up in a voice that sounded uncharacteristically cold, and Ollie stiffened, biting the inside wall of his cheek. "You and I need to _talk_."

Ollie merely grunted by way of verbal response. _No, I don't think we do_ , he thought inwardly, feeling grateful, at the very least, that Dora's new partner was not a Legilimens.

He had nothing to say to this werewolf in front of him. What would he even say that he was _jealous_ of Lupin? That he had the one thing in life Ollie never _would_? He offered the werewolf a light shrug of his shoulders.

He recognized he needed to at least humor the Wolf. "Sure," he growled, recognizing almost immediately that his tone sounded curt. Cold and uninviting.

And Tonks, it was bloody hard to believe by Merlin's Beard, was _in love_ with this man. Was having a _baby_ with this man in front of him. Ollie flinched, clearing his throat, and trying again, resting against the bark of a tree.

Lupin scowled, knitting his brows together in quandary and frowning as he contemplated how to phrase whatever was on his mind. Ollie didn't even have to dip into his mind to know for a fact what was on Remus Lupin's mind: Him stealing Tonks.

"I just think you'll want to hear what I have to say, Mr. Brennan," Lupin began, somewhat hesitantly, though Ollie thought it was strange when the man began to talk.

_No, I really think that I won't_ , Ollie thought bitingly, grinding his teeth, recognizing he was allowing his resentment and bitterness to get the better of him now.

Though he reluctantly found himself unfolding his arms across his chest and let out a sigh as he rested against the bark of an old elm tree for shade, waiting for him to talk, to say his piece, and silently praying to Merlin that whatever words of venom Remus John Lupin was about spout at him here in a second would be over with relatively soon.

Lupin appeared apprehensive and extremely hesitant for a moment or two, before he evidently found his words, and began to speak, his gaze directly and fixed solely on Ollie, never once averting his eyes, no matter how uncomfortable Lupin was becoming. "You _know_ that Tonks, Dora, and I _are_ getting married, Mr. Brennan, right?"

Ollie nodded, though it felt as though it had become difficult for him to breathe, feeling something within his chest tighten and constrict, cutting off the air to his passages. "I—I do," he heard himself croak out in a hoarse and quiet voice.

Ollie had _sworn_ , promised himself, that he would not interfere in Tonks's life when the time came, as he inevitably knew that it would, though he hadn't anticipated it to be so bloody _soon_.

Though he had not anticipated Dora's new partner, this Wolf would do something quite like this. Ollie had hoped that the two of them would have worked out their differences at this point.

He thought that, given everything that happened, how Remus Lupin had thanked him just last night for being there to save Tonks's life from the centaur, that they had.

But he guessed not, not if Remus Lupin would truly demand of him he stays away. Would this werewolf truly be such a vicious bastard, so cruel as to deny him the single pleasure that his wretched and otherwise miserable life held? Of Dora's pure friendship?

_He wouldn't…would he_? Ollie wondered, furrowing his brows in a light frown, and glowering at Remus.

Would he really demand Ollie to stay away from his best friend from now once the two of them were married? And what the hell was he going to do?

Should he speak up right here and now where he stood, and ruin this thing for Tonks, when he had (begrudgingly) come to terms with the fact that she loved another man that wasn't him? No. He couldn't do that to her. Ollie knew couldn't be selfish in that way.

He'd agree to whatever it was that Lupin asked of him. _For Tonks_ , he told himself.

"I'm aware, Mr. Lupin," Ollie heard himself sigh in a tired-sounding, hoarse voice. "Is Dora, I...I mean Tonks, is she aw—aware of your—your plans?" he murmured, ignoring Lupin's surprised and flushed face as the werewolf's lips parted open slightly in outraged shock.

"You _read_ my _mind_?" Lupin asked incredulously, though he paused when Ollie shot him a furtive, guilty look and shrugged his shoulders in a somewhat nonchalant way.

"I can't _help_ it, Mr. Lupin. I can't…shut the voices out. I _wish_ that I _could_ , but I—I _can't_. But you didn't answer _my_ question. I know you sent a Patronus to someone back at the castle this morning before Tonks woke up. Do you mean to marry her _today_? And does Tonks know of your plans? If she doesn't, she _will_ ," Ollie snapped, his temper rising, fully prepared to communicate in his impossible telepathy to Dora of this man's plans.

Lupin nodded, no semblance of guilt or remorse in his eyes at his secrecy.

"In an hour, Ollie, as a matter of fact. She will in a few moments. I asked Norah to tell her while you and I sort this out and help her. The Patronus that I sent back to the castle was intended for the Headmaster. Professor Dumbledore has graciously agreed to officiate. He'll meet us here in the forest, along with a few others. Our friends and immediate family. I _hope_ , and I _know_ that Tonks wants you by her side during the ceremony," Remus said, murmuring his words in a lowly voice, still looking surprised that Ollie had accidentally read his mind and learned of his intentions. "It should come as no surprise to you, but given everything that's happened the last few days, I don't want to delay our wedding anymore, Mr. Brennan. I want to marry Tonks before anything _else_ happens in this Forest to her or to me," he growled, a note of bitterness in his voice, and Ollie didn't even have to dip into the man's mind to know he thought of the centaurs and of Master Crouch. "And…I wanted to speak with you about it beforehand."

Ollie cringed, grinding his teeth, and lowering his gaze to the forest floor and stared at his boots, not willing to meet Lupin's hardened gaze. He knew this was coming. Here it was.

The demand to stay away from Tonks following their ceremony in an hour or two. And he could do nothing and _would_ do nothing to stop it from happening to him. He drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he cringed as Remus spoke up.

"I just…wanted to ask your feelings on this, Mr. Brennan," Lupin softly admitted, somewhat begrudgingly and uncomfortably. Ollie lifted his gaze and studied the werewolf's reaction. Judging by the face Lupin was currently making, it was evident that he was not enjoying the discussion, though admittedly, this was…not something he had expected at all of Remus.

Why should the werewolf care how he felt about all of this?

"What?" It was all he could manage to say as Ollie blinked owlishly at him. Had he heard the man correctly? Was this all a _joke_ , a horrible trick at his expense?

Was _that_ it? Ollie could not help but stare at Remus, who flushed and sighed.

"Me and…Dora…." Remus murmured, blowing out a breath as he uttered the young witch's name. "I know that you're her best friend, Ollie. I _know_ that. I don't need you or Tonks to tell me to see it. We want you both to be in her life. I am not asking you to…to _leave_ once she and I are married. What kind of husband and partner would I be to her if I were to impose that on you?" he demanded, his light brown eyes narrowing.

Ollie didn't know what to say that. His cracked lips parted slightly, though no words came out, though he tried, he was much too stunned into silence to speak.

Lupin continued, raking his hands through his thick tuft of light brown hair flecked with bits of gray, seemingly wanting to put an end to their conversation and quickly just as much as Ollie was. "I can see how much you care for Tonks, Ollie. I _know_ that you care for her, but I would be remiss if I did not bring this up, however uncomfortable it is for both of us. I just want to be sure there's going to be no…"

It must have been difficult for him, Ollie surmised, because Remus seemed to struggle with his phrasing for a solid minute, at _least_.

The werewolf paused here as his voice trailed off hesitantly, wanting to find the right word. "… _difficult_ feelings between the two of us, Mr. Brennan. You're Dora's best friend, and I know that she cares for you deeply. Probably more than she would ever care to admit. She was willing and did kill that centaur for you in order to protect you. She—she wasn't thinking about _herself_ when she did it. She was only concerned about _your_ own well-being. And I _don't_ want to put her through the trials of a feuding best friend and husband, Ollie. _That's_ why I brought you all the way out here, to talk as _friends_ , I hope. I want to be sure there are no hard feelings and to be absolutely clear and straight with you since I'm marrying her in less than an hour. Will you hate me if I marry Tonks, Ollie?" Remus asked, feeling uncomfortable.

Words left Ollie. The younger man stared into those light and bright brown eyes burning with uncertainty, and maybe a bit of anger too, and Ollie's heart fell silent.

"Answer me, Ollie," Remus commanded in a clipped and curt tone, though Ollie couldn't will his lips to move. As if stuck underwater, everything felt slow and warbled.

His mind felt blank and his blue eyes wide as he stared at Lupin in horror. The older man's brown eyes desperately searched his…waiting for Ollie to say something.

He just had to say something! Ollie searched his mind for something reasonable to say, wracking his brain as he struggled to formulate an apt response to his question. It felt to poor Ollie as though his mind were reeling, and he squeezed his eyes shut trying to drown out the voices of his best friend and the blonde She-Wolf nearby, who were within a close enough proximity distance-wise he could still hear their thoughts.

The blonde Wolf was helping Tonks to try to conjure a suitable dress that was fit enough for a forest ceremony, while Tonks was wondering what to do with her shoes.

_You CANNOT get married in combat boots, Tonks_ , Norah was saying to her. Or thinking it, rather. _Absolutely not. People typically only get married once. I won't let you ruin the biggest day of your life by wearing combat boots with your dress_. _Nope. You're wearing these shoes. You just have to break them in, Tonks! Wear. Them_.

Tonks, on the other hand, held a different view. _Just watch me, Jameson. If it's a long dress, nobody's going to see or care. I'm not wearing heels, Merlin's Beard, no way. Besides, if Rem would have told me this was what he wanted to do, I might have had a little more time to prepare but…I guess we can always have a bigger party later on_ …

Frustrated, Ollie flung his eyes open and heaved a heavy sigh. This was happening in less than an hour, whether he liked it or _not_. He was just going to have to accept that.

Ollie bit the inside wall of his cheek and then his tongue, tasting the tang of metallic iron and copper on his palate, and he realized he'd bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood. A thousand thoughts flitted through his troubled mind that he could give to the werewolf.

Many answers that could spit out of his mouth, Ollie thought, troubled. This man standing in front of him was set to marry the only woman he had ever dared to love.

This man standing in front of him now was having a child, a beautiful daughter or son, with the only woman that he had ever dared to love, and for a split second, Ollie did not think that he could live with that, that it would be better off for all three of them if he were to Disapparate right here and now from this forest and leave.

Just…fling himself off the edge of a cliff's ravine and drown himself in the sea. As Ollie clenched his teeth and for a moment, allowed the baser, vile parts of his personality to take over, to allow that green-eyed monster they called Jealousy and Envy to consume him, he wanted to deny the werewolf in front of him of a happy marriage with Tonks.

A simple love, the joys of becoming parents to the baby currently growing inside Tonks's belly…this werewolf, this accursed _plague_ on society, did not, in Ollie's mind, deserve a simple life. What if the day would come when Lupin bit her during a cycle?

What then? And their baby, what of the _child_?! Would it be born like its father? Had Lupin condemned Nymphadora to a life of scorn and ridicule, simply because of it?

Because he, just as Ollie couldn't, manage to stay well the hell _away_ from Tonks. Remus Lupin's life, compared to Ollie's, years of scorn throughout his Hogwarts years as a Slytherin student, coming from a long ancestral line where the men were all Death Eaters, and then as a prisoner of Barty Crouch Jr.'s for the last several years of his life, had been relatively simple, and Ollie decided that he hated this werewolf for that. Hated him.

Jealousy ripped its way through the confines of Ollie's chest and tore at the feeble corded muscle that was his heart, ripping through him with more force than an Unforgiveable Curse, though in his mind, the Cruciatus or even the Killing Curse would be a mercy to him right now. No, he wouldn't despise Remus for marrying Tonks.

He _already_ loathed him, _hated_ the man's guts where he stood, because Lupin had _everything_ that Ollie had ever wanted, and in little less than an hour, they would marry, and the deal was solidified that Ollie would never have Tonks, not in the way that he wanted. He'd never touch her, kiss her, laugh with her as his husband, cry with her…

And…and… _then_ … Ollie emanated a tense exhale through his nose as his raging thoughts, that swirling dark vortex of terror, immediately spiraled to a complete standstill.

A scattered sigh managed to escape his cracked lips, as the thought of his young, beautiful best friend in his otherwise desolate and crap life being someone else's wife flashed in his vivid memory, and their wedding hadn't even happened yet.

"I…I…" Ollie's voice came out in stammers as still, the younger man struggled to find his words. The recollection of Tonks's bright smile only moments ago when he'd given her the simple lily danced in the back of his mind.

If he focused long enough, he could swear he heard her laugh as she and Norah were in the middle of conversing about something. As though she were standing right next to him.

The memory of Nymphadora Tonks, as though he hadn't seen her in ages when in reality, it had been less than two minutes ago, almost resembled that of one of the oil paintings in the Grand Staircase.

As the warm pinks of the early morning sun shone through the thick canopy of trees and danced through her dark pink hair.

How her white smile had laced over her face with such a sweetness, that he was sure no other witch on this world held such a smile.

How her serene gray eyes drenched his memory until he thought he'd drown. Ollie never could have guessed in a million years that his best friend would invoke these strange and unfamiliar feelings, yet, here he was, broken, scarred, and beaten down. But still feeling.

It held, after years of captivity in Crouch's home, a foreign but at the same time familiar sense to it, like a distant fond memory, he was only just recollecting.

Though something within him still violently fought against these feelings for her. The feeling was light and breathless, causing his chest to constrict tightly and his throat to hollow and cut off air to his passageways, but underneath it, something dark stirred.

Wishing Remus Lupin an unhappy marriage to Tonks, that they divorced. That's what this 'wrong' feeling was. He felt _wrong_ , and the snake-like voice that taunted poor Ollie at the back of his mind constantly reminded him why he'd been sorted in Slytherin.

_Do you honestly think the Auror could love a broken, misshapen wreck like you_? It laughed at him, and the voice sounded entirely too much like Master Crouch's for his comfort.

Ollie violently shook his head to clear it, not caring if the gesture earned a raised eyebrow from Lupin in the process. This was _wrong_ , what he was feeling for Tonks. It _had_ to be wrong. How could he look at another man's soon-to-be-wife like this, then?

_What would Dora say to you, Brennan, if she saw you like this_? Though this time, instead of hearing Master Crouch as the snakelike voice in his mind, the voice was his own.

The question swirled around in his pounding skull until he thought it might burst.

As the thick, uncomfortable silence around the pair of wizards thickened, an abrupt bitterness seeped into his churning stomach until Ollie thought he might get sick.

Remus. Remus was the reason that Tonks did not return Ollie's affections. _If only…if only I'd gotten to her first, then I might have had a shot_ … he thought, feeling a lump forming in his throat as his breaths stuttered, hitching in his throat, a relatively poor attempt to calm himself.

_No_. He shook his head violently as he felt himself attempt to dismiss these incriminating thoughts. Ollie could not, would _not_ blame this werewolf.

Especially not for something that he wasn't exactly responsible for. The heart wants what it wants, in the end, and Ollie's wanted Dora's heart to belong to him alone.

And it wasn't meant to be. Ollie blinked, his eyes widening as he realized that Dora was his best friend. And he could not continue to be so selfish. It would _kill_ her.

He could not put the woman he loved through this. It wasn't right of him. But he _could_ , however, put the _werewolf_ through this.

Ollie let out a sigh, biting down on the inside wall of his cheek, making a visible show of choosing his words very carefully.

When he spoke to Remus at last, having found his inner resolve and strength to put this well behind him once and for all, his voice was soft, and he spoke slowly, speaking as a man who had only learned just how, and he was surprised at how hoarse he was.

Though, given again, years of abuse at Crouch's hand, Ollie had stayed completely mute for the better part of two years, refusing to tell Crouch a Merlin-damned thing of her.

"I want Tonks…" Ollie began, his cobalt-blue eyes flickering up to regard Remus. Oh, this part was the absolute truth. He _wanted_ Dora. Yes, he _wanted_ her, and the look of anger and shock on the werewolf's lined face was almost worth his cold words.

Ollie repressed his urge to smirk and roll his eyes at Tonks's fiancé's growing look of anger within his light brown eyes as they darkened, and the man's posture stiffened.

"I want Tonks to be _happy_ , Remus."

And this statement was even truer as it left his mouth.

"Even if…even if _I'm_ not the one to make that happen for Dora, Lupin."

Whatever Remus had been expecting Ollie to say next, this clearly was not it, for his hardened expression softened and his light brown eyes widened a moment in shock.

"You mean this? You're not lying to me by saying what you think I want to hear?" he asked, somewhat incredulously as he regarded Ollie, still with a suspicious and slightly distrustful look brewing in his light brown eyes. "Truly?"

"Yes." Ollie bowed his head and folded his hands in front of his middle as they began to walk back towards the campsite though heading in the opposite direction of Tonks and Norah. "Come on, we need to go get you ready. We're _not_ going that way, Mr. Lupin," Ollie called back over his shoulder, much to Lupin's surprise. "Bad luck to see your bride before the ceremony. Your friend, the one that has the last name of a color? Sirius Black? He's here. So is Dumbledore. They're both waiting for you," he announced, and this time, he did not bother to hide the small smirk that tugged the corners of his mouth upwards, and his icy-blue stare softened as Lupin had to jog to match Ollie's strides in order to meet the others. "I know that you'll give Dora everything in this world that she's ever wanted," Ollie began, his words pained, and he swallowed down the urge to have a fit and fought it back. "Going forward, I'll…I will try my very hardest to treat you as a _friend_ , Remus."

"Thank you," Remus murmured after a moment spent in stunned silence briskly, reaching out to take Ollie's hand in his own and gave it a brief but firm handshake.

For a moment, the two wizards stood there, neither willing to say a word for fear it would ruin this newfound moment, their hands connected, and something resembling a genuine smile flitted across both their pale features. Ollie was the first one to speak up.

"You're welcome. My _friend_ ," he emphasized, before allowing his smile to widen even further, before clapping Lupin on the back and steering him in the opposite direction. "Come. Your friends and family are waiting for you. We've got a wedding to go to, and something tells me your bride would kill you if you're late for your own party."

And he clapped Lupin on the back and continued to drag him in the opposite direction away from Tonks, but this time, not as his enemy. This time...

As his _friend_.

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**A/N: Yay, Ollie, and Lupin are friends now! Guys, tomorrow is the start of their wedding! (Cue pterodactyl screeching) I feel like I've been building up to it for 86 chapters lol, and the wedding wound up being long I had to split it into at least two chapters, so I hope I did their ceremony justice, even though it's not what either of them wanted, to get married in the Forest, I think it suits the two of them because they did technically meet in the woods lol. **

**Coming up in Ch's 87 and 88!**


	87. Of Rolling Nerves and Reassurances

**A/N: Oh my Merlin, I can't believe it took me 87 chapters to get to their wedding, which I've split up into 3 chapters, and I hope I did it justice and that you continue to enjoy this epic long fic, my lovely readers! :)  
**

* * *

** CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN **

The night of his son's wedding was warm indeed. Lyall Lupin's strangely pallid eyes stared on at the leaves of the unusually large oak tree, which provided adequate enough shade and was acting as a sort of awning for his son's wedding ceremony to commence in a few minutes.

The Forbidden Forest at twilight looked exotic and fiery like a midnight candle burning in the shadows, of this there was no denying it. A figure nudged beside him. _Remus_. He did not even have to look to his left to know it was his son.

His only son gave him an awkward little half-smile before bowing his head. "Dad," he murmured lowly, raising his head, and noticing as Sirius, his best friend and best man for this impromptu wedding ceremony of his son's, moved beside Remus. "I'm...grateful that you came," Remus said, a note of gratitude and affection laced in his tone.

Lyall chuckled. "Of course I come, son. You didn't seriously think I would miss your own wedding, did you?" he asked teasingly, his gaze flitting from his son to his son's best friend. It did not escape Lyall's attentions that Sirius Black continued cast flitting and distrusting looks towards renowned Magizoologist Newt Scamander and made a show of clutching onto his arm as though it was hurt.

Lyall quirked a brow at his son's best friend, though the dark-haired man and former Prisoner of Azkaban offered no explanation.

Newt and Dumbledore were practically arm-in-arm in deep conversation about Merlin knew only what that thing might be, with Dumbledore dressed in a set of immaculate dark blue dress robes, his beard secured with a band to keep out of the way.

_Don't ask_ , his son's eyes seemed to tell him when Lyall swiveled his head back around to regard Remus and ask after Sirius Black's strange behavior toward Newt, and this command was solidified by a curt shake of Remus's head, and Lyall gazed at Remus.

There was something within Remus that Lyall knew he needed to mend as his father, although he knew that whatever it was, he couldn't. Whatever was ailing his only son was his burden to bear, as much as he might wish that he could help Remus with whatever was troubling him.

When Remus lifted his gaze and met Lyall's eyes with his own, he could still see the small child of five years old that he was some thirty years ago: small and gaunt, trembling with tears following the aftermath of Fenrir Greyback's attack, clutching onto his dad's shirt with scrawny fingers.

Lyall was also aware too that even by marrying this bright young witch who was carrying his son's child, that it would not suffice the angst in his heart that Remus had grown used to over the last thirty years, often so melancholia and depressed over the nature of his condition, thinking himself unclean and unworthy of a woman's affections. At least not completely.

_He hates Greyback for what he's done to him_ , Lyall thought as he looked upon his son. _He will die hating Fenrir unless he gets to kill him first_ , he thought, mulling it over. So, he decided that tonight, as he was most other nights, he would _proud_ of Remus.

It wasn't every day that his only son got married, and he sincerely wished that Hope were here to see this. But Merlin, if only Hope were still alive, he had no doubt, she would already be shedding tears for their son and his new wife, and the ceremony hadn't even commenced yet.

Lyall offered Remus what he hoped was a kind enough smile and held onto his son by his shoulder and with it, poured his delight that his son was about to be married and in time, become a father to his first grandson or granddaughter.

Tonight, Remus looked regal as he possibly could, having gotten Sirius's help in acquiring a pair of black dress robes, his own, Lyall learned when he had inquired where Remus had gotten them when he'd asked, and they looked slightly worn, but well cared for. Molly Weasley had taken great pains in trimming his son's light brown hair, ensuring that not a strand was out of place or uneven.

Lyall almost _swore_ he was looking at his younger self, except that his eyes were a darker brown, and Remus's a lighter brown in color, having inherited his mother's eyes. Lyall stifled a small snort as he watched Remus glance down at his robes with furrowed brows, seizing a handful of his black robes and scrutinizing them carefully.

"What about now, Sirius?" Remus murmured, turning towards his best friend and best man, who looked as though he were fighting back the urge to laugh and roll his eyes.

Lyall sighed and moved off to stand underneath an elm tree next to Newt, who had been tasked with maintaining the security of Remus and Tonks's gold wedding rings, who was heavily in conversation with two little green Bowtruckles, who appeared to be fighting over the plain rings in Newt's hand, each Bowtruckle blowing raspberries and fighting with each other in a _fierce_ competition for guardianship of the pieces of jewelry.

Lyall chuckled. "The way these two are behaving over those things, you'd think they were Nifflers," he joked, recognizing Remus's fiancée's Bowtruckle, she called it Ptelea, if his memory served him correctly.

Newt Scamander nodded, his lips pursed into a thin line and an unusually stern look on his face as he scowled at the tiny creatures on top of his hand as he heaved a tired and haggard sigh at listening to the squeaking protests of the feuding Bowtruckles over possession of the rings.

"Yes, and this behavior is entirely _beneath_ them both. Pickett was never quite like this in his prime when he was younger, so I don't know where Miss Tonks's Bowtruckle learned such atrocious behavior and orneriness. Ptelea, _stop_ this!" he scolded.

Ptelea responded in kind to Newt's scolding by shooting him what Lyall could only presume to be an incredulous look as his beady black little eyes widened and he looked offended, and old Pickett, though his leaves were browned and drooping now in his old age, had such a _smirk_ on its green face and a look of triumph that Tonks's Bowtruckle could not _help_ but blow one last raspberry at it, squeaking in frustration and trying its very hardest to trip up Pickett where the two Bowtruckles rested on the palm of Newt's outstretched hand.

Ptelea, spotting Remus standing next to Sirius, had decided he had had _enough_ of Pickett's smug attitude and thought Lupin a better perch. Tonks's Bowtruckle narrowed its beady eyes and shot Pickett one last distrusting look before hopping up onto Remus's outstretched hand, who'd come over to investigate the series of squeaking's and chirpings, no doubt to see what on Merlin's earth was wrong with them both.

Remus chuckled as Ptelea hopped up onto his shoulder, letting out a squeak of offense and sheer indignation as it blew one last raspberry towards old Pickett, who was, as it turned out, according to Newt Scamander when asked, Ptelea's grandfather, of sorts.

Lyall sighed and shook his head in disbelief, clapping his son on the shoulder and steering him back towards Sirius and Dumbledore, though it did not escape his attention that Remus continued to cast nervous glances towards the lane in the woods that Dumbledore had lighted magically with a pair of lamps where the bride was supposed to float over and be given away.

Remus frowned. "It's taking her a while, don't you think?"

Ptelea squeaked and offered a nod in response, one of the leaves off the top of his head brushing against Remus's cheek, which Lyall thought strangely endearing of the little woodland creature, almost as if his fiancée's Bowtruckle was trying to reassure him.

"She _will_ come, son," Lyall insisted, Remus not aware that Lyall could practically smell the man's worry that seemed like it was emanating off of his nervous aura in waves.

Though Remus's eyes were fixed, looking on the lane, his light brown eyes that were so very much like Hope's beginning to grimace in a sudden fit of nervous anxiety.

And then, his son's best man and friend was there beside him. Sirius.

Sirius Black cast a wary, distrusting glance towards Newt Scamander, whose own Bowtruckle now rested on top of his tuft of thick white hair and had moved to stand next to Arthur Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks's best friend, a young chap by the name of Ollie, who had murmured something under his breath about Arthur's wife, Molly, being thoroughly disgruntled and put out that they couldn't host their wedding at the Burrow.

Remus had painstakingly tried to reassure the matronly, ginger-haired witch that once their mission in the Forbidden Forest was over, and Dolores Jane Umbridge was rescued from the herd of centaurs, the two of them would, if Molly was willing, host a party, a proper wedding reception, at the Burrow, if Molly and Arthur would have them both.

Sensing that his son needed a moment alone with his best friend, Lyall murmured something inaudible under his breath, motioning with a wave of his arm for Arthur, Ollie, Newt, and Dumbledore to join him, who had moved to stand beside Sirius and Remus.

The Hogwarts Headmaster reached out a slightly warbling but somehow, still steady hand and gave Remus's shoulder a light squeeze, twinkling at his son over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. "You still have the gift I gave you earlier in my office, yes?"

Remus blinked owlishly at Professor Dumbledore, before offering a quick nod and dipping into the pocket of his black robes and holding out the small unfamiliar object in the flat of his palm.

"Yes, Professor," he murmured lowly, bowing his head slightly. "But…what _is_ it?" Lupin asked, confusion laced throughout his quiet and reserved tone.

Albus, never one to reveal a well-kept secret what most would consider the 'normal' way, did not offer a response, at least not at first, and instead, shot his son a coy little wink that even now, had piqued Lyall's curiosity, though he dared not linger here.

"Three turns ought to do it, Mr. Lupin," was all Dumbledore said, his blue eyes twinkling with something akin to amusement in his voice as he strode forward to join the others to allow the groom a moment of privacy alone with Sirius. "You will see for yourself…"

Professor Dumbledore said nothing further on the matter, which irked Remus to no end and sent his blood briefly aflame, though Lupin offered up no verbal follow-up.

Remus sighed as he watched the small congregation who had come to bear witness to his own wedding disappear around the bend of the Forbidden Forest, and he could not help but feel a sense of relief. As long as Dumbledore was here, they'd not get lost.

Lupin sighed and glanced down at his dress robes, his brow furrowing, and his wand hand curled tightly into a fist over his wand, the other clutching tightly onto Dumbledore's loaned wedding gift, whatever this strange little object in his hand was.

"What about now, Sirius?" he murmured in a disbelieving tone. "Did I…did I miss a spot?" he growled in annoyance before lifting his chin to meet his best man's gaze.

"Moony," Sirius snorted, shaking his head and stepping back to give Remus's towering form a quick once-over in his set of black dress robes, a small but gentle smile upon his rugged and handsome features, some form of oil-slicked back in his hair and upon his closely-cropped beard to give it a healthy sheen, "if your black robes were _any_ straighter or your boots shined even further, I'd _almost_ mistake you for a Death Eater. I don't think I've ever seen you wear this much black before in your _life_ , Remus," he joked.

Sirius had spent the better part of a half-hour going over Moony's robes with his wand, straightening every hem and crevice, making sure that his best friend looked as presentable as he was going to get before Remus married his baby cousin, also while going over the lines that he was required to say during the ceremony, as well as a few words that Moony wished to say himself to Tonks, though he didn't speak those aloud.

To engage Remus in conversation, Sirius sighed and brushed away a stray leaf that had fallen overheard off one of the boughs of the tree that they were standing under off Moony's shoulder.

"You know my baby cousin looks at you like nothing else exists half the time," Sirius began, somewhat hesitantly, not exactly teasing, but not entirely serious.

Sirius instantly recognized this look. It appeared on his best mate's face whenever Nymphadora Tonks was mentioned, though he supposed after tonight, he'd have to call her Mrs. Lupin.

He frowned, wondering if Tonks was going to bother changing her name. he hadn't exactly _asked_ his cousin, and Remus hadn't said a word about her name.

Sirius's own expression immediately softened, and he reached out a hand and gave Moony's shoulder a light little squeeze, watching as Lupin's pale face flared to life and became crimson as a light, pink blush speckled along the flustered man's scarred cheeks.

He couldn't stop the grin that formed. "Have you told Tonks yet?" His query prompted Remus's blush, if it was at all possible, to deepen, and Remus ducked his head away from his friend's piercing gray gaze and hid behind that one stubborn lock of coarse light hair, that one bang that never failed to get into his eye, no matter how short Mrs. Weasley managed to cut it off.

"Not since…" Remus's voice trailed off. Since the night that he had almost lost her, and the night by the Black Lake following the almost-drowning of Dora over Sirius's brother's locket, Lupin found that he could not say those three simple words he had once confessed to Tonks, right before the two of them spent that time in each other's embrace.

For whatever reason, he couldn't manage to bring himself to say it. He'd found other ways to express his love for the young Auror who'd captured his heart, but he couldn't bring himself to say it, much to his chagrin and Dora's unspoken disappointment.

To him, they carried far too much weight to be taken so lightly and for granted. To Remus, the simple three-word statement was the most intimate of words and he was not about to take them lightly, as his parents had always told him growing up.

He wanted to wait for the perfect moment to speak those words to Tonks, and he'd been constantly searching for that perfect time ever since they had entered into a romantic relationship following their rather rocky start as partners in the Order.

Yet, no matter how close he came, Remus still could not bring himself to say it to Tonks at all.

"It is all right," a new voice spoke up behind him, and both Sirius and Remus swiveled around on their heels to regard the new arrival, the tension in their shoulders leaving them when they saw it was only Ollie, dressed in a pair of black dress robes that he seemed to drown in, though that was due to his thin and emaciated frame from struggling to gain back the weight he had lost while in captivity under Barty Crouch.

Ollie Brennan's calm voice broke through Lupin's inner musings and brought him back to the present. Ollie offered Remus and Sirius a small half-smile that was more like a smirk, reaching out and giving Lupin's shoulder a small squeeze and offering a tiny nod to Ptelea, who was still perched on Remus's shoulder while they waited for his bride.

Ptelea squeaked in happiness at seeing Tonks's best friend and offered Ollie a shy little wave.

Ollie chuckled and returned his attention to Remus. "I understand. I—I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I—I cannot _help_ it," he murmured, a pink blush speckling along his cheeks and he dipped his head, ashamed of his natural-born Legilimency. "Y—you will get there in time. Tonks knows that you care for her. More than anything. Don't push yourself. When the time is right to tell her how you feel, you'll just know it, sir."

Lupin turned his head slightly and flicked back that damned stubborn lock of his hair, offering his new friend and Dora's former partner a white, kind smile.

"Thank you, Ollie."

And with those words, he reached forward and enveloped the younger man in a light hug, almost crushing him as he inadvertently used a little of the Wolf's strength within, and Ollie's breath left his lungs before he could even part his lips to speak up.

Ollie flinched ever so slightly at the sheer amount of strength Remus possessed in which the older man was embracing him, yet he smiled up at the man and returned it.

He was glad that the two of them could come to a reconciliation and a mutual understanding with one another. It had taken upwards of a few weeks for Remus to fully trust Ollie completely, especially as he had to learn how to deal with his feelings of jealousy towards Ollie, fearing that the former Slytherin and Dora's best friend would take advantage of Dora by forcing her hand and demanding that the young witch choose.

Remus had not been able to stop the feelings of loathing and self-hatred towards himself and he'd done himself a great disservice by comparing himself to Ollie Brennan, thinking that Tonks would be better off with a younger, more wholesome man like him.

Yet, it had been Ollie and Molly and Arthur who had shown him just how much he was worth in Dora's eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley said he'd been taking a ridiculous stance on this all along and used their son Bill as an example in claiming that young and whole men did not necessarily always remain so, and it was Ollie who'd helped him realize that if Dora had _really_ wanted another wizard in her life as her future husband, she would have pursued someone else a long time and would have left Remus for him.

But she had not done it, though Lupin had fully expected her to, and would not have blamed Tonks if she had. Yet, Tonks had remained firm and steadfast by his side.

She had chosen _him_. "You know," Ollie winced in a half-gasping, choking, hoarse voice as he tugged futilely at Lupin's shoulders in an effort to get the man to relinquish his grip, effectively breaking Remus once again out of his string of musings. "I—if you keep…holding onto me like this, Lupin, you'll be _late_ for your own wedding."

"Sorry!" Remus immediately apologized and released the younger man from his hold, biting the inside wall of his cheek, not realizing the Wolf within him had come out.

Lupin looked away, embarrassed, and refocused his attention on the woodland path in front of him, where hopefully, any minute, his bride would appear at his side. He sighed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unable to keep still.

Ollie eyed the werewolf tiredly with a look of exasperation on his face, before thumping his palm down from his forehead and alongside his face.

This had to be the tenth time that Remus Lupin had let out a sigh like that and had shifted his footing in anticipation. Everyone was already gathered, standing near the forest path's clearing, waiting for the bride to make her entrance.

Lupin, with Sirius to his left, and Ollie at the right, stood at the far end of the forest's path, with Dumbledore standing dead in the center. Less than a dozen had gathered in the Forbidden Forest to bear witness to the werewolf and the Auror's union, though it was small, quiet, and intimate, the way that they wanted, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had already insisted on throwing them a bash back at the Burrow, later, when things calmed down.

_After we get Umbridge_ , Ollie thought, biting the inside wall of his cheek, perfectly content to let the hag rot in here. Though Tonks, the noble and loyal witch that she was, wouldn't let that happen.

With a scrutinizing gaze, Ollie let his blue eyes wander the small crowd that had congregated, searching for any familiar faces that he recognized.

There was Norah, who continued to shoot him interested little glances out of the corner of his eye when she thought he wasn't looking, which sent a swell of warmth to his chest he couldn't explain, and then there was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who had, in his Hogwarts days, gone out of their way to ensure that whenever he visited Charlie at the Burrow, he was welcomed like _family_.

"How much longer, do you think?" Lupin leaned over as far as he was able without drawing any unwanted attention to whisper his concern into Ollie's right ear. "You don't think Tonks _ran_ from me, do you, Ollie?" he demanded, sounding nervous.

At that, Ollie did let out a snort and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at such a stupid question. Instead, his gaze remained fixated on the woodland path. " _No_ , Lupin, don't be a blind, bloody _fool_. Tonks loves you. She _will be_ here, Remus. Just _wait_ …"

"But how can you be so sure?" Lupin persisted hotly, his hands clenching and un-clenching into fists as his sides, as though the werewolf was not sure what to do with them. The worry in his voice was steadily growing, and Ollie didn't know what to say.

Ollie staggered backward slightly, looking rather winded and wide-eyed, wincing, and rubbing his right bicep in pain, though he was quick to shake it off as he noticed the arrival of Professor Dumbledore and the others.

"Come on, it's time," Ollie murmured lowly. Sirius nodded his agreement, and with a wave of his arm bade Remus follow him.

Lupin exhaled nervously through his nose, running a hand through his hair and straightening the front of his dress robes, ignoring Sirius's claims that his best friend believed that Remus's rough, but neatly trimmed and close-cropped beard needed trimming, though Remus was inclined to believe that it was fine and chose to leave it. Lupin swayed a little with nervousness and exhaustion, breathing in a final steadying breath.

"Time to go make a fool of yourself, Moony," he whispered under his breath.

Though despite his words, he sincerely hoped he wouldn't. Not in front of _her_. With each step forward as he followed Ollie and Sirius towards the gnarled old elm tree that was acting as his and Dora's awning of sorts, he could no longer quell the swooping sensation in the pit of his churning stomach or his nervousness.

Professor Dumbledore stood in wait, his withered hands clasped neatly in front of him clutching onto his wand, and the Hogwarts Headmaster shot Remus a soft, kind smile.

It was time.


	88. The Wedding in the Woods

**A/N: I might have shed a tear while writing their wedding because…well, I don't want to spoil it, and after all the crap that I've put Remadora through in this long fic of mine, they deserve a chapter of true happiness before they resume their quest in the Forbidden Forest to rescue that old pink hag that, in my mind, doesn't _deserve_ to be rescued, but we'll see what happens to her. And there's still one more wedding chapter to go! **

**I made a manip of Tonks's wedding dress, which you can see here:**

**pixielight91/art/To-Wait-for-Him-856706352?ga_submit_new=10  
**

**I hope that you enjoy, my lovely readers!**

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** CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT **

A single golden leaf pirouetted down an invisible spiral of breeze, spinning through the air as it let itself be carried down.

It shook slightly as if it could have been whisked away any second by the grip of icy wind, but it kept floating down the twirling course.

It blew past Tonks's face and landed lightly on the ground, the shiny, vibrant color standing out against the ambers and bronzes beneath it.

It was so delicate, the young witch wanted to reach down and pick it up and hold it close to her heart, smoothing out any creases, but something told Tonks that it belonged there, this corpse of what was once summer.

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as her eyes scanned the letter that Lupin had discreetly given to Molly to give to her to read in peace.

A letter to his bride.

_Dora,_

_Today is the day that I take you, Nymphadora Tonks, to be my wife and my companion, forever. With you by my side, I will never be alone._

_Though the world sees a strong independent woman, I've never known someone with such gentle grace and more pure heart._

_When I've been lost in the dark, you're the only light in my life I need to bring me back, so on this day, I pledge the rest of my life to you. You've always believed in me, and I believe in you._

_When you believe in someone, it's not just for a second, or a minute, or a day, a month, a year. It's forever, and an eternity with you by my side is not nearly long enough for me, but forever, in my mind, is a decent enough start…_

_Love,_

_Remus_.

She coughed once to quell the lump forming in her throat and reached up a hand and flicked back her tears with a practiced flick of her finger and clutched onto her bouquet of purple wildflowers ready for their ceremony, trying and failing to ignore that her hands were tinged with sweat. She was nervous. Bloody nervous. Incredibly so.

Her heart ran with legs like a runner, and her thin eyebrows frowned in worry and impatience. She glanced at the bouquet clutched in her hands, thinking that the purple wildflowers carried an otherworldly trance, and she wondered if these were evil.

They had, after all, been picked here in the borders of the Forbidden Forest, though in a way, Tonks wondered if there was a kind of poetic justice to all of this now.

A forbidden bouquet, in the Forbidden Forest, this place that was off-limits, just as in some way, her pending marriage to Remus Lupin would be seen as forbidden, much like their romance, for what sane human witch would ever dare to marry a full werewolf?

_I dare_ , she thought, grinding her teeth in nervous anticipation for what was ahead.

Tonks swallowed again as the purple flowers entwined between her fingers, holding fast in her hand, clutching onto the stem of her bouquet like it were a lifeline.

All the reasons _not_ to get married right now, here in the Forest, when they still had a herd of angry centaurs after them, Umbridge to the rescue, and Merlin knew what _else_ was lurking in this place, perhaps even watching Tonks and Remus now from the darkness of the shadows, came flooding into the tormented confines of Tonks's mind.

She could feel the soft panic that would grow or fade depending on what she decided to do next. It would fade if she backed away, but then she'd have to do this all over again another time when they were out of the Forest, and Lupin didn't want to wait.

It had been Norah, of all people who had come to her with Remus's plan, and Tonks, only wanting to make Rem happy, had agreed to his idea without any fighting or pushback.

Though now she was beginning to second-question his plan to marry right here.

Tonks's stomach churned, and she had turned down food all time but had accepted a small glass of water dripped with lime, the only comfort her heaving stomach tolerated.

She didn't want to chew on her nails or lips and ruin her manicure or her lip gloss, and so she found herself gnawing on the inside of her cheek like a nervous little mouse.

Just the thought of what she was about to do made her breathing come to her rapid and shallow. Tonks could feel her pulse pounding in her temples.

Back and forth she paced, the train of her wedding gown trailing behind her as she paced restlessly.

A crunching sound reached Tonks's eardrums and her foot was on the forest floor, surrounded by thousands of red and yellow and orange leaves fallen from the trees.

Tonks drew in a sharp breath of cool late October air before she realized that today was Halloween as she looked at the woodland path in front of her, every second left her chest heaving with nervous anticipation.

After tonight, she would be _married_.

Though she could not help but feel a tinge of melancholia that her parents would not be attending. Perhaps her dad might, but she knew for certain her mum wouldn't.

_This isn't right_ , Tonks thought in obscurity. _They should be here by my side, both of them supporting their only daughter on the biggest day of her life when she marries the man that she loves, and they aren't by my side. It's not right, it isn't right_ …

She could feel her face beginning to crumple and contort with grief, leaving her nose blushing with stifled, half-choked sobs, and she blinked back briny tears, not wanting to undo Norah and Mrs. Weasley's hard work on her makeup, though she thanked Merlin it was waterproof. Tonks had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach she'd need it.

Every inch of her body protested the fact her parents weren't here, but nothing save for a Time-Turner could twist back time and demand that her parents show up.

And as far she knew, no one in her life, not her friends, family, or fellow Order members, owned such a device, as they were tricky to maneuver, and disastrous to get wrong.

"Tonks." She blinked, startled, and looked up at Moody, who was waiting for her with an outstretched arm, looking thoroughly cross about something, but when _wasn't_ he?

Tonks pondered and sighed. She concluded Mad-Eye had waited a while.

Tonks swallowed nervously down past the lump growing in her throat, exhaling slowly through her nose as her trembling hand reached out for Moody's arm.

The grizzled old Auror had swapped his usual brown trench coat for a set of maroon colored robes.

Moody took her arm politely and inserted her arm around his. His magical eye swiveled in all directions, though he forced it to linger on her wedding gown.

"Nice dress, Tonks," he grunted by way of response, sensing Tonks's growing nervousness.

Dora glanced down at her dress, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks.

Considering Norah and Mrs. Weasley were responsible for conjuring it spur of the moment and very much a last-minute decision, she believed the two witches had outdone themselves.

Her ivory dress was strapless, the skirt a flowing A-line with a long train that had been magically enchanted by Mrs. Weasley, who was incredibly gifted at Charms, to repel away any dirt that she might happen to stumble across, ensuring her dress would remain in pristine condition for the entire duration of her and Remus's ceremony.

She repressed the urge to snort, though offered no verbal follow up, though she tried silently to thank her protégé as best she could with just her eyes.

It was, she knew, perhaps the closest thing to a compliment that the grizzled old Auror was going to give.

Norah and Molly had fussed over her to no end, cleaning the dress before she put it on with a quick Scourgify Charm, straightening it, while Norah fussed over her hair.

The two witches had argued over what color Tonks should leave her hair, though both Molly and Norah insisted that they liked the new look on Dora: shoulder-length, wavy, letting it cascade naturally, and Tonks left it loose, the slight humidity curling the ends, though she possessed her mother's naturally wavy and curly hair, she let out a tired sigh.

In the end, Tonks had decided to leave her hair loose, and had settled on a rich maroon burgundy color that flattered her pale skin, and was enough to give her features some warmth, rather than making her look washed out.

A light makeup and eyeshadow had been applied with a swift and expert hand by Norah, while Mrs. Weasley had woven tiny little white flowers into her hair.

At first, Tonks thought they were lily petals, but she couldn't quite be sure. As for her shoes, well, that was a different matter entirely.

Norah had balked when Tonks almost insisted on going barefoot if she were forced to wear a pair of white heels, insisting she would trip over them before she could so much as take a single step forward, and when the blonde She-Wolf had been preoccupied with getting ready herself, grumbling under her breath about not being allowed to wear her black leather jacket for the ceremony, Tonks had switched back to her combat boots, though not before charming them to change their color to white and purple, something a little bit more festive and admittedly, much more comfortable, really.

The skirt of her dress was so long, the wolf wouldn't even know the difference. No one was going to bloody _see_ her feet anyway, so why did it matter what shoes she wore? She blinked and forced her mind to focus on not tripping over herself right now.

It wasn't until Moody took a lumbering step forward thanks to his prosthetic leg that Tonks was pulled back to her gaping future. That she was really going to do this.

She was really marrying Remus Lupin in a mere matter of minutes. This was _it_.

Tonks couldn't tell if the rolling nerves churning her stomach as waves of nausea were due to her nerves at the prospect of marrying the man of her dreams, or if this was her pregnancy acting up again.

Either way Tonks didn't like it and swallowed down hard.

Moody merely grunted in response and shot Tonks a quizzical look out of the corner of his one good eye, and somehow, she _swore_ , his hardened expression softened.

"I know I don't say this often enough, but…I _am_ proud of you, for _all_ that you've done. Your Remus Lupin is one lucky man, and I aim to make sure he knows that."

His gruff words escaped his burly chest as a low growl, and Tonks felt the corners of her mouth twitch upward in a small half-smile.

The curt, clipped tone of Moody was always the same, though for Mad-Eye to speak these words meant a great deal to her.

"It's _me_ who's the lucky one, Mad-Eye," Tonks murmured lowly under her breath, clutching onto Moody's arm in a tight vice grip, her French-manicured nails digging into the fabric of his sleeve.

If Moody noticed, he offered no comment, for which Tonks was immensely grateful. She had to crane up at the Auror to look at him.

"Please don't drop me," she begged and bit down on her bottom lip in a slight pout, which had been coated in a light pink lip gloss along with a clear glaze to emphasize their fullness.

But Moody shook his head, the corner of his lips turning upward. She suspected he was trying to smile at her, though couldn't bring himself to manage it, and instead merely grunted, and his 'smile' if that's what this was, looked more like a scarred grimace.

" _Never_ ," he promised her solemnly, and Tonks offered a mute little nod, wanting to thank the man for all that he had done in her life, but was afraid if she opened her mouth, she would get sick, so she clamped her lips tightly shut and let out a tiny sigh.

The trail ahead of them to where her future husband was undoubtedly waiting for her was studded with lanterns, courtesy of someone in attendance to bear witness to their union, though Tonks didn't know who had performed this beautiful, simple feat of magic.

And as Moody and Tonks passed, it equaled the note of hope in her eyes, and in the gap of the forest clearing there appeared a small group of people, all eyes fixed on her.

The other witnesses come to see their union for themselves were but a blur in Tonks's peripherals, and when a man clad in black dress robes turned to look at her, her already rolling stomach churned out of anxiety, and her heart fluttered against its cage.

Her skin prickled and tingled with heat and her heart began to pound and beat so erratically in her chest that she thought it might fly out.

It felt like an invisible pillow was pressed against her lips, rendering her mute. Remus's voice, his face, his serious lips, and shoulder muscles were all that her brain dwelled in as she took sight of her solemn groom.

Tonks felt her mouth go dry as Lupin's eyes were fixed solely on her. _Just_ her. As if the world had become devoid of other witches, and she was the only woman left on this Merlin's green earth. The dark black of his dress robes looked virtuous on Lupin.

His light brown eyes were glimmering with unshed moisture that she first believed were tears, though now, Tonks was not so sure, and Tonks swore she saw a light pink blush speckle along his cheeks, flushing them with color before he looked away.

"Who comes before Merlin on this night?" Professor Dumbledore's deep voice resounded and resonated through the Forbidden Forest's clearing, and Tonks swallowed.

"Nymphadora Tonks, daughter of Edward and Andromeda Tonks," the practiced reply came forth from Mad-Eye Moody, whose grip tightened on Tonks's arm. "Comes before all of us to be wed. A woman grown in both body and mind, true and noble. She comes to beg the blessings of Merlin and our family and friends gathered here today."

Tonks let out a tiny sigh as she looked towards Lupin, who did not hear Moody.

Remus watched unblinkingly and with great astonishment brewing in his light brown eyes, as Tonks gingerly removed her arm from Moody's and handed off her bouquet to Norah, and as she stepped forward to intertwine her arm with Remus's, glanced down, afraid.

_Oh, Merlin's Beard, don't let me trip_ , she begged silently, and she didn't even have to look to her left to know that Ollie, Merlin Bless him, was reading her mind.

_You won't, T_ , he reassured her, his tenor-like voice soft and reassuring to her. _Besides, even if you were to trip, you know that Remus or I would catch you, Tonks_.

"Who gives her?" Professor Dumbledore's voice asked again as the presiding officiant of their marriage ceremony, his gaze flitting from Remus and then to Moody.

Lupin felt his heart pick up speed at an alarming pace and suddenly, his hands felt clammy. He felt, now for the twelfth time, unsure of himself and glanced down at his black dress robes, feeling certain that he and Sirius had probably missed a spot, after all.

Mad-Eye Moody standing on Tonks's right made a noncommittal noise that sounded like a grunt, though after a particularly stern look from Dumbledore, he relented.

"Alastor Moody, standing in the place of her father, Edward Tonks," he said gruffly, the note of disapproval at both of Tonks's parents missing their only daughter's ceremony laced throughout his voice, the harsh, clipped tone of Moody's voice causing Tonks's skin to prickle and bile corrupted in her throat that she was forced to swallow.

_They should be here with me_ , she thought, grinding her teeth, and Ollie must have sensed Tonks's rapidly growing anger at the immense hurt of her parents' betrayal, for the blue-eyed, dark-haired wizard shot her a dazzlingly white smile and met her gaze.

_But they are, T. Your family IS here with you. We all love you, T, can't you see that. It shouldn't matter that your parents aren't here. They've made it plain how they feel about Remus from what you've told me. Is this—are we not enough for you, Tonks_? He pressed, and something within Ollie Brennan's tone gave the young witch pause.

Tonks blinked owlishly and lifted her chin to meet Ollie's gaze, before turning her head slowly, trying not to attract any more attention to herself than was necessary to the small crowd that had gathered. Sirius, Newt, Mr., and Mrs. Weasley, Ollie, Dumbledore, and Minerva McGonagall, and Moody and Norah were all gathered here.

He was right. This… _this_ was her true family, and they were _all_ that mattered.

Tonks blinked and turned back around to face Moody, silently trying to thank Ollie with her eyes for making her see the light as she blinked back salty liquid, trying not to let her tears spill over and render her a crying, blubbering mess on her wedding day.

The look Ollie currently shot her was a sympathetic smile that was full of understanding.

Without Ollie having to speak a word to her, her best friend said all that he needed, just with his eyes.

He said that she did not need to thank him and that Tonks never would, not on her life.

She nodded and Tonks bit her bottom lip as she shot a quizzical glance at Mad-Eye Moody out of the corner of her eye. His expression was gruff and stern.

Unreadable, for several long, excruciating moments, appearing to look right through Remus, who stood before the pair of them to receive his bride from Alastor.

For an uncomfortable moment, it looked as though Moody was not going to move.

He stood rigid, leaning on his walking stick for comfort, and he made no move to relinquish his grip on Tonks's arm.

Mad-Eye stood as unstirred and unmoved as a statue, continuing to ensure his maimed face remained impassive, unreadable, and almost _cold_.

Tonks, from the corner of her eye, cast her mentor a worried look and made an odd little strangled noise at the back of her throat, shifting every so slightly out of nervousness.

"Moody, you can let _go_ of my arm now," she whispered, her voice soft and barely audible, that if Moody hadn't already been hanging onto her every word, he would not have heard her. "It's going to be _fine_. Rem's going to take _good_ care of me, Moody."

She bit the inside wall of her cheek and looked toward her groom, noticing that Lupin too, was beginning to look rather unnerved and unsure of himself as the seconds ticked by an in excruciating silence.

Tonks could have _sworn_ she heard Professor Dumbledore heave a tired, exasperated sigh, though the ancient wizard's face was calm.

Whether or not her words had an effect on the grizzled old Auror, or bounced off him good as hard rain, Tonks couldn't quite tell, though she was beginning to grow agitated.

Until the frown softened, fading from Moody's scarred face and something akin to the tiniest of grins twitched at the corner of his lips, though Alastor did not smile.

"I'm entrusting Tonks to you, Remus," growled Mad-Eye Moody in a low voice, barely moving his lips and looking suddenly tense, and there was a hint of steel in the Auror's voice that told both Remus and Tonks that the about-to-be newlyweds should listen, and listen well. "She _is_ and always _shall_ be, _my daughter_ , I don't give a _damn_ what Ted and Meda Tonks say," he growled, glancing sideways at Tonks and shooting the young witch a furtive little wink with his one good eye, while his magical eye swiveled wildly though he forced it to remain fixed on Lupin, who was looking uncomfortable.

"Moody," Tonks murmured under her breath through gritted teeth, gently tugging at the man's robe sleeve. "This—this isn't _necessary_ , Moody. Let me _go_ , Alastor."

He shot her a look that suggested he didn't want to, but Moody sighed and something within the grizzled veteran seemed to shift and give way as he turned back to Remus.

"If I find her life married to you to be an unhappy one for Tonks, don't _think_ that I _won't_ take her _back_ , Lupin," Moody growled in a tone that sounded more like a harsh bark, though he glanced to the side and shot Tonks a furtive wink with his one good eye.

Lupin furrowed his brows in a light frown, wavering on the spot for a moment, as if in indecision, and then a muscle in his jaw twitched and he steeled himself, rising to his full height of 6'3 so that he effectively towered over the grizzled old Auror and his bride.

Determination and resolve were evident upon his lined but handsome features, and he seemed to have only eyes for Tonks, though when he spoke to Moody, he forced himself to tear his gaze away from his bride in her simple but elegant ivory wedding dress.

"I'll do everything within my power to ensure Tonks has a happy and fulfilling life with me, Alastor. I can promise you that and I give my word here and right now that I'll treat her well…"

Moody pursed his lips into a thin line, giving Remus a scrutinizing look in his set of slightly worn black dress robes, then at last, he relented and offered Lupin a curt nod.

He seemed satisfied enough with the werewolf's answer and his determined countenance to do whatever it took to satisfy the need to know that Tonks would be happy married to Remus. "So be it then. _Take her_ , before I _change_ my _mind_ , Remus."

Moody grunted and with a somewhat reluctant manner and great reverence, Mad-Eye relinquished his grip on the young witch's arm and passed Tonks to Remus.

He took several steps backward, leaning heavily on his walking stick for support, before moving to join Professors Snape and McGonagall, both of whom had astoundingly different expressions on their faces. Snape was looking thoroughly bored and highly disinterested.

Whereas McGonagall, her eyes behind her silver spectacles were brimming with unshed tears and she was smiling happily at the notion of two of her former best and brightest students coming together in the holy bonds of matrimony on Hogwarts grounds.

Tonks stifled a tiny giggle that threatened to escape as she caught a bright flash of vibrant green near Remus's shoulder, and she blinked, realizing Ptelea was perched on top of her groom's shoulder, though he squeaked happily at the sight of his owner, and without even waiting for Lupin to hold out his palm so the tiny little Bowtruckle could be transferred safely from him to Tonks, Ptelea let out a tiny chirp of content and hopped from Remus's shoulder and onto Tonks's head, which earned a light collective chuckle amongst the small congregation of witnesses that had gathered here to bear witnesses.

She let out a tiny sigh as Ptelea burrowed under her lock of burgundy hair, his usual hiding place, though she felt the familiar lock shift as he poked his head out, no doubt wanting to see for himself what was going on.

Tonks caught Lupin staring at Ptelea with an incredulous look on his face, as though he were unsure whether or not to laugh, and she shot him a mischievous wink, biting down on her lip to keep from giggling.

Remus shot her a soft smile, and the second that his light brown eyes met hers and she could see how much love brimmed within, Tonks wasn't so sure she'd be able to stop herself from shedding a tear or two.

Her future husband looked as though she were the only one in the Forbidden Forest's clearing and nothing else mattered but her.

Professor Dumbledore coughed once to clear his throat. "And who takes her?"

Lupin's gaze flitted from the Hogwarts Headmaster to his bride. "I, Remus John Lupin, take this woman as my wife, Headmaster," he murmured, looking at Tonks.

He sensed her pounding heart and took one look at Tonks's ashen face, for he gripped her arm tightly and turned with her towards Professor Dumbledore and spoke.

"You're perfect," Remus whispered, his voice low enough so that only she could hear him.

Unfortunately, he must not have spoken softly enough. Either that, or Norah's wolfish hearing was just too much, for the young blonde's pointed ears perked up, and both Lupin and Tonks swiveled their heads to turn in the direction of Norah's voice.

"Get on with it, Headmaster!" Norah barked in a teasing tone from her spot where she stood sandwiched in between Professor Snape and Ollie, both of whom threw her an admonishing stare that would have had the power to wilt a fully-bloomed rose. "Merlin's Beard, but if you go any bloody slower, we'll all be ashes by the time you finish officiating, and let's be honest, the _only_ reason I came here was for a bloody _drink_ ," she growled wolfishly, folding her arms across her chest and glancing down at her short black cocktail dress, crinkling her nose in disgust and pulling a face, and she did not seem to notice Ollie was unable to pull his gaze away from her rather low-cut dress, though Snape noticed.

"Finally, someone with a head of sense on their shoulders," Professor Snape remarked in his usual droll baritone, though Tonks swore she saw his mouth twitch.

Professor Dumbledore still withheld his smile, though it was strained and did not meet his blue eyes. " _Excuse_ me, I am trying to conduct a _wedding_ at this point in time. Please…be quiet, the both of you, or I shall have you _removed_ from this Forest before either one of you can blink. May I continue, _please_?" he requested, peering at Lupin and Tonks over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. "If you are _quite_ finished, Miss Jameson…."

Both Tonks and Lupin nodded light pink blushes speckling along their cheeks.

"Sorry," Norah mumbled half-heartedly in a tone that suggested she did not really mean it as she folded her arms across her chest, the corners of her mouth turning up in a wryly little smirk.

Professor Dumbledore shot the pair a slightly admonishing look of suspicion, though he clasped his hands in front of him and continued. "Don't be _sorry_ , Miss Jameson. Be _quiet_."

He huffed in frustration and continued, turning back to the bride and groom, and shooting both of them apologetic glances.

"We all have gathered here today to join Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks in the bonds of holy matrimony."

His gaze flitted to Tonks, and he smiled at the young maroon-haired witch, his brilliant blue eyes twinkling playfully behind his spectacles as he looked at the proud Auror in her wedding dress, and his former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor in his black dress robes, and Tonks momentarily found herself unable to tear her gaze away.

She'd always been drawn to Albus Dumbledore's sky-blue eyes. His were an electrifying blue. The blue that, even in the darkest of times, would show you the way home.

And in this moment, surrounded by her friends and family, though they may not be her blood kin, Tonks knew she had found her home. Home was wherever you could find it, and for her, her home was right here, surrounded by her family and their friends.

And of course, her future husband. Professor Dumbledore smiled at the pair of them and turned to address Remus directly.

"Finally, Remus. It's about _time_ , you know," he laughed, breathing an audible little sigh of relief and chuckling at the look of incredulous disbelief on Lupin's face.

He clutched his wand tightly in his hands before bringing his arms to rest in front of his middle.

"Too long have you been alone, Mr. Lupin? I was starting to think you would never find a life partner, and then Miss Tonks joins the Order and surprised all of us, I must say. I must confess, however, that I am surprised that it took you so long to get to this point, Mr. Lupin."

"For the _love_ of Merlin Almighty!" bellowed Norah irritably. "Where's the butterbeer and Fire Whiskey when I need some? Merlin, you go _any slower_ , Albus, we'll all be _dead_ by the time you actually get around to marrying these two, no offense, Headmaster. Do we at least get a break to eat? _Marry_ those two already!" Norah shouted.

Her quip earned her a harsh glower from Ollie, who had finally lost his patience with her. "Norah! _Enough_! Be quiet!" Ollie roared, clenching his hands into fists. "He's trying to conduct a wedding and he's going to keep going slow if you continue to interrupt," he snapped, narrowing his eyes until they were mere slits as he glared at her.

Tonks let out a tiny laugh and turned away, immediately faking a cover to disguise it. "I—I'm sorry, Albus," she managed weakly, brushing away a single tear. "There's a um, a—a tickle in my throat. My apologies."

"Albus, carry on with it, if you please," McGonagall called out cordially, although there was no mistaking the look of annoyance on her face.

Dumbledore chuckled kindly and turned his attention to Tonks and Remus. "Let's. It is my great honor to officiate this wonderful evening so _very long_ in the making. If you would like to begin your vows," he replied gratefully, clasping his hands together and waiting for Lupin to go first.

As Lupin spoke, she knew he was speaking only to her, and that no one else mattered but her. Remus took a deep breath and held her hands in his, not wanting to let her go.

"When I met you, I wasn't just unloved and unloving. I was…I was a monster, Tonks. Love had only brought me pain and transformed my heart hard and not capable of love. Or so I thought. But then you, you brought light and hope into my life, something I thought I'd never have again, not in my lifetime. How you can see the man behind the monster, behind my lycanthropy, I'll never know. I'd already lost my entire world. How can you hang onto something so incomprehensible? How can you keep pouring love into an abyss? But then there you were. There was something in your eyes that was so beautiful to me, so safe and warm. In just one look, I was 'home.' I reached out and made the connection, and like Merlin himself had arranged it, you fell for me just as hard. That first day we talked, just the two of us, I still recall our conversation on top of the roof, when I told you about the first time I kept watch over the Order and how my own owl frightened me in an attempt to ease your anxieties over keeping watch that night, and the feeling you left me with. You didn't know it, but that day, you saved me. We came inseparable. You and I, Tonks, we're soul mates. I love you with _all_ my heart, though I may not be much for you at all. Until the world ends, and even after that. I will always love you. To me, this means I would defend you with my life even if the odds were insurmountable. It means I will comfort you in the difficult and painful times. It means I will rejoice with you when times are good. It means I will _never_ betray you. I will never give up on you—on _us_. It means finding my fire, when you, my loved one, are threatened. Love says I forgive you when you make a mistake. Love says though life may test me, I am yours into eternity and I will never abandon you or hurt you. It means I will never put you in any danger, no matter how noble the cause may be."

Tonks choked back her tears and swallowed hard. She took a deep breath and willed her nerves to calm down.

_Get it together_. _Don't cry. You can do this._

"Remus, you are my sky and clouds... Falling in love with you was not planned. But our stars aligned, and a great force pulled us together. I will never forget the way your face rested on my hands, the night we told each other we loved each other for the first time. In your embrace, I have a sense that I finally _belong_ somewhere, that I was loved. I will be patient with you. I will never grow angry with you. I will respect you, and I will listen to you. I will never forsake you. I understand that you're not perfect, and I still want to be there for you as your wife, your support system. You are so important to me. As your wife, I will provide for you. I will protect you. I will never give up on us and will always be there for you. I love you."

Dumbledore smiled, though what his next words were to the couple, it was missed.

Remus grinned as they exchanged rings. He smiled and lowered his face to hers and their lips met, their first kiss as husband and wife.

The moment both had dreamed of for so long, now real. When he kissed her, the world fell away despite their new family erupting into cheers. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek.

She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest.

Such bliss. They broke apart and were immediately enveloped in hugs and congratulations by their family.

Lupin leaned in to whisper into Tonks's ear. "You owe me a dance, Dora, we're long overdue, I don't think I've ever danced with you before until now," he teased, holding out his hand, waiting for her to take it. "I never got to dance with you," he joked. "Shall we?" he asked. "Tradition dictates that I dance with my wife on our wedding day, after all. Come, love. You owe me a dance, sweetheart. I _did_ save your life, multiple times, love. It's the least you can do."

Tonks looked surprised and blinked owlishly at her husband, but only for a moment and broke into a wide grin.

"Well…I thought you'd never ask me, Rem. What _took_ you so long? I've been waiting to dance with you, and you make me wait until our wedding day, love?" she grinned, accepting his hand, and loving how her skirts flowed as he twirled her once before pulling her close, closing off the gap of space between them.

She smiled as he rested his forehead against hers, not even noticing that Dumbledore had somehow managed to cause a few violins and other string instruments to materialize out of thin air and start playing themselves.

"Now he's just showing off," she teased, keeping her voice low enough so that only Remus heard, breathing an audible sigh of relief as the small crowd began to disperse.

Some, including Snape, of all people (albeit reluctantly), offered their congratulations, but the two barely paid the onlookers any mind. They had eyes only for each other.

Tonks hung back after their dance, her hand interlocked with Lupin's, content to just watch the people who they considered their friends—family—mingle and chat.

She craned her neck up to look at him, and after a moment, ever the intuitive man that he was, Lupin could sense that his wife was looking affectionately up at him, and he turned.

His grip on her hand tightened as he pulled her even closer.

"What is it, love?" he asked, his blue eyes sparkling with a newfound tenderness she'd not seen in him before, as he reached up and pressed her knuckles to his lips for a gentle kiss. "You're looking… _troubled_ …"

"Hmm?" Her brows knitted together in confusion, and then she blushed, realizing he had caught her staring at him. "O-oh, no, I was just…you came into my life when I needed you the most."

He couldn't help but smile and roll his eyes a little bit at that as he closed off the gap of space between the two of them, resting his forehead against hers, enjoying the warmth that his new wife gave off, basking in it. "So, did _you_. It works both ways."

She smiled, flashing him a brilliant white smile. "Love you, Rem." He returned her smile and he kissed her, and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be.

His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled.

She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest.

Tonks loved that Lupin was so much taller than she was, that she had to reach up and let her arms hang softly about his neck, resting on his strong shoulders.

She saw the tilt of his head as he drew her in for another kiss and her own tilted upward.

After that was a heady bliss, feeling his emotions in his tender kiss that was so full of love.

There was something unique in all the world about their kiss, and it was that the two of them loved one another right down to their cores—their souls, that sacred bridge between their two minds and bodies.

Some called a love like theirs bewitched, magic, but Tonks preferred to call it by its natural name: true love. For there was an emptiness in the freedom of being alone and liberty in being caught in that divine spell.

And so, as she looked into Lupin's brown eyes and when she saw there the feelings of her own heart, they truly became one.

And if _that_ wasn't magic, Tonks didn't know _what_ was. As she looked at him and captured his lips for another gentle kiss, the young Auror knew that her new husband was her _own_ miracle, and she could not have been happier. She had not expected that she would fall in love, ever.

And now that she had what she had always wanted, a loving husband, well…

Tonks wanted nothing else out of life, for she already had it.


	89. A Note of Hope

** CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE **

Lupin was standing off with Sirius, watching with an affectionate gleam in his eye as Tonks conversed with Norah, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in too low tones for him to make out what was being said, though he didn't care.

He was married to the woman of his dreams, and just that thought alone, and the fact that he could now call Tonks his wife sent a surge of euphoria through his bloodstream and straight to his heart.

Ollie, meanwhile, was deep in conversation with none other than his old Head of House, Professor Snape, who'd come (begrudgingly so) dressed in black dress robes to pay his respects to his former partner and still fellow Order member and to assess his former student's condition now that Newt Scamander and Dumbledore had rid him of his Obscurus.

Remus shot Sirius a dark look for him making a comment about Tonks's dress and wondering if Norah would notice that his new wife had swapped out the pair of white slippers for her combat boots, though she'd Transfigured them and changed the color to white and pink to give her boots a festive flare.

He doubted it, though if there was one thing their guide had proven to them both over the last few days, it was that she was very resilient, and not much escaped the young blonde She-Wolf's attentions.

Lupin frowned at his best friend for Sirius's quip, though Moony didn't say anything. He let a sigh and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of light brown hair, which had been freshly trimmed by Mrs. Weasley, with Molly not taking no for an answer. Lupin pursed his lips into a thin line and glanced down at Albus Dumbledore's so-called _gift_.

"What do you suppose it is?" he asked, uncurling his fingers, and laying it flat against the skin of his palm so that Sirius could see as Black moved to stand beside Remus.

It was an odd little stone, grey in design, and unlike anything he had ever seen before.

"No clue," Sirius murmured, having to crane his neck almost over Moony's shoulder in order to study the strange device in the palm of Remus's hand. "Whatever it is, I hope this isn't Dumbledore's crackpot idea of a _joke_ ," he growled in a bark-like tone. "Leave it to the Headmaster to give us something that would explode in glitter or something, and then you'd really be making a statement to your bride on your wedding."

"Mmm," Remus merely grunted by way of response, though his confused look was instantly replaced as he briefly tore his gaze away from the strange stone in his hand, and the wry smile was replaced with an astonishing expression of contrite gentleness and admiration, and a faraway look appeared in Lupin's light brown orbs, glistening brightly.

"He said three _turns_ would do it? It's not some unorthodox Time Turner, is it?" Sirius demanded hotly, his brows knitting together in confusion, as Lupin shook his head.

"No. At least, I hope it isn't. I have no desire to go back in time, Sirius. Only one way to find out." Lupin's voice warbled slightly as it shook, and he did not exactly know what compelled him to close his eyes as he held the strange-looking stone in hand, turning it thrice in hand, just as Dumbledore had instructed.

The stone felt hot in his hand, and he could swear that he felt it as it vibrated a little, and Sirius's murmured curse words under his breath told Lupin that _something_ unusual had just happened, and it was only when a familiar voice, one he was all too well acquainted within the back of his mind, spoke up, sounding firmer, and closer than before, that he flung his eyes open.

" _Remus_." A woman's voice, soft, succulent, and gentle. Kind. True.

Lupin's eyes flung wide open and immediately, tears sprang to his eyes, and he wondered if this was the Forbidden Forest's idea of another _cruel_ joke, a malicious _prank_.

Though one quick glance over at Sirius out of the corner of his eye told him Padfoot was seeing the exact same thing that he was, though the other guests either were too engrossed in conversations of their own, or they had witnessed it and were electing to give the groom a modicum of privacy and let them have his moment with his friends.

Standing in front of Remus and Sirius were the transparent, but very much real figures of James and Lily Potter, and his mother, Hope Lupin, all of whom were beaming.

Lupin's brain stuttered for a moment as his eyes took in all three of them standing in front of him and Sirius, and every part of him went on pause while his thoughts struggled to catch up. He watched, dumbstruck, as James took a half-step forward, and put his cold hand on Remus's shoulder, though his form was shimmering, wavering, and he could not manage to grasp onto the last surviving Marauder's shoulder, but it stayed.

Lupin repressed a shudder as Jame's hand lingered on his shoulder, feeling as though he had been doused in ice water as if a ghost had just waltzed right through him.

James offered Remus a coy little smile that was more like a smirk. "Well? Aren't you going to say something, Moony? Never took you to be the speechless type. You didn't _seriously_ think we would _miss_ our best friend's wedding, did you, Moony? We're proud of you, Moony. Padfoot," he added, glancing towards Sirius, and offering Black a nod.

Remus's mother nodded and offered her only son a sad, somewhat remorseful smile. "My little baby got _married_. And you're going to be a _father_ , Remus, how wonderful. I only wish that I were still alive to meet my grandson or granddaughter. I regret that your son or daughter will grow up not knowing their grandmother," she sighed, casting a wistful glance towards her husband, Lyall who was deep in conversation with Dumbledore and did not notice the specter of his wife sparing her husband a glance. "You _are_ taking care of your father for me, aren't you, sweetheart?" Hope questioned.

Lupin nodded mutely, parting his lips to speak, though nothing came out at first except a hoarse croak that he quickly turned into a cough and turned his head to the side to mask his tears so his friends and mother wouldn't see.

It felt as though the air had been knocked completely from his lungs, and he was struggling to allow airflow to return, to exhale, to do anything at all.

To Remus, it felt as though he'd forgotten how to breathe, unable to speak, and completely at an utter loss for words, and Lily, Merlin bless her soul, spoke.

" _Rem_!" she chastised lightly, her hands on her hips, tossing her red hair over her shoulders, a teasing tone to her otherwise admonishing of his shocked and awed behavior. "We've been _waiting_ for this moment for you for a _long_ time. Aren't you going to introduce us to your wife? We cannot stay long, I'm afraid, so you should make the most of Albus's gift." Lily challenged, her gaze flitting between her husband, Sirius, and Hope.

Lupin promptly closed his mouth and nodded mutely. "I…I…" he tried to speak, though all he managed was a hoarse croak as he rapidly blinked back tears.

Finally, he swallowed down hard past the lump growing his voice.

"I've… _missed_ all of you. More than…" His voice cracked, but he fought it back down. "More than any of you know." He looked towards James and Lily, and then a thought struck him. "The...the voices inside my head when I...hear you. Has that..." Remus paused, unsure of how to phrase his question. "Has that been you all along?"

Lupin watched with widened eyes as Lily beamed, throwing him a charming little smile and mutely nodding her head, confirming his suspicions.

James made an odd little noise from the back of his throat that sounded like a snort as he brushed off Moony's comments.

"We're _waiting_ , Remus," he huffed, sounding slightly annoyed. "We want to _meet_ her. Tonks. We cannot stay," he murmured, exchanging an unusually somber glance with Lily and Hope, both women returning his nod before he returned his attention back to Remus. "The Resurrection Stone only lasts a short while, Moony. Make the best of this."

"We want to meet her, _officially_ ," Lily piped up jovially, shooting a bright smile James's way, though her smile faltered as she glanced towards Hope Lupin. "Though perhaps it's best if Mrs. Lupin goes _first_ ," she said kindly. "Don't you think, James?"

James nodded his agreement and hung back with Sirius, who was looking just as dumbfounded as Remus was, he was pleased to see, and Lupin swallowed and shakily took a half step forward towards Tonks, who was still in conversation with Molly, a hand on her still very flat stomach and Molly and Arthur were both exclaiming their delight.

No doubt Tonks had told Mr. and Mrs. Weasley of their news. "Love?" he managed, surprised he could even find his voice as he coughed once to clear his throat.

He tapped her on the shoulder and flushing crimson as his wife turned around to meet his gaze, still awestruck of her beauty, his gaze lingering on her white wedding dress.

Tonks shifted at the waist and regarded him with wide, blinking almond-shaped eyes and held Remus captive there, toying lovingly with a lock of her wavy maroon hair, which Molly Weasley had gone to painstaking lengths to scatter white tiny wildflower petals throughout her hair, and when she smiled at him, his heart thrummed erratically against his chest, though her smile faltered when she took notice of his thin frame and pale face.

The days following Tonks's kidnapping by Barty Crouch Jr. had really taken their toll on him, wondering if Crouch had murdered her, never knowing if she was safe until Newt had found her here in the forest, learning Tonks was _pregnant_ , and then the other night when she'd been carted off to the cave by those vicious _brutes_ , those centaurs.

He had worried for Dora, and it showed on his frame and in his face. Of which, Lupin thought most unfair, an injustice that his dress robes did absolutely _nothing_ to hide.

Although he had felt better than he had in months, he was still running on very little sleep. The dark shadows, those wretched purple bags underneath both of his eyes were a telling sign, and he would so nervous in thinking of how he'd tell Tonks what he wanted to say, he'd spent his nights here in the forest lying in the wake, thinking of what to say to the young woman standing before him who was now his _wife_ , and the other half wondering what the bloody hell he would do if his words were to fail him like they were doing right now, though Lupin supposed he was still in a state of shock over Albus's gift.

"Rem?" Tonks murmured lowly in a concerned sounding voice, quirking her eyebrows at Remus, and having to crane on her tiptoes, careful to ensure the long hem of her dress covered her combat boots to avoid Norah seeing that she hadn't listened to her.

Lupin smirked and let a light little chuckle escape his lips as he held out his left hand for his wife to take. "Come, love. There's someone I'd like you to meet. My mother," he murmured, barely stifling his smile at Dora's look of surprise in her eyes.

Hesitantly, Tonks bit down hard on her bottom lip and wiggled her eyebrows at Remus in disbelief, still peeking over her husband's shoulder, though she could see nothing, and with somewhat of a shaking hand, reached out and took Remus's hand.

The usual warmth of Tonks's skin, the way her delicate fingertips brushed the underside of his wrist caused Lupin's heart to flutter rapidly, happily, as he dragged her away from the minor crowd of well-wishers, pulling his wife to where his mother waited.

A light breeze wafted through the Forbidden Forest's clearing; the Halloween holiday rebellious to the wind even within the sleepy orange glow of the sunset as night fell.

Lupin realized with a somewhat heavy heart that they'd have to cut the celebration short in order to resume looking for Dolores Umbridge with Norah and Ollie, though he reminded himself that Molly and Arthur had insisted on throwing the two of them a proper wedding reception at the Burrow once their business in the Forest was finished.

So, that was something to look forward to, at least. Tonks glanced sideways at her new husband, which just the thought of that word in her mind sent a swell of warmth which began in the confines of her chest and worked its way down to the tips of her toes.

Tonks could tell Remus was definitely not in his element, and neither was she, she supposed, as she glanced down at her wedding dress.

But to see themselves here, in the throng of their little impromptu celebration supporting their marriage was so perfectly out of place, that, needless to say, she blushed as she realized they turned more than a few heads. Tonks was briefly tempted to pull away, wondering if the stress of the Forbidden Forest had finally caused poor Rem to crack under the pressure of constantly getting them lost, for how in the name of Merlin's left buttock could she possibly meet Remus's mum?

His mother was dead, had been for the last few years, Remus had _said_ so to her! It had been one of the first things out of his mouth during the first few days of their new partnership when she was still in the midst of healing over her Splinched arm, she was—

" _Not_ dead," she whispered, her voice warbling as she felt her eyes widen in shock. Her lips thinned in an eerie sense of mortification as the pair of newlyweds stood in front of the shimmering, wavering translucent form of Hope Lyall, pink touching her cheeks.

_Oh, my Merlin, is another one of the Forest's pranks? A joke? A trick_?

When she turned her head slightly in her husband's direction, all she could manage to utter in response to the specter standing before her, waiting patiently for her son to introduce to her his bride, all that Tonks could manage was a muffled breathy little squeak of terror.

Remus noticed Tonks's slightly horrified look, her lips parted open slightly in shock, and he did not bother to stifle his small smile upon seeing his wife's expression.

Tonks swallowed down hard as she looked at Remus's mother, a light pink blush deepening as it speckled along her cheeks, and before she knew what was happening, she bowed her head as a sign of respect for the dead, grabbed the skirts of her wedding dress and sank into a low curtsy.

Perhaps a little outdated in terms of manners, though it couldn't really hurt, considering she'd never really talked to a dead person before and wasn't sure of the proper manner to address one…

The young witch would never know if this was the Forbidden Forest playing another trick on her and Remus, or if Hope Lupin was really there in front of her and Remus. Her form shimmered and waved, but then, it seemed like everything did in this cursed dark forest. Hope Lupin slowly walked towards Tonks and her son with a light smile on her translucent face, moving like she was painted onto the horizon with a fine brush, the artist constantly touching up and making alterations, chuckling at Tonks's little curtsy.

Lupin glanced at his wife and returned his attention back to his mother, swallowing down past the lump in his throat. "Mum, I would like to officially introduce you to my wife, Dora. Mum, this is my wife, Dora Tonks-Lupin."

Tonks gingerly pulled her hand free from his to try to shake Hope's hand, and her hand only grazed the air, though where Hope's hand rested in mid-air though she tried felt cold, and sent a wash of cold down her entire spine, as though she had been doused in ice water.

Tonks pulled her hand back, a crestfallen expression on her face as she felt her shoulders slump in disappointment. Hope Lupin was not quite a ghost. But nor was she alive. There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence until Tonks thought she had finally regained control of her voice again. Through all her obvious unease, she mustered every strength of the woman that she knew herself to be and managed to speak to Remus's mother with as much eloquence and dignity as she could.

"I—it's wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Lupin. Remus has told me so much about you," she managed to croak out hoarsely, still unable to believe she was conversing with his dead mother. She swallowed down past her growing lump and forced herself to continue, giving her head a light little shake, her curls bouncing as she did so, in order to clear it. "I only wish that you could be here with us, with…your husband, under different circumstances, but…I—I just want you to know that I'll take good care of Remus, that I love him more than anything. Maybe even myself," she mumbled, as an afterthought. "Y—you should be very _proud_ of your son, Mrs. Lupin," she complimented, having to crane her neck up to look at Remus, who was eyeing her as though she were the last witch left in the world, and gave her hand a light but firm, reassuring squeeze. "Without him, I—I wouldn't even be standing here next to you having this conversation," Tonks chuckled nervously, reaching up a hand to tuck a stray lock of her hair off her shoulder. "Remus has been an invaluable member to the Order of the Phoenix, and to Hogwarts," she murmured, smiling, the corners of her mouth tugging upwards as she chuckled at the light blush speckling along her husband's cheeks as she mentioned his professorship days.

Tonks didn't bother to conceal it, and nor could she help the smile that tugged on the corners of her lips. She returned Remus's squeeze of her hand with one of her own to him, and briefly glanced down at their conjoined hands and studied her simple gold ring.

She felt Lupin stiffen slightly with nervousness, which for a moment, puzzled her. Shouldn't she be the one who was nervous, here? Tonks was, after all, talking to a dead person! And to top it off, this someone happened to be her now-husband's own mother! First impressions were everything, even among the dead, Tonks wondered.

"I—I'm honored to meet you, Mrs. Lupin," Tonks murmured, starting to dip her head in acknowledgment as a show of respect, but Hope Lupin waved off the formality.

"Please. Just call me Hope," Hope insisted, and Tonks saw no other choice but to nod in response. She fell silent for a moment and gave her new daughter-in-law a brief assessment in her wedding dress, her kind hazel eyes traveling upward and landing on Tonks's hair. "I do think I ought to congratulate you both, loves. The two of you will be parents in nine months. It truly is a magical thing, true love. Being with someone not just emotionally, but physically as well. I know you had doubted all your life surrounding your lycanthropy, but I see this young witch was able to look past that, as were you, and I'm so happy for you, Remus. We really are. Your father and I couldn't be prouder of you, son." Hope turned her gaze towards Tonks and offered the mortified young witch a soft smile.

Tonks's blush deepened, though when Remus spoke up, a look of relief flooded her face as she realized her husband was saving her the embarrassment of responding.

"We are too, Mum," he murmured tenderly, his lips briefly brushing against Dora's cheeks as he reached out a hand and pulled her closer to him by Tonks's shoulder.

"Thank you, Rem, b—but I still owe your mother an apology, Remus."

Tonks turned towards Mrs. Lupin and ignored her husband's look of surprised etched on his handsome, lined face, and swallowed down hard, wiggling her eyebrows at Hope.

"I—I put your son at great risk just these past few weeks alone, Mrs. Lupin," Tonks whispered, her words escaping from her lips like a hushed, dirty secret, and her blush intensified. "If it weren't for Remus, I would have been dead now several times over, so would our baby. I owe him my life, though Rem will tell you otherwise. "I—I'm sure you already know this in your own way, b—but just a couple of days ago, I was taken here in this very forest by a herd of three or four centaurs."

Tonks gulped nervously, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment to regain her composure as visions of those vicious _animals_ flitted through her mind.

"I—I was so bent on doing anything that I could to stop the beasts from going after Remus and Norah," she confessed, briefly averting her gaze to land on the young blonde werewolf, who Tonks was pleasantly surprised to see, was deep in conversation with Ollie.

_Go get em, Ol_ , she thought, knowing full well her best friend could hear her. _You deserve your own happiness with someone_. Ollie briefly looked up, having sensed her thoughts, and though he momentarily looked surprised, he quickly recovered, nodding.

_I will_ , he promised her, furrowing his brows in confusion, though Ollie knew better than to question Tonks's strange behavior, as she knew no one else to the best of her ability could see her and Remus knee-deep in conversation with Remus's dead mum.

Ollie clapped a hand on Norah's shoulder, who looked surprised and somewhat put off by the unexpected gesture, though she quickly recovered and allowed Ollie to lead her towards the other side of the forest clearing to take to Dumbledore and Severus.

Tonks nodded and swallowed, returning her attention to Hope, who was still waiting patiently for her to continue saying what was on her mind and get it off her chest.

"I—I didn't think to explain myself. I didn't think of how my actions looked to Remus and Norah. To say that 'I'm sorry' is an understatement, and it is surely not enough, but I am deeply sorry." She squeezed Remus's hand for support and met her husband's pained gaze. "To both of you," she whispered, now solely speaking to Remus.

Hope nodded in understanding. "If you truly mean what you say, Mrs. Lupin, then I forgive you, though there is _nothing_ to forgive. What happened to you, you were not at fault. I just have one question." Hope Lupin bit her bottom lip, unsure of herself suddenly.

"Anything, Mum, whatever you want to know, we'll tell it," Remus coaxed, and Tonks detected and smiled at the unmistakable note of pride in her new husband's voice.

Tonks caught Hope now eyeing their clasped hands with gentle eyes. Tonks was honestly kind of surprised at how quickly Remus's mum's spirit became at ease around her, considering the two had only just met, and it so happened to fall on their wedding day, Halloween of all holidays, because she did not let her eyes be the only part that questioned Tonks.

Tonks almost staggered backward and would have fallen if Remus had not already been holding onto her arm at Remus's mum's next question posed to them.

"What will you name your child?" Hope asked, fixing Tonks with a pointed stare. Tonks proceeded to stare owlishly at Hope Lupin, blinking at the specter in utter shock.

In some situations, Tonks thought wildly, Remus's mum possessed an even sharper tongue than Molly Weasley whenever she was riled. She could feel Remus blanch next to her and trying to loosen his grip on her hand, though Tonks held steadfast to him.

"Uh, well, Mum… Dora and I haven't exactly discussed that part yet," he murmured, sounding suddenly embarrassed, though Tonks let out a content little sigh as his hand drifted and rested protectively over the flat of Tonks's stomach. "We need to, though, and soon."

Hope made a noise through her nose that sounded like a snort as all of her son's eloquence and quiet reserved behavior practically spouted wings and flew out the window. All formalities tossed aside, Hope smiled softly and looked towards Tonks.

When she spoke, there was an unmistakable hint of excitement in her voice. "So, tell me, then, dear, when did all of this between you and my Remus start?"

Tonks parted her lips slightly to speak, though she had to ponder over an apt response to give, and now suddenly, she too felt guilty, just as much as her husband did.

They had not exactly discussed what they would name their baby, depending on its gender, and Tonks could not help the small remnant, that seed of resentment that churned deep within her belly and twisting as a coil in her gut as her mind drifted to thoughts of Umbridge.

Norah had informed her the trek to get Umbridge back would resume at first light, at the coming of dawn the following morning, but tonight, they were married and husband and wife for the first time and Tonks did not want to waste that.

Tonks was briefly tempted to take Remus and Norah's advice and let Professor Dumbledore deal with the daunting task of retrieving Umbridge from the centaurs, though she knew that, as an Auror, this was not her way, to abandon someone in need of help, even someone as foul and loathsome as Umbridge, given what she had tried to do.

She knew if she did not do this and see things through to the end for herself, then she would never be able to forgive herself and would regret not going back for Umbridge.

Tonks sighed, forcing her mind to return to the question Hope Lupin had just asked her. "Well, uh, Mrs. Lupin, um, I guess you could say it all started here in the Forest," Tonks murmured, her pink blush intensifying as she recollected trying to drown Sirius's brother's locket in the murky depths of the Black Lake. "In…in the Black Lake."

Her voice was sweet and laced with a sense of innocence, and even as she started to launch into an abbreviated version of events, she knew Remus wouldn't let her continue. Memories of that early morning adventure deep in the Forbidden Forest flitted through her mind and before her eyes, intensifying the heat that had already crept its way onto her cheeks for the entire duration of this conversation, this dialogue that she was exchanging with Remus and his mother, and twisted her stomach into intense cramps.

" _Tonks_!" Remus exclaimed, his red blush reddening like mad, and he tugged on her hand, seemingly hellbent on dragging his wife towards the clearing to dance with her.

Tonks blinked and trailed off in her tale, momentarily stunned by just how much Remus affected her life, and she glanced down at her hands. It felt as though the magic churning within the very fibers of her being was hungry for him, craved his touch, and she could swear, she was sure, yes, she was sure, she felt it…humming near her skin's surface. "I…" she stammered, struggling to find the right words, though Hope interrupted.

"Perhaps another time, love," Hope murmured, suddenly sounding apologetic. "I'm afraid we cannot stay, Remus. Our time is up," Hope said, sounding apologetic.

"Wait!" A man and a woman's voice called out in unison, coming from behind them both. Tonks slowly swiveled around to regard the interruption, half expecting it would be Norah or Ollie, either one of them have to come to tell her they needed to leave.

But her jaw dropped open in shock when she saw the translucent forms of James and Lily Potter, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt, she was looking at his friends.

"I…huh? _What_? J—James a—and Lily?" Tonks squeaked, hardly daring to believe this, though given she had just finished up a conversation with Remus's dead mother, anything else at this point, she guessed, ought not to surprise her too terribly much. "H—Harry's parents. They're here _too_?!"

Lily nodded and tossed her red hair over her shoulder, her smile widening as she looked down at Remus and Tonks's conjoined hands, her gaze shifting to Remus. "We've waited our whole lives and our afterlives now, I guess, for our Rem to find his happiness."

James nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching as he didn't fight his smile.

"About damned bloody time Moony got himself married," he teased, taking note of Lupin's flushed face. "We're happy for you both."

This continued on for a few minutes, and after a few parting words, and a promise that the two of them would talk to James and Lily and Hope again sometime (of this, Tonks was not sure they would until they went to Merlin in the sky), Remus gently pulled Tonks by her hand towards the music still playing on a lively jig.

"What did you tell my mother, Tonks?" Remus whispered into the shell of her ear the moment James, Lily, and Hope's spirits dissipated into thin air and vanished, as though they had never stood within the Forbidden Forest's clearing and watched the two of them get married.

The newlyweds walked past the row of serving tables that Professor McGonagall had conjured, with food prepared directly from the Hogwarts' house-elves, of which one had stopped by to pay his respects, Dobby, who was in conversation with Newt of all people, chattering away to anyone who wanted to listen about how he was _free_.

The tables of food were full of food, and picked clean of the best foods, leaving Tonks feeling disappointed as her churning stomach gave a low grumble, though Lupin only scowled at the mess and the flies that buzzed around obsessively around the remains.

Tonks didn't bother hiding the smile that tugged at her lips. "You didn't _really_ think I would tell your mother the details of what happened at the Black Lake, Rem?"

Lupin's face suddenly looked aghast as she knew she'd ruffled her husband's feathers.

"No, Dora, I—I _didn't_!" His nerves were currently getting the better of his quiet intelligence. "But with _you_ , sweetheart, you can never be too sure," he corrected himself.

Tonks smirked as they walked slowly towards the music as he listened intently as Tonks went over the details of the morning plan to set out for Umbridge and rescue her. Remus was curious and wanted to know the details of what their next course of action ought to be, and it didn't escape his wife's attention of the worry that had managed to creep its way onto his features.

Tonks was no _fool_. She knew it was going to take her husband time to fully come to terms with and accept that like it or not, Tonks was going after Umbridge with Ollie and Norah. The witch needed to be brought to justice for her crimes, and Tonks wanted to be there to ensure her face was the last thing Dolores saw before Kingsley or another Auror from her department carted her off to Azkaban Prison.

Lupin stopped and stood at the edge of the forest clearing, watching in awe as the final orange rays of sunlight on this Halloween Eve illuminated the top of the forest canopy. The newlyweds stood watching their guests (all except for Snape, who even refused McGonagall's hand), and watched in contented peace as Dumbledore was one of the first to escort Minerva to the makeshift dance floor the pair of wizards had conjured, Molly and Arthur the next to join, followed by, Tonks was pleased to see as Ollie dragged a protesting Norah out to dance.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tonks caught Lupin eyeing her with a look that even now that she was his wife, she couldn't quite make it out what exactly it meant.

A look that Tonks could only think of as a look of intense concentration.

Almost like he was planning something, though what that 'something' was, Tonks knew that only Remus knew what it was.

Every once in awhile, she would notice their guests giving the pair of them sidelong looks, curious to see if he would dance with his wife.

"Dora," Remus began cautiously, a note of worry in his voice, and briefly, Tonks was tempted to communicate in her impossible telepathy with Ollie as to what was on her husband's mind, though she decided against it, thinking he was about to come out and just say his piece here in a second. "Do you think the two of us could talk someplace…private?" He cringed, and she wondered if he was starting to feel the stares.

" _No way_ , Rem," Tonks answered flatly by way of response. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easy, husband," she joked, craning her neck upward to look at him. "You _did_ promise me that you would dance with me, sweetheart. You owe me a dance, love!"

When her statement only further inspired silence, Tonks knew she had to goad him. She sighed and toyed with a lock of her wavy hair. "Well. _Ollie_ knows I'm a good dancer. Maybe I'll just go ask _him_ ," she teased, watching as Remus's light brown eyes narrowed in defeat, along with just the briefest flickers of jealousy as he took her hand.

"Come, love," he sighed, with his usual strength of that Wolf within him, he tugged Tonks to the center of Dumbledore's makeshift dance floor in the middle of the clearing.

At first, Lupin's movements were rigid, stiff, as though he were unsure of himself, and Tonks could not help but wonder if this was the very first time he had danced with a woman, whereas hers (as she had naturally assumed) were a bit clumsy.

Tonks let out a squeak as he almost stepped on his feet with her decked out white and purple combat boots.

Though after a few moments to allow the initial awkwardness to pass, the newlyweds settled into a soft, swaying rhythm and began to complement each other.

Before too long, their dancing was becoming just as powerful as whenever they combined their magic to work together, wholesome, and beautiful, a nightmare and a daydream, as his hands gently rested on Tonks's waist, his fingertips practically electric.

Her arms reached up and wrapped themselves around his neck, pulling him down slightly. As she held onto him, Tonks could not help but notice her poor husband's shoulders felt thinner than usual, as though he had not eaten much the last few weeks.

With everything going on in the Forest around this, this was the first time she'd gotten an up-close look at him since being reunited with him.

And when the firelight illuminated his face from the campfire that Norah and Ollie had conjured as the sunset, Tonks got an up-close and personal look at the darkened shadows underneath his eyes.

It wasn't yet the full moon, so the reason for why he looked like this troubled her. And yet, despite all of this, her husband's expression seemed…soft. Gentle. And adoring.

Tonks half-wondered if he had donned black dress robes in order to hide his slightly stricken look. It wasn't far out of the realm of possibility. Tonks knew this, too.

As they swayed to the rhythm of the music, Tonks felt hypnotized, like she had been spelled under its power, much like the wind would catch the grass in a light breeze. The music had its own kind of magic and needed no help from Professor Dumbledore, and Tonks knew that this song was magic solely meant for her and Remus.

The two of them were dancing so beautifully, that Tonks suspected Lupin was using his adept skills in nonverbal magic to move the two of them so eloquently, really. When the music finally ended its last note, their hands immediately intertwined and found one another on instinct.

Tonks began to feel the inexplicable warmth prickle up and down her arms and spine, and she saw her husband's shoulder stiffen in surprise. She was sure that for a split second, a bit of her own nonverbal magic had reached out with its invisible tendrils and had touched him as well. It was the only explanation…

A sudden urge to kiss her new husband suddenly overwhelmed her despite the curious eyes of their guests on him, though it felt as though it were just her and Remus. The quiet intensity of Remus's gaze as his eyes remained fixated on her told Tonks everything she needed to know, that his eyes spoke of similar feelings. Their faces slowly moved in towards one another, set to collide.

"We're husband and wife for the first time tonight, Rem," Tonks whispered, resting her forehead against his, glancing out of the corner of her eye and she stifled her smile as she heard the low murmurings of their guests wishing the newlyweds many years of wedded bliss before Disapparating on the spot.

All but Norah and Ollie, though Ollie mentioned something about the two of them finding a new camping spot for tonight, and to enjoy their night together as husband and wife, seeming to understand Tonks's need to spend tonight with Remus alone. Just them.

Tonks spoke up again, her breaths catching in her throat as she never once took her eyes off Remus, not even when she knew it was just the two of them left in the Forest.

She whispered her words before Lupin's gaze could set her on fire.

"Let's not waste it."

* * *

**A/N: And now the secret of Dumbledore's gift to Remus is revealed! I thought for a long time about what I wanted it to be and decided on the Resurrection Stone so that his best friends could see him get married on the happiest day of his life, and his mother, who I believe, Lupin misses with all his heart. Coming up soon, Umbridge's rescue and a few more encounters with some other Forest creatures along the way!**


	90. To Come to an Understanding

** CHAPTER NINETY **

The following morning, Tonks slowly fluttered her eyes open, wondering if last night had simply been a dream, the time they had shared in each other's arms, she blinked and shielded her gaze, not even needing to look to know she was sleeping on an unnaturally wide sleeping bag Lupin had conjured haphazardly last night big enough for the both of them to share.

The Forbidden Forest's clearing was flooded with soft morning light, illuminating the dust particles floating overheard.

Was last night all just a dream? What little she _did_ remember of last night came to her in hazes, the sweet words Rem had whispered into her ear, feeling all of his movements, his lips meeting hers in the darkness.

A truly beautiful experience the two shared together as husband and wife that neither of them had wanted to end, though eventually when they had finished, tiredness had won over. Tonks would never admit to _anyone_ except her husband, but this pregnancy was exhausting her, and she was barely a month or two into her first trimester!

She sat up, a tiny, muted groan escaping her lips and shot a quick glance around, seeing no husband, no Norah or Ollie to greet her and make some quip about the night she had spent last night with Remus, and dressed in a pair of black leggings and a red collared casual shirt, scrunching her nose and concentrating as she felt her maroon-colored hair shift to a vibrant red in color, and she supposed she could have passed for a Weasley relative if someone didn't know her better.

She let out a sigh as she pulled on her socks and boots, though she was perfectly content to just sit here for a moment with the sun on her face and a huge grin on her face as she lifted her left hand to study the plain yellow gold wedding band on her hand. She was Remus John Lupin's wife now. His _wife_.

Eventually, she decided she could no longer delay the inevitable and got up, rolling up the sleeping bag and securing them, wishing sincerely that she had her wand. A simple Vanishing Charm would take care of these until they needed them again.

She let out a sigh as she wandered, now fully dressed, until her flaring nostrils caught the scent of what smelled like eggs and bacon and sausage, and her stomach let out a low growling rumble.

Despite her stomach, as it flipped and gave a nauseating little lurch at the smell of cooking meat, Tonks found her legs were no longer taking direction from her mind as she followed the smells of what she knew to be good eats for breakfast the morning after her wedding.

She found Remus huddled near the campfire with Norah and Ollie, both of whom shot Tonks a lopsided crooked little grin as the bride approached her husband.

Lupin seemed so lost in contemplative thought as he concentrated on monitoring the cooking of bacon and sausage to go with the eggs that he'd just finished making that he did not hear Tonks sneak up from behind. As she neared her husband, Tonks crossed her arms and pretended to pout, sticking out her bottom lip in a pretend little pout of rancor.

"You didn't wake me up this morning, love," Tonks murmured, stooping down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, her cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment as she swore she heard Norah snort, to which she felt her head whiplash sharply up and glowered at the two of them, Ollie was regarding her with an odd little half-grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, turning it upwards into a truly evil little smirk. She felt her cheeks flush red. "Oh, don't you start making fun, Ollie! _Don't_. You two are getting just a little _cozy_ , _aren't_ you?" Tonks teased Ollie, who she was pleased to see the pink developing in his cheeks. "Standing a little _close_ , hmm?"

She turned towards Norah, whose lips were pursed in a thin line though she didn't deny it, but nor did she confirm it. By this point, deep blushes now crossed both the She-Wolf and her best friend's faces and they were both looking rather flustered, which caused Tonks to quirk a brow Ollie's way, though she offered up no attempt to communicate with the man in his typical impossible telepathy. If something did happen last night with those two, it was their business.

"Dora, that was _cruel_ , and as for me not waking you up this morning…well, you—you looked so peaceful, and I know you've not gotten much sleep last night, so I figured I should let you rest, love," Remus spoke up, though his tone did not sound admonishing and condescending, but rather, teasing and lively, finally glancing up from the iron-wrought skillet, waving his wand and conjuring a few plates and utensils for everyone, passing plates of hot, piping breakfast, taking a seat next to his wife on the log.

Ollie just scoffed and rolled his eyes, shoveling a bite of egg into his mouth. "Maybe we _are_ , maybe we _aren't_ ," he murmured, though it did not escape her attention that his gaze continuously kept flitting towards Norah, unable to tear his gaze away from the blonde-haired, blue-eyed young werewolf, who made a noncommittal grunting noise.

Tonks rolled her eyes by way of response to her best friend's vague answer and turned her attention towards Norah, who shot Tonks a pleading look and seemed all too delighted to jump at the chance for a turn in their conversation and to change the subject. "So, what's the plan?" she murmured through a bite of bacon and sausage, trying her hardest not to smell the scents of the cooked meat, hoping she didn't throw it up.

So far so good as she ate, slowly and carefully, trying to fight against the rolling queasiness of her stomach. Molly had told her last night during the sort-of reception here in the Forest that her morning sickness would soon pass as her pregnancy progressed.

Tonks squeezed her eyes shut as she swallowed back the bile that threatened to come up. But Merlin's Beard, she sincerely hoped so. This was almost as bad as having the stupid stomach flu. She forced her attention to focus on Norah, and even now that the two witches had sort of made amends and she would even go as far as to consider Norah Jameson a friend now, she still could not quell the crushing sense of dread welling deep within her chest.

She knew that she still didn't feel quite at ease about Norah's disappointment towards her behavior from a few nights ago when Norah and Remus saved her and Ollie. Sooner or later, she was going to have to set things _straight_ with Norah, to tell the woman that no matter _what_ , she was standing steadfast by her decisions.

And Tonks secretly hoped to inform the She-Wolf that she was not as ignorant as to the behavior of the centaurs and other creatures that lurked within the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, that Norah seemed to think Tonks was incapable of handling herself.

Tonks bloody knew what those centaurs would have done to her if they'd been allowed to keep her alive as a prisoner and take her and Ollie back to their encampment.

She knew so damn well that it sent a chill down her back just thinking of it. Remus noticed Tonks's discomfort and furrowed his brows in a light frown, pulling her close and rubbing small circles near her spine, which sent a tremor of delight through her.

"Thanks, Rem," she murmured lowly under her breath, just enough so that only her husband could hear her thanks, as Norah launched into a plan of where they were headed in the Forbidden Forest next, in the northwest, towards Astelos's turf, to always stay close to one another and for Merlin's left saggy buttock, to stay together as a _group_.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown as she could not help but ponder over her encounter with the centaurs from a few nights ago, and how she really wasn't feeling all that well this morning, if she was being honest with herself, though at least her bloody fever from those damned Bleeding Mulberries she'd accidentally consumed was gone now.

Perhaps she didn't know all of the details when it came to centaurs and how they lived and operated in these cursed dark woods, but Tonks thought she knew well enough.

She had not bothered to distract the centaurs from discovering the location of their campsite simply out of her own sense of ignorance as to what they were capable of.

Tonks had done what she did the other night to save her now-husband and Norah, whom she liked to think also considered her a friend, from the same fate she had seemed doomed to by daring to wander off the beaten path in search of edible food. She could not help it, but she wanted for Norah to know that Tonks wasn't an idiot, Merlin's Beard, she could not _afford_ to be as an Auror, and that she was not as naïve as Norah had implied.

She had sensed that, even when Norah had been helping her prepare for the wedding yesterday, she could feel the unspoken words and tensions lingering in the air between the two of them, that there was still a conversation yet to be exchanged, and she sincerely hoped that even with Remus and Ollie here, they'd be able to move past this.

To come to an understanding, so that Norah could help them get Umbridge back. And given that it was the day after her and Lupin's marriage, she did not fancy spoiling the good mood for Remus, but nor did she want to let the tensions continue to build between herself and Norah, and she did not want to argue with the young blonde She-Wolf, nor did she want Jameson to yell at her again and fly off the handle for what she was about to say because she knew she wouldn't feel right about taking one more step in these dark woods without saying something to Norah by at least trying to clear this up.

"Norah," Tonks managed to squeak out in a voice that sounded smaller, more subdued than before as she slid slowly off the log and wrapped her knees close into her chest and hugged them. She watched silently as the young blonde werewolf quickly stood and made her way towards where Tonks and Remus sat, a concerned look on her face.

"What is it?" Norah asked by means of response, her brows furrowed in a frown. "Are you feeling all right? Are you warm enough? Do you need a jacket or something?"

Tonks shook her head, a curl of her hair tumbling in front of her face as she did so, and she swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat. "N—no, I'm okay," she whispered, her voice still sounding almost meek and incredibly unsure of herself now.

Norah's brows came together even closer as her frown deepened. "You _are_ feeling better, aren't you?" she wondered, as she reached out a hand and felt Tonks's forehead. "Your fever from the other day is gone, at least, so that's good," she noted, shooting Tonks and Lupin a soft smile. "Do you think you'll be okay to move after breakfast?"

Tonks shrugged her shoulders. As much as she wanted to leave this cursed forest behind her and never return, she and Remus had made Norah a promise that they would talk to the Minister of Magic for Norah in exchange for Norah saving their baby's life.

And something deep within the churning pit of her rolling stomach as she bit the wall of her cheek and pondered this, told her that Minister Scrimgeour would not exactly listen to the pair of them if one of his own Ministry employees, especially the Senior Undersecretary, were to be left behind in the Forbidden Forest to suffer at the hands of the centaurs. No. Tonks frowned. Their _only_ shot at this was getting Umbridge _back_.

"Yes," she finally agreed after what felt like an awkward and rather long pause, and she only answered upon Remus giving her a nimble little nudge to her ribcage, and she blinked, startled back to reality as her mind briefly took her down a dark place that she'd really rather not dwell on as visions of Umbridge suffering for what she had done to Norah's family and what she had tried to do to her flitted through her troubled mind.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and sighed, resting her fist in her cheek as she steadily and slowly lifted her chin and met Norah Jameson's bright, sky-blue orbs.

"I—I just…you've said it multiple times, there are more centaurs in this bloody forest, a—and not all of them belong to an entire herd as a collective whole," she began cautiously, struggling to find the right words while still wanting to sound as though she knew what she was talking about. "They could be anywhere in these woods for all we know. Merlin's Beard, but they might even be tracking us right now somehow and we'd probably never even know it. I—I just…never took the threat seriously until now. I'd heard stories of their brutality, knew about them from Greek mythology and thought I could handle it," she murmured, ducking her head and allowing a lock of her hair to tumble in front of her face, effectively shielding Norah's expression from her line of sight for now.

Tonks wasn't sure she could handle seeing the anger and disappointment in the young blonde werewolf's eyes. "I never imagined they'd seek out young witches just to hurt them! I—I mean, I'd read the stories, heard the rumors, a—and to me… they weren't ever really _real_ , I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Just monsters in stories, villains in books, you know, that kind of thing. The—the monster that parents—parents tell their children about at night in order to get them to behave. I never thought I'd actually meet a centaur, and I wasn't prepared for being cornered by just one of them, let alone three adult males."

Norah nodded in understanding; a look of concern etched on her pale features intermingled with that of concern.

"You're going to be safe as long as we stick together as a _group_. No more wandering off on your own. I've dealt with Astelos's stupid herd many times before, and am more than capable of defending you all if it comes to that, though the extra wand power here won't hurt," Norah insisted, trying to put Tonks's mind at ease, and Tonks noticed with some affection how Ollie put a hand on her shoulder. She wriggled a brow Ollie's direction, fully hellbent on getting the scoop from him later on, just what exactly did happen between those two last night, something juicy.

Though for now, she let the seemingly-budding attraction between their guide in this Forest and her best friend go, though it simmered at the back of her mind for later.

Tonks frowned. "B—but you aren't _invincible_ , Norah. _I'm_ not, Ollie isn't, Rem isn't," she protested, wildly speaking with her hands and struggling to articulate her point. "Even _with_ our wands, we're severely outnumbered. It's just the four of us against Merlin only knows how many are in their territory," she added, patting the back pocket of her pants and cherishing the feel of her wand, thinking she ought to be grateful old Broody Moody wasn't here to yell at her for not following elementary wand safety, feeling thoroughly grateful that Albus Dumbledore had managed to procure her wand for her, though when Remus had prompted him as to whereabouts in Crouch's mansion he had found it, or who had taken the liberty of delivering, the Hogwarts Professor did not answer.

Norah offered her a sympathetic little smile and shook her head and let out a light little chuckle, reaching up a hand to scratch at an itch behind her left ear. "I think you're forgetting I've lived in this bloody forest almost my entire _life_ , Tonks," she murmured, casting a wary glance around the canopy of trees above their heads, letting out a sigh. "I know you're scared of what's in there," here, she pointed a hand towards the thicket of the Forest. "And that's perfectly okay for you to feel that way. Bloody hell, I'd consider you a _fool_ if you _weren't_ scared since you have no _idea_ what lives in these woods, but you don't need to trouble yourself and stress yourself out like this. I'm more than capable of keeping you lot safe, and I'm certainly going to try my best. I mean, I can't guarantee it or make any promises, but I promise all of you that I'll do whatever the hell I can to get that pink-wearing _toad_ back and you said you'd talk to the Minister for me about seeing if people like us," she looked to Remus for a split second, "can have better accommodations. I'd _love_ to bloody be able to live in a _house_ , and get a decent _job_ …make a fresh start somewhere new, maybe..."

Ollie shot her a pained little look. No doubt he too, just as Remus and Tonks had, had heard the note of wistful sadness and remorse in Norah Jameson's tone just now.

If Norah noticed the look her new acquaintance was shooting her, she ignored it and kept her pointed gaze fixated on Tonks. "You're in a much different mindset than I am, Mrs. Lupin," she murmured, allowing the faintest ghost of a smile to flit across her face as she used Tonks's new maiden name. "You grew up in the _real_ world outside of this forest, where the centaurs you heard of were only the monsters in books and stories. I don't blame you at all for not being able to fully comprehend the danger you were in. You had no idea what the ones that had captured you were capable of doing to you, Tonks, what they would have done not to just you, but Ollie too, if I hadn't come when I had. You and the cub growing inside you were lucky that those centaurs didn't _kill_ you, and even luckier _still_ that they did not have a chance to take you, hostage, back to their camp. It's okay that you didn't understand just how much danger you were really in, Tonks. I know that I was…angry with you before," she confessed, a pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she recollected the volatile, unpredictable way she had lost her temper with Tonks a few nights ago. "I—I know that I shouldn't have been so frustrated with you, and I was too harsh on you, and it was my fault. You could not have known, Tonks. How could you possibly understand something that you'd never experienced before till now? Just as long as going forward that you understand, that's what's most important. We can't change what happened to you, not unless one of us has a Time-Turner or something, but we can at least take more precautions to ensure it won't happen again."

Lupin nodded his agreement and finally broke his silence, pulling Tonks close and allowing his wife to rest her head on the crook of his shoulder. "Miss Jameson is right, Dora. We're not going to let anything _else_ happen to you," he murmured tenderly, slowly bringing one of his hands to rest against the flat of her abdomen. "Either one of you."

Tonks, much to Remus's surprise, shook her head as she made to tie her hair up into a loose, messy bun to keep it out of the way with an elastic hairband she conjured with her wand. "You're wrong, Norah. I understand more than you think about those centaurs. I don't need any kind of further explanation other than what happened to me. You're right that I didn't know much about centaurs other than what I read in books. I didn't fear them as a little girl whenever I played outside, or even during my Hogwarts days. I could be outside and never fear what lurks in the shadows," she murmured, casting uneasy glances and a shudder went down her back, and she waved her wand again and conjured a heavy red leather jacket that she immediately put on and shrugged into for as much warmth as she could possibly manage.

Tonks had forgotten it was now November. She let out a content sigh at the immediate relief her new jacket provided, and continued to rest her head against Lupin's shoulder, enjoying his fingers drifting through a few strands of her hair, the tender act of which sent a pleasant tremor down her spine.

In many ways, it helped to comfort her and provide reassurance during this unpleasant but otherwise necessary conversation she had engaged the werewolf in. "You weren't there, Norah," Tonks continued, breathing out a shaking breath through her nose, and instinctively, her left hand reached for Remus's, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Norah simply continued to stare at the pair of them as Tonks continued to say her piece. She supposed she ought to be grateful at least that the young blonde werewolf was allowing her to contradict her without any kind of argument on Norah Jameson's part.

"So," Tonks continued nervously, feeling the beads of sweat begin to form on her browbone despite the cold morning air of the first day of November as she coughed once to clear her throat and actively averted Norah's gaze as a pink blush crept along her cheeks, "I—if it seemed to you like I…like I wasn't taking what happened to me seriously, it was because I didn't understand. I think I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been more scared in my entire life than I was a few nights ago and I've been through quite a lot."

Lupin stiffened beside her, and Tonks did not even have to turn her head to the left to know that her husband was undoubtedly thinking of both Crouch and Umbridge.

Norah, much to her surprise, let out a tired sounding sigh as she waved her wand and cleared away the now wiped-clean breakfast plates and the iron-wrought skillet, at first not looking at any of them, though at last, she lifted her head in Tonks's direction.

The young blonde sighed heavily as she zipped up her black leather jacket and raked her fingers through her thick blonde pixie cut. "I—I apologize, Mrs. Lupin. I can see it now that it was your lack of concern that was likely a side effect of your fear in this damned forest," she growled, baring her canines as she briefly looked up above their heads at the Forest's canopy which sent almost no sunlight streaming in through the treetops.

Tonks barely stifled her grin as Ollie set a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she watched with internal delight as Norah hesitated for a fraction of a second and stiffened, not at all sure what to do about it, though something relented, a shift within her hardened personality and at last, she reached up and took her best friend's hand, and squeezed it.

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and shot Ollie a playful grin that caused a light pink blush to cause his still hollowed and emaciated cheeks to flush high with color.

She furrowed her brows into a light frown, not liking how thin and haggard poor Ollie was looking, though now that he had made his presence known at their wedding last night, she knew that, as Charlie Weasley's second-best friend, Ollie would be coming by the Burrow more frequently, and Molly Weasley's cooking would see that he gained a healthy amount of weight back onto his slender frame in no time. At least, she hoped…

Tonks blinked owlishly at the blonde She-Wolf as Norah's soft German accent broke her out of her musings of her best friend and this seemingly budding 'thing' between Ollie and Norah and forced her attention to return to whatever Norah said.

"…I had no right to assume that the centaurs didn't make you aware of where they were bloody going to do to you. It's bad enough that those _beasts_ treated you the way that they did," she growled lowly, spitting the centaurs' title as though the word itself were poison that had settled upon it. Norah sighed, her blue eyes finally meeting Tonks's, and the uncertainty brimming with those brilliant-sky blue orbs of hers as unshed moisture was almost too much for Tonks to bear, though she did not look away. "You deserve more from me. As your…as your friend," she choked out in a hushed little whisper. "You're a brave young woman and an incredibly talented witch, and I can't _wait_ to see what kind of seven shades of holy hell you rain down on that pink-wearing bitch now that you've got your wand back," Norah grinned, a sly, mischievous smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth as she did not bother to fight back her smile at that thought. "I need to learn to start treating you with the respect that we all know you deserve, Mrs. Lupin. That you've _earned_. Don't think I haven't forgotten you broke Astelos's nose just by punching him with your bare hand," she snorted admirably, ignoring Tonks's blush as she ducked her head, with Remus murmuring something inaudibly in her ear. "I thought the other night that you didn't understand the precariousness of the situation that you found yourself in, but I can see now that you do. You knew what you were bloody up against, that you might not survive, but you did it."

Tonks blinked, exchanging a quizzical glance with Remus, and she was pleased to see that he too was just as surprised by Norah's apology to her as she was, that it seemed. She felt her lips part open slightly in shock as she stared at the female werewolf with wide, blinking eyes. Hearing Norah offer up an apology was kind of foreign to her at this point in their friendship, and in truth, she wasn't entirely sure how to respond.

Norah moved off her perch on the log and shrugged her shoulder out of Ollie's grasp and chose to sit down to Tonks's immediate right so that their shoulders were effectively touching as they looked towards the thick heart of the Forbidden Forest.

"I did not mean to be so harsh to you earlier. For a moment, the—the other night, I thought you'd left us. It was my own fear coming out as anger that made me yell at you, Tonks," Norah sighed, sounding immensely ashamed of her behavior towards Tonks the other night. "From now on, the four of us will stick together. No more wandering off," Norah chastised her light, slinging her arm around Tonks's shoulder and pulling the jacket Tonks wore tighter around the young witch to better keep her warm. "I guess I can respect and understand why you didn't want to get me, and Lupin involved. It was stupid of you and kind of self-destructive if I'm being honest with myself here for a second, but I really hope that you'll let me help you if something like this happens to you again, Tonks. I don't think I need to tell you that we're heading into the heart of the Forest, and not everything in these woods, as you've learned the hard way, is as nice as _I_ am," she added, a note of smug pride in her voice, though her joking tone was quickly set aside and her more somber expression returned as she continued to address Tonks alone. "It's not like you asked to come into these woods. If any of us here should be protecting you guys from the dangers in this place, it's me, considering I've lived here most of my life. I can respect and understand that you were afraid for my well-being the other night by not wanting to tell those centaurs that me and Remus were here in the forest with you, but if something had happened to you, Tonks, because you were trying to keep the same dangers from pursuing us that had caught you and Ollie, I don't think I'd ever be able to forgive myself, and I don't think I need to speak for Remus here, but I think if you were to ask your husband over here, he would tell you the same thing, am I right?"

"Yes," Lupin answered softly, his gaze flitting between Norah and Ollie and back to his wife.

Norah nodded, grateful for Tonks's husband's answer before turning her attention back to Tonks. "The _point_ that I'm trying to make here is, I would rather you put me at risk if it means that I can help you find that old hag and get out of this forest alive than to have you try to play the part of the hero and sacrifice yourself for my sake. If you were killed trying to save me, the guilt that I would suffer over that would be unbearable to live with. Do _not_ do that to me," Norah growled in an animalist, wolfish little snarl.

Tonks let out a tired sigh as she rested against Remus as she closed her heavily-lidded eyes, suddenly feeling drowsy. She wondered if this was her pregnancy catching up to her, and briefly wondered if this was how she felt a little less than a month in, what was it going to be like for her nine months later when she was about to give birth?!

"I'm sorry if it seems like I'm dead clumsy, I _know_ that I am, or reckless sometimes," Tonks sighed, suddenly sounding remorseful as she rested her head against the crook of Remus's shoulder, enjoying the warmth the immense heat of his skin gave off. "This whole ordeal with trying to get Umbridge back so we can talk to the Minister of Magic for you is something I never thought I would be doing in my entire life, and I suppose I don't always do so great at following orders, but I tried to do what was right."

Norah sighed and leaned over, looking into the young witch's grey eyes, narrowing her blue eyes as she considered the Auror and her new friend in stoic silence.

"Having someone around like you who thinks differently than me, bloody hell, who thinks differently than those of us here right now, isn't necessarily a _bad_ thing. I knew from the first second you punched Astelos in the nose without using magic there was something different and special about you, even if you can't see it for yourself."

Tonks shrugged and resumed resting her head on Remus's shoulder. She still wasn't entirely certain of her reasons for wanting to rescue Umbridge herself. Maybe it was because she wanted to see the short, stout Ministry employee carted off to Azkaban Prison in chains with her own two eyes, to have some sort of closure that after everything Dolores Jane Umbridge had tried to do to her, that Tonks was emerging the better witch hereby saving someone who by all accounts, deserved to rot in here with the centaurs.

She hoped she would end up more useful than she presently felt. At any rate, she was feeling much better than before, and especially more so than she was a married woman, and certainly felt safer in the Forest with Remus, Ollie, and Norah here by her side. Norah noticed that Tonks could barely keep her eyes open and smiled softly at her.

"Take a nap, Tonks," Norah spoke up quietly. "We'll head out in an hour or so."

Tonks nodded. She'd get some sleep for an hour or so, and then they'd move out of this clearing and be on their way. The sooner they got out of this Forest, the better. Before she knew it, they'd be back at Hogwarts or the Burrow, and Mrs. Weasley could finally throw her and Remus the 'proper' wedding reception she had gushed over.

Maybe they would rescue Umbridge sooner rather than later, and maybe even by dinnertime, they would be out of this bloody Forbidden Forest and heading back home.

She could only hope so. Tonks barely managed to repress a yawn with the back of her hand. "I have a good feeling about today, guys," she murmured sleepily in a low voice, as she snuggled against Lupin's side, nestling into the warmth her husband gave off.

As long as Remus was by her side, and her new friends, she knew that in the end, everything was going to work out, and it was this thought that allowed her to drift to sleep.

* * *

**A/N: Only 10 chapters left of this story, guys! This story sits pretty at a whopping 100 chapters even, and I'm not quite ready for it to end just yet. :-(**

**I've had a lot of fun writing it though, and hope I told this alternate tale well enough, and I have a few other Remadora stories in the works even as I finish this one, so there's light at the end of the tunnel! :)**

**Glad Norah and Tonks could (bloody finally) come to a mutual understanding with one another and apologize (again lol). :D**


	91. The Spider in the Hollow

** CHAPTER NINETY-ONE **

Following her brief little nap, Tonks felt much better than a few nights ago, at least in terms of her feverish state of mind she'd suffered while under the effects of those Merlin-damned stupid Bleeding Mulberries.

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open and she found as soon as she got up and stretched her arms and legs that her entire body ached.

The finger-markings on her abdomen still sent swells of stinging pain throughout her entire body every now and again.

Remus had noticed them last night during their first time together spent as husband and wife, though he had made no comment on them.

Though Tonks wasn't fooled. She liked to think she knew her new husband well enough by now to know when he was troubled and fretting over her, and she could tell he was worried the bruises on her abdomen and near her pelvis would spell danger for little baby Lupin currently growing inside her. She didn't think that was going to be the case.

_At least, I hope not_ , she thought and bit down on her tongue, rolling her neck to crack. But she didn't feel dizzy and light-headed anymore, so that was an improvement.

Lupin's quiet, concerned voice broke Tonks out of her thoughts. "Are you feeling well enough to move on, Dora?" he asked, and he offered her a curt nod as she smiled.

"Yes, I think so," Tonks answered her husband by way of reply. "But…truth be told, I—I don't know how I feel about leaving the forest," she confessed, biting her lip.

She couldn't quite shake the feeling of dread that crept down her spine, leaving it tingling, like a spider leaving a careful trail of silk, and Tonks repressed a light little shake.

Remus looked towards her and nodded. "I know. I was just thinking the same thing. It's easy to get lost in here, love, but there's more danger outside of these trees than within the Forest, and with Norah leading the way, we'll be safer if we stick together."

Tonks sighed and nodded. As much as she wanted to leave the Forbidden Forest behind her for good, she knew that time was not on their side and was, like it or not, of the essence here. There was no _telling_ what the centaurs would do to Dolores Umbridge.

Going through the Forbidden Forest rather than around it to get to the centaurs' camps would certainly prove quicker than going around, assuming, of course, that the Forest only 'sort of' got them lost, though they hoped that by having Norah here, they wouldn't.

But more importantly, they wanted to avoid more centaurs if they could help it. Norah had expressed a desire to deal with only Astelos and _only_ him, given that out of all of them, she claimed that he, as the herd's leader, was the most reasonable of them.

Tonks highly doubted it, considering this was the same beast who'd held the knife to her throat and would have killed her had her instincts not caused her to break the creature's nose, though she said nothing in that regard, thinking it would be best if she didn't bring it up.

She sighed and toyed with a lock with her now dark chocolate brown hair, almost jet-black in color, furrowing her brows at Ollie's vehement insistence she changes the color of her hair for the duration of their trek through the forest, though she understood.

Astelos, at the time of that unpleasant first encounter when the centaur had so unceremoniously, shoved the edge of his blade at her throat (Tonks shuddered at that thought as the memory flitted through her mind), had only seen her with purple hair.

It was a hell of a long shot, though going into the centaurs' encampments with a new outfit and her hair a different color this morning just might— _might_ —work out.

Tonks's frown deepened as she caught sight of Ollie exchanging a worried glance with Norah, sensing there was something that either one or both of them weren't telling her, but she decided that whatever it was if it was important enough, they would have said.

Tonks sighed as she waved her wand and cleared up the last of their campsite, not wanting to leave any evidence behind for any creature here in the Forest to discover their whereabouts.

She heaved a little groan as she slung the straps of her little travel-sized canvas knapsack over her shoulders, adjusting its weight to evenly distribute across her back.

Tonks knew she would have gladly gotten herself lost in the Forbidden Forest for the rest of her natural days if it meant she wouldn't have to run into any more centaurs.

"Well. I'm ready to go whenever you are, Norah," she murmured, yawning.

The blonde werewolf smiled and clapped Tonks on the shoulder. "Good. We're going to try to make as much time as possible, but given your condition, let me know if you need to rest. I won't hold it against you if you do," Norah offered in a quiet voice.

Tonks gave a curt nod, still toying with a lock of her new dark hair, wondering as to the reason for the change other than Astelos hopefully not recognizing her whenever Norah met with the herd's leader to discuss negotiations in letting Umbridge go free.

"I should be fine, Norah," she said, offering the young blonde a light little smile that she was relieved to see the She-Wolf return. "Once we get moving, at least. Everything still kind of hurts from a few nights ago, but probably from…sleeping so much," she murmured, trying to ignore the intense fiery heat that crept its way onto her cheeks, and she was displeased to see both Ollie and Norah exchange amused smirks.

"Something tells me the two of you didn't sleep much at _all_ last night, and _that's_ the reason you woke up late," Ollie snorted, rolling his eyes blue eyes in good jest at her.

Tonks's blush intensified, and Merlin blesses his soul, Remus intervened before another jab could be made fun at their expense.

"I should check on your wounds, Dora, before we go any further," Lupin murmured, gently tugging her arm away from Ollie and Norah, who quickly nodded their agreement and moved to stand off to the side.

Hesitating, Tonks stuck out her bottom lip and bit down on it in a slight pout. She really didn't want Rem fussing over her any more than he was already likely to do.

"But I feel _fine_ , honey," she insisted, though she let out a low groan as Remus lifted his gaze and fixed his wife with a pointed stare that she knew he was going to win.

"Let me _see_ it, Dora. It's not good to allow injures like yours to go unchecked," Lupin growled, and briefly, the shadow of the Wolf within darted across his pale features, and Tonks flinched, biting the inside wall of her cheek. "I'd feel better knowing that your bruises and scratches are on the mend and stay uninfected. Now. Let me _see_ them, love."

Tonks groaned and stomped her foot in a moment of agitation, a temporary release of her frustration at Remus's mollycoddling over her, though as quickly as her annoyance could surge to an unhealthy level, she froze, and bit the wall of her cheek in thought.

_He cares about you, T_ , Ollie's voice spoke up, and she didn't even have to look behind her to imagine her best friend probably leaning against the trunk of a tree with his arms folded across his chest. Tonks could feel her friend's stare burning a hole in the back of her skull. _He's your husband now, Tonks. He cares for you, wants you and your baby healthy. If you don't let him see it now, then he's just going to put up even more of a fuss and is going to delay us up in getting to the centaurs camp and getting Umbridge…_

Merlin damn him, Tonks thought, swearing under her breath through gritted teeth. Ollie was right. As usual, and she let out a reluctant, defeated sigh and nodded, reaching up with slightly trembling fingers to undo a few of the buttons on her red shirt.

"Okay, Rem," she whispered after a somewhat uneasy silence. "You win."

She shrugged out of her red leather jacket and loosened the buttons near the top of her shirt and allowed Lupin to gingerly run the pads of his fingertips over the wound near the edge of her collarbone, and let out a shiver when his hands wandered further beneath her shirt, trying to ignore the immense heat speckling along her cheeks as her mind wandered to inappropriate thoughts of last night, their time spent together in bed.

Tonks drew in a sharp breath of cold November air that pained her lungs, watching in silence as Lupin scrutinized the bruises purpling and forming on her stomach.

The wounds still stung of course, but they felt a little better than they had a few nights ago when they were fresher.

At last, Lupin broke the somewhat awkward silence. "Well, the good news, Dora, is they don't seem infected to me yet," Remus spoke, sounding thoughtful as he looked over the various scratches and bruises on her stomach. "But if you'll let me _help_ you, sweetheart, I'd like to be able to keep a closer eye on them. I don't want these to cause harm to you _or_ our baby. The second we get back to Hogwarts once we get Umbridge out of here, I'd like for Madam Pomfrey to take a look at you, Tonks. Those centaurs could have done far worse damage to you than they did, and the markings aren't particularly deep, which is a good thing, but they're still deep enough that I don't like the way they're looking, and they need to be taken _seriously_. There is every possibility if they aren't treated soon, they could become infected, Dora."

Tonks nodded in understanding, her brows furrowed in contemplative thought, letting out the tiniest sigh of disappointment as Remus removed his hand and she buttoned up her shirt and shrugged back into her red leather jacket for warmth as best as she could.

She missed the warmth Remus gave off, and she could only hope that the next time the two of them went to bed together, they would be back in their own bed, in Remus's cottage in Wales, now that she had moved in with him prior to marrying him last night.

"Do you think the markings will leave scars, Remus?" she murmured in a low enough voice so that only Remus heard her, unable to disguise the note of fear in her voice as she zipped up her jacket, shifting the straps of her knapsack on her back and instinctively reaching for her husband's hand as they walked to join Ollie and Norah, who were deep in a conversation of their own, their voices way too low to make out.

Lupin shrugged, glancing at Tonks out of the corner of his vision and offering his wife what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though he did not want to lie to his wife.

"I couldn't say," he murmured, pulling Tonks close and giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "I _hope_ not, but I would guess even if your wounds were to scar, they'd be faint, in time. Madam Pomfrey I'm sure will have something that will reduce them, love."

"All right," Tonks sounded, not so sure she was entirely convinced by her husband's words. She sincerely hoped the markings wouldn't scar.

Tonks did not want to be reminded of her encounter with the centaurs every time she showered or got undressed when they were back home in the safety of their cottage on the hill in Wales.

"Are you lot ready to get going?" Norah barked from her position underneath the shade of an old elm tree, her arms folded across her chest. "We've got a way to walk."

Tonks nodded. So did Remus.

"Good." Norah shook her head in slight amusement as she waved them on, in the direction of the northwest part of the Forbidden Forest. "Remember. Speak up at any time if you need a break," the She-Wolf reminded Tonks. "The last thing we need is for you to get sick again and slow us down. Do you have any questions, Tonks?"

Norah fixed her with a pointed stare as the four of them went on their way, her blue eyes feeling like they were piercing a hole straight through to Tonks's beating heart.

Tonks bit her bottom lip. Only one question she wanted to ask of Norah and Ollie, so badly that it ached. It burned on the edge of her tongue, just begging to be asked.

Finally, she could hold it back no longer and it tumbled out before she could stop herself. She felt the corners of her lips turn upward into a deliciously evil little smirk.

"Yeah. Only one." Tonks's grin widened as she looked at Norah and Ollie with a mischievous glint twinkling in her light gray eyes. "Did you do it?"

* * *

Tonks let out a tiny growl as she almost stumbled over a gnarled tree root, a big one, hidden underneath a pile of fallen leaves.

They couldn't have been walking for more than an hour or two when Tonks began to notice something unusual and rather strange.

"Oh, my _Merlin_ …wha—what _is_ that?!" she whispered, craning her neck upward, trying to look this way and that, swallowing down hard past the hard lump in her throat.

The four of them had entered into a section of the Forbidden Forest that seemed to be coated in a sort of sticky webbing, almost like spider webs, really enormous ones.

Though it was much too plenty to be that, though Tonks could not shake the vision of the baby Acromantula spider that had bitten Ollie by command of Barty Crouch.

Unless _thousands_ of spiders just _happened_ to live in the depths of the Forbidden Forest, and she guessed considering there was a herd of angry centaurs that lived in these woods and remembering the big spider that had almost poisoned Ollie a few nights back, she supposed she couldn't rule anything out.

But the emotional side of her brain sincerely hoped that it was just some kind of residue from an unfamiliar plant that grew in here.

"Wh—what _is_ that, Norah? Remus?" Tonks heard herself croak in a hoarse voice that did not sound like herself at all as her brows furrowed as she looked at the substance.

"Looks like spider webs to me, T," Ollie noted with a frown of his own as he moved to walk in sync to Tonks's left, with Remus on her right, and Norah up ahead.

"B—but… that's not possible. It—it _can't_ be," she squeaked, looking at Remus as she proceeded to pinch at a section of the sticky string on a nearby tree root with her thumb and forefinger.

The substance proceeded to cling to her finger, though fortunately, if this really was a spider web, it was stuck more to the tree than to her, thank Merlin.

Up ahead, Norah made a muffled little strangled noise at the back of her throat and let out what sounded like a snort through her nose.

"Oh, yes, it _can_ , Tonks," she called out, turning her head to regard the three of them with a bemused smirk on her face. She raised her eyebrows as she spoke to Ollie, Tonks, and Remus. "Do you truly know _nothing_ about the Forbidden Forest? Has Dumbledore taught you nothing, huh?"

Tonks shook her head and swallowed nervously. "W—well, the Forest wasn't exactly welcome for Hogwarts students to just go exploring, Jameson," she barked, feeling the beginnings of fear begin to creep into her voice as it hardened and grew clipped. "Does…I—I heard rumors of Acromantula living in this forest. Is this their territory?"

Norah shrugged. "Oh, I've heard mention of one in particular. Goes by Aragog, I think. I guess he's a personal friend of Hagrid's," she grumbled darkly under her breath, though she shuddered at the thought of encountering an Acromantula of any size of form.

_Oh, my Merlin_. Tonks let out a tiny whine and clutched even tighter onto Remus's hand for support, and for extra measure, looped her other free arm around Ollie.

She bit the inside of her cheek. _Leave it to Hagrid of all people to befriend a fully grown adult talking Acromantula_ , she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly shut in fear.

"S—surely it's not true, though," Tonks called out, allowing a nervous little chuckle to escape her lips as she looked skittishly around the three of them for any signs of an impending attack.

She could not quite bring herself to believe there was such a thing as giant spiders. She _couldn't_. Not one any huger than the one that attacked Ollie.

Tonks gulped and looked back towards Norah, who was still walking well ahead of them, leading the way. "People… people embellish stories all the time, Jameson!"

Norah snorted and shook her head in mock disappointment, as though she had expected better of Tonks. "Have you _ever_ known the Hogwarts Gamekeeper to _lie_?!"

Tonks frowned, feeling her heart sink to the pit of her churning stomach. Merlin damn her too. Norah was bloody right. Hagrid had always been a _terrible_ liar, this was true.

If there really were a giant spider living in this section of the Forbidden Forest, and Hagrid did happen to know the creature, then perhaps their only hope of getting out of their turf alive was to mention Hagrid's name to it and pray Aragog didn't kill them.

The young witch felt her shoulders slump in disappointment, and a fresh stab of a fear prick at her heartstrings as she didn't bother to tamp down the groan that left her lips.

"You could have told us that this morning, Norah!" Tonks bellowed, momentarily forgetting to keep her voice down. "If I would have _known_ we were going to be traipsing through the woods on spiderwebs and—and fear of the pain of death, then I might have bloody taken my chances going _around_ the Forest with more of those centaurs!" she cried, glancing around at the massive white sticky substances that lined the branches of the tree, and covered the very ground that they walked on. "How big _is_ it?"

She was, of course, referring to Aragog, and Tonks sincerely hoped their group didn't find out for themselves.

While Tonks didn't mind spiders so much as long as they were small, a spider that was bigger than her hand or the one that had attacked Ollie a few nights ago would terrify the living daylights out of her, and judging by the size of these massive webs, the spider that Norah was referring to was much larger than her hand.

Norah huffed in frustration. "Like I said to you before," she grumbled with a shrug of her shoulders. "I've never _met_ this Aragog and I don't bloody _plan_ to today or any other day."

Tonks frowned at the blonde werewolf's response and felt her hand instinctively wander to her front black jeans pocket, of which she'd performed an extension charm so her wand would fit securely without risk of falling out.

Though she thought herself foolish for thinking that her wand of all things would warn her to the dangers of these spiders.

She let out a tired sigh and squinted ahead at the path in front of them. "Norah!" she yelled as she looked ahead.

Not even twelve yards in front of them rested what looked to be a small pile of very large spiders, all of them dead and lying on their backs, with their spindly legs stiffly in the air, and arrows from the centaurs protruding out of them.

"Oh, my _Merlin_ ," she moaned. The spiders were much bigger than Tonks, larger than Remus and Ollie, even. Maybe even as large as the centaurs she had encountered.

Tonks visibly winced and took a faltering step backward in her haste to put as much distance between herself and the dead spiders as possible, and almost tripped over a stupid tree root, and would have if Ollie hadn't shot out her arm to catch her abrupt fall.

"Th—thanks, Ol," she managed to gasp out with a pained and shaking breath as she clutched onto his arms. "Oh, my…those things are bloody _huge_ , Norah! Horrifyingly huge…Norah, I—I've changed my mind. I don't think we should go this way anymore!"

But the young blonde merely proceeded to shake her head by way of response, ignoring Tonks's pitiful mewling whimpers as she began to make her way towards the dead spiders.

"These aren't fully grown Acromantula," Norah observed with a cautious eye. "I'd wager a guess that a group of Astelos's fought these ones and killed them all," she growled, bearing her sharp canines as she poked at one of the arrows protruding in one of the spiders' bellies.

Norah furrowed her brows and frowned, lifting her head and searched the perimeter near the fallen creatures for any signs of more centaurs in the area.

Tonks offered a mute nod, glancing around the Forbidden Forest with nervous trepidation, a sheen of sweat beginning to throng on her forehead and her throat hurt.

And then…she saw it. "R-Rem…" she squeaked in a horrible pitiful whimper, tugging harshly on her husband's jacket sleeve, and pointing with a shaking hand towards what appeared to be an old hollow. "Wh—what _is_ that?! Is that…is that the father of all of these little ones?"

It was there amid the branches of the trees, stretched outwards by tall and confident tress that the fully-grown adult Acromantula roughly the size of a house-made his web.

He was the color of the night sky, currently creating his web with such delicate and loving care, ever the artist of woodland trees, though it was quick to notice the noise.

Tonks let out a whine as the enormous spider took a cautious half-step forward to investigate the humans into its territory, its beady black eyes the size of Quaffles surveying the area until it landed on Tonks, and Tonks swallowed down past the lump in her throat.

She heard Remus's gasp of surprise, though one glance at her husband out of the corner of her eyes was more than enough. He was just as stunned and shocked as she was.

Tonks barely managed a scream of terror as the spider's pinchers clicked as it addressed the four of them, having to shove her white-boned knuckles into her mouth to stifle her scream. Somehow, she doubted the Acromantula would appreciate the noise.

"Y—you're Aragog, aren't you?" Tonks whispered hoarsely, her voice escaping her lips as a terrified little squeak. Honestly, she was amazed she could even find her voice.

" _Yes_ ," the creature spoke to her in a low baritone voice that reminded Tonks of the sound of a wooden crate being scraped against a cobblestoned street, rough, coarse, and unforgiving. " _It has been a long time since you have wandered into my hollow, Bellatrix Lestrange_ ," it offered by way of a greeting, leaving Tonks utterly perplexed.

She blinked owlishly at the beast standing before them near its massive hollow. Tonks cast a suspicious gaze towards Ollie and Norah, both of whom were shooting her and Remus furtive, guilty looks, and she felt her blood boil within her veins.

"Y—you _knew_?" she whispered hoarsely, tugging on a lock of her now-dark hair as she immediately rounded on Ollie, careful to keep her voice to a low whisper, all the while never taking her gaze off Aragog. "Ollie, you—you _lied_ to me and Remus!" she cried angrily.

Ollie shot her and her husband an apologetic look, swallowing down hard as his nervous blue eyes met Remus's, who had such a look of outrage on his face, that Tonks was kind of surprised her best friend didn't bolt the moment the shadow of the Wolf crossed his lined but handsome face.

"I'm _sorry_ , T," Ollie begged, whisper-hissing his words through gritted teeth, flinging out an arm in front of Tonks as he noticed the Acromantula slowly beginning to advance upon them. "This is the _only_ way to get through to the centaurs' encampments, a—and I thought that…since Crouch said to us in the clearing just before the-the spider bit me, that he had saved its life, m—maybe he'd brought Bellatrix in here once, a—and maybe the spiders are friendly to her and Crouch and don't harm either one of them so th— _that_ was the reason that I suggested you change your hair this morning, and it bloody _worked_!" he whispered, a note of triumph in his voice now.

Remus parted his lips open slightly to speak, his face flushed in rage as he thought over how he and Tonks had purposefully been lied to by both Norah and Ollie by means of omission.

They had _kept_ the fact that they would have to venture straight into Aragog's lair a _secret_ from them both, and now, _they_ were the ones about to pay the ultimate price.

Though he did not get a chance to speak as the spider spoke up in its low tone, the edges of his voice clipped and hardened as its beady, listless black eyes settled once again on Tonks, lingering on her dark hair. Tonks swallowed nervously and blinked at it.

" _Hagrid did not inform me that I would be expecting company this week, Miss Lestrange_ ," it growled, a slight accusatory note in the massive creature's hardened and angered voice.

_Play along with this, T_ , Ollie warned her in his impossible telepathy. _You're going to want to go along with this, Tonks. He thinks you're Bellatrix Lestrange. The hair_ ….

Tonks opened her mouth to speak but all she could manage was a soft mewling of fear, little more than a breathy little squeak.

She was staring face-to-face with a fully grown adult Acromantula who was mistaking her for her aunt, and no idea what to do.

A slight nudge to her ribcage from Remus momentarily broke her out of her fear.

She glanced towards Lupin out of the corner of her eye, who was silently communicating with her to address the creature in its growing impatience as it waited for her to answer.

Tonks had _no idea_ how to address an Acromantula. What was the proper procedure here? Should they—should they _bow_ as a sign of respect? Bend the right knee and kneel? Show this—this Aragog, this monster, this beast, that they meant it no harm?

She swallowed and opted instead to merely bow her head in what she hoped was a gesture of apologetic submission and nervously fidgeted with her fingers, weaving her knuckles in between her fingers, biting down hard on her tongue before addressing it.

"F—Forgive me, Aragog," Tonks murmured, purposefully hardening the edges of her voice in a vain attempt to sound more like her despised Aunt Bellatrix, though she still thought she sounded much too polite to pass as her aunt. "My…companions and I are merely passing through your territory on official business for the Dark Lord. If Hagrid did not inform you of our presence, it's the blind bloody _oaf's_ fault, and I should flay him for not informing you, the idiotic, half-witted _moron_ ," she growled, wincing at the insult she'd just spat referring to the Groundskeeper.

It felt so bloody _wrong_ to insult Hagrid in this degrading manner, but if this beast thought she was Bellatrix, then she was going to have to act like her aunt, like it or not.

The Acromantula, however, did not seem convinced of Tonks's weak response, for the creature proceeded to narrow its beady black eyes in suspicion, glowering at her.

" _You know, Bellatrix, that my kin and I do not harm you nor Mr. Crouch after the part Master Crouch played in saving my children from those disgusting creatures that did this_ ," he snarled, snapping its pinchers violently, gesturing with a twitch of its large front leg towards its dead offspring that lay directly behind the four of them. " _Murderers, all of them. You are quite safe, rest assured, Miss Lestrange. Your companions, however, are not_."

Tonks blanched as she felt her face drain of color. "Um, we—we did not mean to intrude upon you this morning, Aragog, oh great, wise, merciful, compassionate creature that you are. If—if you will excuse us, we will continue about our business, and we'll be going now and we shall leave you and your children to your hollow in peace," she murmured, allowing a lock of her hair to tumble in front of her face, effectively shielding her line of sight from Aragog and the others.

Though she heard the light scuttling of what sounded like dozens of feet encroaching upon the hollow clearing where they were. She swallowed down hard as her throat hollowed and constricted, cutting off air.

" _Go_?" growled Aragog, sounding on the brink of disbelief and anger. " _Did you really think flattery will keep your companions alive, Bellatrix? I think not, Miss Lestrange. I cannot deny my dwindling children the opportunity of fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into my domain, Bellatrix. Hagrid is not here to command otherwise, and my children obey Hagrid upon my command, but as Hagrid is not here, I cannot deprive them of this wondrous opportunity…"_

The massive, hulking creature clicked its pinchers and snapped as if to emphasize its point, and Tonks frowned and let out a squeak as she looked up towards Norah, just in time to see a large spider the size of a small pony slowly stalking up behind her friend.

"Norah!" Tonks screamed. "Look out!" She plunged her hand into the pocket of her black jeans in time to draw her wand, just as the blonde werewolf spun around on the heel of her boot quickly, just in the nick of time to avoid being bitten by one of Aragog's children, and she could see and hear the flashing and whizzing of jinxes as they flew past her as now Ollie and Remus were firing spells at the encroaching spiders.

Aragog's offspring that had been stalking Norah, made a horrifying shrieking sound, not like that of a banshee, before lunging at her again.

Norah unsheathed the Sword of Gryffindor which she had been carrying around her waist, that Tonks had quite forgotten she'd still had it and swung it at the spider, though the monster dodged the blow and then jumped back at the werewolf again, who skirted another lunging attack.

Just this _one_ spider was huge and fast, and clearly wasn't going to go down so easily. Not without a fight.

But if it was a fight it wanted, then Tonks would _give_ it to the creature. Tonks raised her wand and pointed it squarely at the spider's pinching clickers.

" _Bombarda_!" she bellowed and was instantly rewarded with the loudest exploding sound she thought she had ever heard.

Tonks had only ever used this spell on locked doors, and each time, the effect was always the same, with splintering wood of the doors shattering everywhere.

Though this time, in this regard, the spider exploded, sending its remnants everywhere in a burst of scarlet crimson blood, and the horrible, shrieking grief-stricken screech of Aragog coming directly from behind her told her that she had just made a _big_ mistake.

One that she was not sure there was going to be a way out of as Aragog lunged for her and Lupin.

* * *

**A/N: Oooh, a cliffhanger! Will Tonks and co. be able to fight their way out of this one?**

**At the very least, she has her wand back now after like 20 chapters of not having it in her possession! I felt like I couldn't do such a lengthy section of this HP story in the Forest without featuring the all-too-familiar talking spider of Hagrid's.**


	92. A Call to Arms

**CHAPTER NINETY-TWO**

Tonks _had_ to help Norah and the others. It didn't matter that she was pregnant or not, that Ollie and Norah had lied to her or not. She just had to help! Tonks moved quickly to dodge Aragog's blow as its gaze was fixated on her, for what she had just done in killing one of his 'kids.'

Though the second she did _that_ , the Acromantula turned its wrath on Lupin instead, who'd shot out his arm instinctively in order to protect his wife and unborn baby. He seemed hellbent on protecting Dora from Aragog, no matter what, which Tonks appreciated and respected, though by doing that, he was directly putting himself in danger's path.

" _No_! _Don't_ touch him!" Tonks cried, grinding her teeth, and pointing her wand at Aragog. Hagrid's 'pet' or not, by setting its sights on Remus, it had just stepped on a _big_ , _nonnegotiable_ land mine. She was not about to let any harm come to her husband. Not after all they had been through, and that the pair of them had so much to fight and a newfound reason to live for. Her hand instinctively drifted over the flat of her stomach and she let out a wolfish growl of her own, resisting the urge to transform into her Animagus form. Aragog let out what sounded like a hiss as it clicked its pinchers threateningly, letting out another screech like a wounded animal as Lupin sent a Stunning Spell straight to its hairy chest, though not that the effort had any desired effect.

Lupin felt his fear return to him tenfold, feeling the beating muscle that he knew to be his heart almost ceased its rhythmic course the second he saw this massive creature lunge for _his_ wife. Then, the crushing fear and panic that threatened to engulf him completely became overwhelmed with a new desire, courtesy of the Mad Beast within.

A bare instinct that he had never known himself to possess, but one that he welcomed in the heat of the moment. _Defend_. Protect his wife and their unborn baby. _Kill_ , if need be, and it was this urge that caused Lupin to bear his teeth and tighten his hold on the young woman that was trying her very hardest to break free of his grip, and quickly spun Dora out of the path of the adult Acromantula as it lunged at him again.

Remus heard his wife squeak and stumble to the ground, surprised at his sudden roughness and almost violent way that he had shoved her out of the line of the spider, but for once in his lifetime, he did not apologize for the Wolf''s handling as he allowed his strength to take over.

He took several steps backward in order to put as much distance between him and his young wife that he possessively guarded currently behind him, and struggling, from the sounds of it, to get to her feet, as he heard Dora swear under her breath. He could not allow this creature to advance any further. If he did, Tonks's life and their baby's would be in danger, and that he was not about to allow to happen at all.

" _One more step_ ," Lupin growled, flinching only slightly as his voice did not sound like his at all, it sounded much rougher and escaped his chest as a low, threatening growl. This was the Wolf talking, the side that Lupin worked so hard to repress and bury, despising anything wolfish that reminded him of his condition, though in this moment, Tonks watched, eyes widened and round as a dinner plate with shock as she watched her husband _embrace_ these urges. Tonks froze, watching the scene unfold with widened eyes, shuddering as a cold tremor of fear went down her spine at hearing Remus's voice.

" _And I'll kill every single one of your children_ ," the Wolf within him snarled viciously, with Lupin holding his wand at the ready, Ollie and Norah following suit.

Tonks moved as carefully as she could towards the ongoing scuffle. Lupin was effectively able to keep the adult Acromantula from killing him, but neither was he having any kind of success at landing a blow that would send it sprawling backward. Aragog was simply way too fast, and Ollie and Norah were in the midst of fending off his children.

But it wasn't _too_ fast for Tonks, who it had disregarded, given that Aragog's attention was now solely fixated on Remus. Tonks stood a few feet away, slightly behind Remus, now that she had managed to get to her feet, though the sheer force of the blow that Lupin had dealt her to get her out of Aragog's path still left her feeling winded.

Her heart raced as she stood up straighter to her full height, desperately attempting to inhale, one hand over her ribcage, the other clutched in a firm grip around her wand.

At the fourth attempt, some air went in, not much, but just enough to pave the way for a bigger breath the next time. Tonks froze, biting down on her bottom lip, trying her hardest to blink back tears and controlling her breaths, which were quick, panicked.

She needed to wait for the right opportunity to jump in and help her husband. Even with her advantage of being kind of short, and most of the time able to sneak away undetected, this situation, this battle was still intimidating to her. She had never defended herself against a fully-grown adult Acromantula who could talk before, until right now.

Remus and Aragog were moving back and forth, both of them so fast they were almost a blur, and so violently against one another, with Lupin sending spell after spell, and Aragog simply side-stepping out of the way to avoid each new jinx that was sent.

Tonks bit down hard on her lip as she struggled to keep up with what was going on around her. A horrible, fatigued ringing filled her eardrums, and soon the screeching sounds of Aragog and his children, Lupin's shouts, as well as Norah's and Ollie's, were blocked, and all that filled her ears was this ringing that refused to part from her at all.

She knew that if she were to step in at the wrong bloody time, then Aragog would bump into her, turn its pinchers on her instead of Remus, and that would be it. End of the line, and it would know that she had managed to sneak up behind it.

Or _worse_ , if she got in the way, then Remus might accidentally hit her with a spell, and it would hurt her, and judging by Lupin's current aggressive and violent mood as he battled the Acromantula, Tonks decided that she did not want to get caught at all in that crossfire.

Tonks watched, feeling helpless, as Lupin managed to send a spell straight at Aragog's chest that for a moment, knocked it backward, a particularly powerful Knockback Jinx, and for a moment, Tonks felt a surge of hope begin to ignite in her chest. Her husband was an exceptionally skilled dueler. She knew this about Remus.

Though, just as quickly as her short, one-second moment of triumph had come, it was extinguished as the Acromantula jumped right back up and lunged at her husband.

Was this battle _ever_ going to end?!

This battle was taking bloody forever, and Tonks felt like her panic was going to consume her, and she swore she could taste bitter bile. Lupin sent another spell aimed at the spider's thick torso, but couldn't quite land the blow, and briefly, Tonks wondered if Acromantula' s skin was as thick as dragon hide.

Tonks stepped off to the side as quickly as she could and set her sights hellbent on damaging Aragog's legs as best she could. It couldn't jump at Remus or Norah or Ollie if its legs were cut off. She blew out a puff of air as she steeled her eyes, squeezing her eyes shut for a half-second, sending up a silent prayer to Merlin and Remus's mum and his friends, now that she had been proven there was an existence of an afterlife after all, and hoped that they were somewhere up there and watching out for her and Remus.

She pointed her wand with a slightly shaking hand at one of the Acromantula's back legs. " _Sectumsempra_!" she hissed the spell through gritted teeth, and she knew the spell had made its mark as crimson spurted from the spider's hind leg, as well as heard a pained shriek from the vicious monster that was going to kill them all if she didn't finish.

Tonks, under normal circumstances, supposed she would have felt guilty for trying to kill another living creature, if this spider had not ordered its children to attack them first and was trying to have a go at her husband. Hacking at something's legs while it was still alive was a cruelty that Tonks did not want to do if she were given another choice.

But right now, there _was_ no other choice, and she heard Remus shout something at Tonks, and one quick glance up at her husband was more than enough. He seemed incredibly confused then, though he tried to shoot her a look of gratitude with his eyes.

Remus continued to send a myriad of different spells nonverbally at the spider and hacking at Aragog's legs had only provoked the monster further into its anger, then. Tonks gritted her teeth and continued firing the Sectumsempra spell at the spider's legs.

The blood left the creature's legs in violent jets of red, and Tonks's sensitive stomach rolled at seeing the crimson lifeforce gushed with sickening determination from Aragog's legs as Tonks continued until most of the creature's legs were taken care of.

Tonks managed to hack off the lower portion of Aragog's front legs before it viciously leapt at her without any sense of remorse, a screeching cry of rage leaving him.

Aragog knocked Lupin to the ground, the sheer force of his blow creating a sickening, shrieking sound, sending Remus sprawling to the ground, his wand knocked clean out of his hands, and Tonks let out a muffled little whine as her eyes widened.

Tonks steeled herself, knowing she had to act now if she didn't want Remus to be killed. She waved her wand and conjured a dagger, pocketing her wand, the fingers of her left hand curling around the hilt of the simple knife tightly, as if it were her lifeline.

She knew that it was, for without her husband by her side, then her life was nothing. Ordinally, Tonks would have been terrified. She would have panicked in a situation like this, for several bloody reasons. She was _pregnant_ , fighting a giant spider.

Tonks would have been afraid for Remus, Norah, and Ollie's safety. Hell, she would have been afraid for her own safety, probably too horrified even to bloody move.

But not today. Adrenaline coursed through Tonks's veins like a fight or flight instinct. In this case, it was fight like hell to protect that which she loved the very most. Remus. Norah. Ollie. Her _baby_. Tonks felt the fear surging through her bloodstream, complements of the adrenaline as she took a step. She felt the fear. She took another step forward. And then, as if by some unspoken force, some unknown magic, Tonks found her courage.

Being brave means being afraid, or at least it did for Tonks. The two go hand in hand. First is the fear, then the determination not to be ruled by it. Tonks knew that she will always choose to face fear, to conquer it, not let it rule. Right now, however, the only thing Tonks felt as she allowed the feeling to take over until it consumed her was courage.

She and Remus had a newfound reason to fight and live for, after all, and she was going to be Merlin-damned if this spider _took_ that from her. Though Tonks didn't really know where this sudden onset of courage came from.

Remus seemed to bring that out of her, somehow. She wondered if it was the Gryffindor of his spirt, as she knew her husband's heart was pure and true. Brave to the end, and loyal to a fault. Being courageous was much easier when her husband's life depended on it, and right now, Remus needed _her_ to be the strong one in this regard.

Her husband had been there for so many instances when she had been weak, needing support. Well. Now Remus was the one who was in a spot of trouble, and she needed to be there.

A cry of rage escaped her lips, a battle cry of sorts, she guessed, and Tonks scrambled up onto Aragog's back, flinching in disgust at how bloody hairy he was, and slammed the dagger down into his back and then right through his forehead, in between his eyes. Tonks screamed and removed the dagger's hilt and plunged it again into Aragog's back, hoping that she could sink her blade deep enough to reach his damned vile heart.

If Tonks was being honest with herself, she had no idea where a spider's heart rested in its body, though she hoped its middle would be where the vital organs lay, so that was where she plunged the hilt of her dagger, over and over again as a series of memories rolled through the confines of her mind as the pressure building in her temples took over, and with it, equaled the hard, sickening ripping sound of bone and spider flesh. Crouch abusing her nightly, over and over again, seeing Ollie's face for the first time and realizing he was alive, after all this time, Norah, and her sweet, lovely Remus Lupin.

The most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her, and with death beating onto Aragog the Acromantula's back into a sick, squelching sound like sticky mush, it sounded as if the knife was screaming her husband's name. _Remus…Remus…Remus_ …

Her repeated stabbing motions seemed to work, and Tonks's shoulders began to heave in the release of her life's worth of anguish and pain, her throat forming a silent scream as hot tears marred her eyes and stung, blurring the edges of Tonks's hazy vision.

Her bloodied, slimy fingers remained still as she dropped the dagger to the forest floor as with a final, horrible loud shriek that rent the air and caused the very trees themselves to shudder in fear, or at least, that's how it seemed to Tonks, Aragog gave one final shudder, one last twitch and fell to the ground, landing almost right on top of Lupin.

Or would have fallen on top of him if Remus hadn't moved away at the last possible second. The unexpected fall caused Tonks to fall off of it and tumble to the ground. Tonks let out a tiny groan and lay on her back where she had fallen, her breaths rapid as she stared with tear-filled eyes up into the Forbidden Forest's thick, dark canopy.

"Merlin save me…amen, halleluiah, and Chocolate Frogs, I—I _never_ want to do that again, Remus. Guys? A—are you ok?" she croaked, swallowing down the lump in her throat. The others back at Hogwarts, Sirius, Molly, everyone, they weren't going to believe what had just happened.

She had—she had _killed_ a fully-grown adult Acromantula with her bare hands. And then, she jolted upright and raked her bloodied fingers through her dark hair, before scrunching her nose and reverting it to a dark, rich fiery red color.

She had forgotten something. " _Oh, my Merlin, I—I just killed Hagrid's friend_!" she screamed, bolting upright to a sitting position and seizing on locks of her wavy hair, and tugging on them so hard that she felt the roots scream in protest. The Hogwarts Gamekeeper was going to bloody _murder_ her.

Tonks had seen Hagrid's temper for herself firsthand when she and a few other Aurors had been dispatched the night of Harry Potter OWL'S to try and arrest Hagrid by orders from Umbridge herself. The Stunning Spells had been ineffective against him, due to his half-giant status, though she remembered Professor McGonagall intervening and taking four Stunning Spells straight to the chest, a remarkable feat for a witch of her age.

And she was still going strong and Minerva showed no signs of stopping. Tonks hung her head, bathed in crimson and shredded black bits of the Acromantula's flesh.

Up ahead between the convulsing catching of her breath that she did not recognize between her fits of sobbing and hysterical laughter, Tonks looked upward and behind.

Ollie and Norah stood by, their wands pointed at the spider's corpse, though they lowered it the second Lupin rushed to his wife's side and practically collapsed to his knees on the forest floor in his haste to comfort her, stroking her hair and whispering to her.

"It's dead, it's _dead_. It's going to be fine, Dora, we—we won't tell Hagrid, love."

Ollie and Norah's faces both were aghast, spoiled by the psychological disturbance as they gawked with open-mouthed at what Tonks had just single-handedly done alone. Tonks's wide gray eyes peeked out from behind her bangs, doused in sweat and blood, Aragog's blood, intermingled with that of her own as she lifted a shaking hand to her forehead, near her left browbone, feeling warm, moist, sticky blood begin to form.

 _I must have cut myself when I fell_ , she thought, blinking back briny, salty tears.

Tonks could see Remus looking at her, snapping his fingers in front of her face, trying to get his wife to look at him, and she blinked owlishly, swallowing back her tears. She had just killed a spider that was larger than all of them, and as big as a bloody freaking house!

Of all the things the young witch and Auror had been certain she would never do in her life, going up against an adult Acromantula that could talk hadn't been high on her list. " _Dora_!" Lupin called out in surprise, helping her to stand up, rubbing small circles into the small of her back, before practically flinging his arms around her in a rib-crushing hug. "What—what were you _thinking_?! I—I thought I'd _lost_ you, sweetheart! _Why_?"

Tonks frowned as she reluctantly pulled apart and back from his embrace slightly to study her husband's face. She sighed and shook her head in disappointment, her left hand coming up to caress Remus's cheek. "Because you're my _husband_ , Rem," she croaked hoarsely, wincing as she realized her plain gold wedding ring was now doused in the creature's blood, though a quick Scourgify Charm would clear that right up enough.

Norah, for her part, said nothing, though her blonde brows were furrowed in concentration as she, along with Ollie, carefully approached the spider's lifeless corpse.

The blonde She-Wolf kicked at its body, what remained of it, with the edge of her boot. "Dead," she announced grimly, a somber expression on her ashen face as she turned to regard Tonks and Remus with a look the newlyweds could only describe as admiration etched throughout her features. " _Holy Merlin's balls_ ," she cursed, shaking her head to clear it, as though Norah could still not believe her eyes. "I should have had more faith in you two, Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. You continue to surprise the hell out of me, Merlin's Beard, and you both have proven your dedication and loyalty to one another," Norah complimented, folding her arms across her chest, and smirking at the pair of them both. "You are, without a doubt, the bravest witch of your age I think I've ever bloody met."

Ollie staggered forward, looking no worse for wear. There were mirror twin cuts on his cheek that were bleeding, and he was much paler than usual, though he looked otherwise unharmed, as he shot out a hand and with Remus's help, helped Tonks stand upright on her own two feet. "You good, T?" he murmured, concern and worry in his voice as he brushed off a stray leaf that had fallen onto Tonks's shoulder. "Are you hurt?"

"N—no." Tonks stammered in an incredibly small voice, unable to help but smile at Norah Jameson's words, thinking that coming from the blonde She-Wolf, that was as close a compliment as she was probably going to get. "Maybe…maybe I should have been in Gryffindor, after all, Rem," she panted, her weak attempt at making light of what had just happened to all of them as she staggered forward and clutched onto her ribcage.

Tonks was sure she wouldn't have been so damned brave and admittedly foolish if it weren't for the fact that Remus's life had been in danger not even a half second ago. It had been some instinctive adrenaline rush that had caused her to shove aside her fear and thoughts of pain and dying and allowed her to go after the spider, when her instincts would have otherwise told her to run, given they had all been outnumbered.

Tonks swallowed down hard and glanced at the carnage around them. Ollie and Norah had managed to succeed in killing all of Aragog's children, their carcasses laying in a similar fashion to the ones they had found upon stumbling into Aragog's hollow.

Backs to the grounds, and legs up (what was left of them), Tonks felt an overwhelming sense of relief wash over her body and she fought back the urge to cry.

She sniffed once or twice, turning her head to the side to cough and wipe at her nose with the back of her palm, though just when Tonks thought everything was finally okay again, a voice, a voice of a Stranger, one that she did not recognize, cut through the air and spoke to them collectively as a group. "That was _quite_ the spectacle, _She-Wolf_."

Whoever the voice belonged to, it was eloquent, even, bordering on arrogant.

Tonks slowly and methodically swiveled her head in the direction that this new voice had spoken, just in the nick of time to witness an un-amused centaur standing on top of a patch of slightly elevated land. The same one who'd held the knife to her throat.

She gulped nervously as the creature's cold gaze surveyed the scene before him, looking somewhat angry, and was surrounding by a group of other centaurs, all males, each of them armed with bows and arrows.

Though the centaurs did not aim their weapons at the group, they did, however, keep their bows clutched tightly in hand, likely only as a reminder for Tonks and the rest of them not to make any sudden movements.

If Astelos recognized her, the purple centaur offered no stiff nod of recognition or a wave or anything similar of the sort, as his cold gaze flitted from Aragog's corpse to Norah, and Tonks emanated a tense breath through her nose as the pair locked eyes.

She needed to let Norah deal with Astelos if they were to bargain to get Umbridge back, and the best way for that to happen was to not speak up at all and make things worse. It did not escape her attention that the centaurs were looking incredibly off put.

Especially their leader. Tonks squeezed on Remus's hand, who too was favoring silence, wishing for nothing more than the ability to Disapparate and disappear entirely, but she was not about to leave the Senior Undersecretary to such a violent, harsh fate. That, and when they had already promised Norah they would talk to the Minister for her lingered in the confines of her mind, leaving now would not be a good idea at all.

Tonks wouldn't put it past the She-Wolf to track them both down and beat her and Remus within an inch of their lives if they were to ever go back on their word.

"I am Astelos," the centaur in the center spoke up as he scanned Lupin and then Tonks and Ollie, seeing no need to introduce himself to Norah as she knew who he was. "I spoke with the Hogwarts Headmaster yesterday evening at nightfall. Albus has requested that I come look for you, as the wizard was fearful of your well-being, humans." The centaur made a noise that sounded like a sniff of disapproval as he glanced

Norah scowled, furrowing her brows in a frown. "Did the Professor mention anything about the release of Dolores Jane Umbridge? We've come to ensure her release."

Astelos raised his dark purple brows so high onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his hairline as he shot the young blonde werewolf a scrutinizing look. "The witch remains my prisoner back in our encampments. The Hogwarts Headmaster had told me that you would attempt to bargain for her release. Though there is no promise that you can make, dog, that I can trust, Albus Dumbledore has demanded her immediate turnover to him so that she may face justice for her heinous crimes and mistreatment against mine own kin," he growled, no semblance of warmth in his voice.

Norah nodded, her shoulders slumping in relief as she exhaled a tense but relieved breath through her nose as an almost incredulous look crossed over her pale features.

"Merlin _bless_ you, Albus," she whispered low enough so that only her companions heard. Tonks nervously flitted her gaze between Norah and Astelos, waiting for Norah to respond. She watched in silence as Norah lifted her chin and jutted it out slightly defiantly as the young blonde werewolf directly addressed the leader of the centaurs. When she spoke, her German accent had hardened considerably, all traces of softness whenever she was around Tonks and Ollie and Remus gone. "I should wish to speak with you _alone_ , Astelos. I request you allow me to negotiate the return of Dolores Jane Umbridge so that she may be brought to justice for crimes against her own people."

Tonks found her gaze drawn to Astelos, waiting for the centaur to speak to read the situation appropriately and decide what action would be taken either against them, considering she and the others were, by rights, trespassers into their domain, or if the leader of the centaurs would honor Professor Dumbledore's request and turn over Dolores to their custody. The centaur furrowed his dark purple brows in contemplative thought.

"Very well," Astelos murmured at least, though the beast sounded thoroughly disgruntled. "Though I would ask that you pocket your wands for the time being please,' he growled through gritted teeth, as though his request were causing him immense pain just to utter the words. "You have my word that my people and I live in a safe place, and as I do not know either one of you except for the She-Wolf."

Here, he shot Norah a quizzical glance, who merely proceeded to shrug her shoulders nonchalantly, though the twitching smirk that she was fighting back suggested she was pleased with her victory. Tonks bit the inside of her cheek and continued to stay silent, as did Remus and Ollie.

"…then I see no reason why the four of you would need to be armed. I can assure you that we live in a safe place, and as Professor Dumbledore has demanded the release of the witch, then no harm from any of my kin will come to you as long as you're—"

Though the centaur's gaze trailed off as his beady, blackened and narrowed eyes settled on Tonks as his inquisitive orbs curiously wandered the length of her body before settling up her hair and then the rest of her face, and Tonks swore she saw him flinch.

Astelos whinnied in frustration and stomped his front two hooves in a release of pent-up aggression. " _You_ ," he snarled, the edges of his lips curling upward, revealing his teeth. Though he made no move to step forward towards Tonks, and even if he _had_ , judging by the fact that both Ollie and Lupin shot out the arms and stepped in front of Tonks to protect her, he would not have been able to get to her without going through the two men. "Are you not the same witch who broke my nose but three nights ago?"

Tonks blushed, feeling a fiery heat creep to her cheeks at a rapidly alarming pace and she ducked her head, allowing her hair to tumble in front of her face like a curtain. "Er…um…y— _yes_ ," she whispered hoarsely, thinking it would do her no good to lie in this situation, considering judging by the look in Astelos's narrowed eyes, he recognized her as the very same witch he had met in the Forbidden Forest's clearing.

His nostrils flared like that of an angry bull, and he had such a look of smoldering, fathomless rage in his listless eyes, that for a moment, Tonks thought there would be trouble, given how much rancor was etched onto his face alone, however, he stomped his hoof again and craned his neck upward and peered over Tonks's shoulder at the lifeless corpse of Aragog the Acromantula and his several dozen children in slight admiration.

"And this… _little display_ ," he emphasized darkly through gritted teeth, gesturing towards the scene of carnage behind the group with one of his arms, "was _your_ doing, would I be correct in assuming this?"

"Yes," Tonks murmured lowly, still not wanting to meet Astelos's gaze, feeling her sheepish blush creeping along its cheeks intensifying.

Astelos merely offered a noncommittal grunt in response. He did not avert his gaze from Tonks or Remus, both of whom bore the worst battle injuries in the scuffle with the Acromantula, cuts and bruises on their faces. Tonks supposed she should have just counted herself lucky she'd gotten married before this, as no amount of makeup would hide these bruises, she thought, before forcing her mind to pay better attention.

"Kadas! Danys!" he barked, and almost immediately, two other centaurs stepped forward, throwing their heads up in the air, and offering a little whinny in response. "See to it our… _guests_ … keep up." With a final snort and a flick of his black tail, he turned on his hooves and began walking towards where Tonks could only assume his herd lived.

Tonks instinctively reached for Remus's hand and the two of them followed in a single-file line behind Norah and Ollie, though there was no break at all to discuss what was happening, not with her husband, nor her best friend nor the blonde werewolf.

The other two centaurs were way too close, and Tonks and Lupin remained silent as they walked. Though Tonks wanted as much as Norah to see Umbridge answer for her crimes, she could not help but feel a small stab of pity, a faint flickering, in her chest.

If she had managed to escape the worst of what the centaurs could have done to her, Tonks didn't even like to _think_ of and imagine what tortures Umbridge had suffered.

The two centaurs, Kadas and Danys, walked in sync, one on each side of Tonks and Lupin. It didn't escape her or Lupin's attention that the two young adult males' eyes crawled all over her backside, and she could practically see the rage smoldering in Remus's eyes and the shadow of the Wolf cross his bruised features, though he remained quiet.

The pair of centaurs kept a close enough eye on Remus, as though they perceived Lupin to be a threat, whilst Tonks was practically all but ignored, and for a moment, she felt insulted. What the bloody hell was _she_ then, chopped liver?!

 _She_ (with Lupin's help) had been the one to kill a fully-grown Acromantula not even five bloody minutes ago!

And then Tonks remembered just what exactly she was dealing with her, and she shook her head to clear it. No one should trust these centaurs, not even the likes of her. She just had to get Umbridge out of this, had to help Norah out, but _how_ to do this?!

The centaurs must not have been worried about what Tonks could possibly do.

The one called Kadas walked close to her. This particular centaur was stockier, more well-built than his leader, Astelos, shorter, and a light green in color, whereas Danys was taller and a light pale blue, almost a periwinkle. Tonks snorted at the color classification.

Though Kadas did not seem to expect Tonks to pull any kind of stunt or trick, and Tonks wasn't sure where to feel relieved by this little observation or insulted. Instead, it merely tried to proceed to make small talk with her, which only caused fear to bubble in the pits of her churning stomach. She did not want their attention, she'd had enough of that the other night, and wanted these creatures to leave her well enough alone!

"I cannot say that I've honestly ever seen a human witch before," Kadas spoke up in a kind, lighthearted voice, though Tonks's guard and defenses went immediately up.

If there was _one_ thing she had learned while here in the Forbidden Forest, it was that appearances could deceive you, and she should _not_ be so quick as to assume to trust.

"I meant no offense, little dove, you _are_ a pretty little witch, but I was under the impression that you _humans_ prefer to stay outside of the Forest's borders, quiet, safe lives."

Tonks sighed and shrugged her shoulders, tightening her grip on Lupin's fingers and felt his give a twitch of unease. She did not look at the centaur while addressing him. She was not about to give that beast the satisfaction, no matter how 'kind' it was.

"I was under that impression, too," Tonks grumbled reluctantly, upon sensing the centaur was not about to just let the matter drop. "Until recently. Our business here in the Forest is our own, centaur. You would do _well_ to mind _yours_ ," she snapped irately.

Ollie, from up ahead, made an odd little muffled noise that sounded like a muted laugh. Tonks frowned, furrowing brows and prodded him in her impossible telepathy.

 _What, Ol? What's so bloody funny, huh_? She demanded, quirking a brow his way.

 _You sounded like McGonagall when you said that, didn't you hear yourself_? Came his response, though he sounded impressed enough with the young witch, though did not elaborate further upon Norah murmuring something unintelligible to him up ahead.

"Th—thank you," Tonks said at last in a somewhat shaking voice. She supposed she would not have minded telling the centaurs the truth of why she was really here, in their part of these dark woods if this were just her mission and her mission alone, though she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that both Norah and Remus wanted her to stay quiet on the matter.

The centaur certainly _seemed_ friendly enough, but Tonks did not know this creature, and Norah especially seemed wary of the entire race of centaurs as a whole, and Tonks could certainly agree with that sentiment, having seen the brutal, violent, baser natures of their personalities for herself and had experienced it.

Tonks let out a sigh and continued walking in silence. She knew that for her own good, she had to stay silent and could not offer up any more information voluntarily.

It was probably best, if she did not want to disrupt their mission, that she stay quiet. Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut and shot up a silent prayer to Merlin above. _Merlin, help me_ , she begged, biting the inside wall of her cheek, though she only had one prayer to say as she allowed the centaurs to lead her and the others to the site.

_Don't let these centaurs tell Hagrid I killed his spider…_


	93. Hello Again, Old Friend

**CHAPTER NINETY-THREE**

Tonks did not know exactly what to expect upon reaching the centaurs' encampments, though any feeling of safety the young witch felt among their 'distinguished hosts' was immediately gone the second Astelos addressed poor Norah.

"I would like to speak to you _alone_ , She-Wolf," the leader of this herd of centaurs spat in a tone that suggested he was disgusted with the young werewolf.

The beast flared his nostrils in frustration, stomping his hoof, a temporary release of frustration as his tail twitched as he turned towards his companion. "Danys, please see to it the humans get something to eat, and give them a tent, as we did for the old _hag_."

 _He must be talking about Umbridge_ , Tonks thought wildly, biting down hard on her bottom lip, though she offered up no verbal quip, though a thousand and one questions were burning on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be asked of Astelos.

"The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, the—the woman you captured a few nights ago, where is she? Is the witch alive and unharmed? May we see her?" Tonks began hastily, wringing her hands together nervously while biting her bottom lip, ignoring Ollie's little agonized moan and Lupin's gasp of surprise, never once averting her gaze from Astelos before he vacated their drafty little makeshift tent.

Astelos whinnied in frustration and agitation before turning back around to face the young witch with a look akin to bemusement intermingled with annoyance on his light purple face.

"The Hogwarts Headmaster demanded of me her release the other night and would not _leave_ our encampment until he personally escorted her out of the Forbidden Forest himself," he sighed, and if Tonks was not mistaken, the centaur sounded immensely disappointed as he growled. "From what he was able to tell me, the witch will be residing in St. Mungo's for a short time before being escorted to Azkaban Prison where the witch rightfully belongs, but not before paying a visit to Hogwarts' Hospital Wing."

Tonks felt her mouth drop open in shock and what little color was left in her face drain. She spluttered and stammered as she painfully wrung her hands together as she struggled to think of a retort and to process the leader of the herd of centaurs's words to their group.

 _"What_?" she yelled, her hands balling into fists at her side, her nails almost piercing the sensitive skin of her flesh, though she ignored the pain and pushed right past it.

She was _gone_?! After all of that?! So, they had trekked all the bloody way through the Forbidden Forest for _nothing_?

Tonks felt her temper swell and surge to dangers levels within her bloodstream.

"Th—then if Umbridge isn't even _here_ , why have you brought _us_ here? Is just another bloody trap so you can, what, imprison us all, then?"

" _Tonks_." Norah called her name warningly, the edges of her voice clipped and hardened, as the young blonde werewolf moved to follow the centaur out of the tent.

She sighed and slowly turned back around to regard Remus, Ollie, and Tonks.

"It will be _fine_ ," Norah murmured under her breath in agitation, though her brows furrowed as she noticed Astelos give Danys a knowing little nod and snorted something unintelligible in their own native tongue.

But Tonks wasn't convinced. She could not prove it, but there seemed to be an ulterior motive hidden, lying just beneath the surface of Astelos's words. What, by Merlin's left saggy buttock, did he want with Norah?

Was this about his dead scouts?

Tonks stuck out her bottom lip in a slight pout and bit down hard as she exchanged with Norah, Ollie, and Remus a look of concern for their new friend.

She had fulfilled her end of the bargain and had (sort of) gotten Umbridge out of the woods, though the credit for that should rightfully be given to Dumbledore, though Tonks could not deny that Norah had, run-in with the spider notwithstanding, gotten them safely through the Forest thus far.

Norah had saved her life and the life of her and Rem's baby, and for that, Tonks knew she owed the blonde She-Wolf a _big_ favor.

 _We'll…we'll get you both the best house money can buy, both of you_ , Tonks thought, wincing as Norah gave them all a look that Tonks could only describe as a slight concern as she reluctantly but willingly followed Astelos out the tent's flap, their only defense against the early first-day-of-November bitter chill.

Tonks frowned, though she knew they had no other recourse here but to comply, considering they were now, like it or not, in the centaurs' territory and severely outnumbered, even _with_ their wands.

That, and if they wanted Norah back alive and unharmed, Tonks knew she was going to have no choice but to cooperate with the herd and let them ask their questions.

Tonks also supposed their leader wanted to discuss with Norah what happened.

He was not a _fool_. He had _seen_ the massacre their group had left behind in dealing with Aragog and his offspring in the Acromantula's hollow, and then the cave.

She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that Astelos knew they were behind the slaughtering of his three comrades, and _that_ was what he wanted to discuss.

Tonks's frown deepened as she had to practically crane her neck upward to look at Danys, the centaur who had spoken to her before on the trek over here, attempting to make light conversation and currently eyeing her with a look of fascination in his eyes, which Tonks wasn't entirely sure that she liked, but couldn't speak out against it.

She couldn't quite explain it, but she was feeling rather betrayed by all of this. They had spent bloody who knows how many days trekking through the Forest, she had been cornered and viciously attacked, as had Ollie, by three adult centaurs, and now, they learned that Professor Dumbledore had already taken Umbridge _back_?!

Why wouldn't Astelos and the rest of his herd just let them go free and send them on their way and out of their territory? What did the creature want with Norah? To torture her?!

What was the _point_ of all the secrecy?

Why had they separated her and Remus and Ollie from Norah?

Tonks blinked owlishly up at the centaur as it spoke to her.

"Forgive me," the centaur called Danys spoke to Tonks as it reached down and put his hand on the young witch's back as it steered her and the rest of them towards a makeshift tent. "But you have not yet told us your name, witch. What is your name?"

Tonks furrowed her brows and exchanged a concerned look with Remus and Ollie collectively. She didn't really owe this bloody centaur an answer to his question, not after what his ' _friends'_ had attempted to do to her and Ollie, if this one knew them.

Remus shrugged his shoulders as did Ollie, both men silently communicating to Tonks that with the situation given what it was, it couldn't really hurt to tell this one her name, as neither one of them could detect a hint of malice or deceit in Danys' eyes.

Besides, this particular herd of centaurs knew Norah Jameson enough. What harm could there be in giving her name, particularly if Tonks attempted to be kind to him?

Maybe then, the centaurs would see that not all human were not bad. Not _all_ of them held prejudiced views on their 'beast' status like Dolores Umbridge did, Tonks thought.

It wasn't like any creature here in the Forbidden Forest even know who either of them was, or probably would not meet the three of them again after this morning.

Their names would mean nothing to these centaurs. "I'm Dora Tonks-Lupin," Tonks spoke, shrugging her shoulders and gestured towards Remus and Ollie. "This is my husband, Remus Lupin, and my best mate, Ollie Brennan. We don't mean you any harm."

She could not help but actively avert the centaur's gaze as she looked down at the ground beneath their feet. She sincerely hoped the centaurs would let Norah go.

"I'm Danys. I…understand that you ran into a few of _my_ kind a few days ago," he grunted, and Tonks instinctively flinched and felt Lupin grip onto her arm tightly.

Though, Tonks was surprised when the centaur called Danys turned, his brows furrowed together in a frown, though he did not seem particularly upset by the news of what happened to his fellow herd-mates and quite possibly, his companions, his _friends_.

The beast took notice of Tonks's, Remus's, and Ollie's mutually horrified expression and he snorted, shaking his head, and flicking his tail back and forth, as though disappointed that the group thought he might try to harm them or punish them.

"You do not have to worry about retaliation from us," he murmured, and there was no mistaking the look of disgust in Danys' voice. The centaur snorted in frustration and stomped his front hooves. "Not _all_ of us are like the ones you encountered in the forest a few nights past, though I am afraid that it is those few who have earned the reputation that we have been branded with," he growled lowly, and as he turned towards Tonks, his face immediately clouded with concern, as he took in how pale she looked.

Not to mention, her face was still covered in dried spatters of Aragog's blood.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Lupin?" he asked, and barely repressed his smile upon seeing Tonks's shock at a centaur, perhaps for the first time in her life, addressing a human witch with a modicum of respect. "Unlike my companions, who I understood the She-Wolf dealt out a fair punishment for their _horrible_ , _disgusting_ mistreatment of you, I _like_ humans, though you are admittedly the first young female witch I have ever met, Mrs. Lupin. I apologize for the horrific treatment you endured the other night, and hope that while Astelos talks with the werewolf, you'll be comfortable enough, as much as my herd can possibly make you feel welcome here, at least from me," Danys said softly, looking pained, his sharp black eyes flitting from Lupin to Ollie, his frown intensifying.

"Why does your leader wish to speak with Norah Jameson _alone_? She's done nothing wrong and if it weren't for _her_ , we wouldn't even _be_ alive, _horse_ ," Ollie growled in a low, hoarse voice, and there was no mistaking the subtle hint of growing concern for the well-being of the young blonde werewolf in her best friend's voice.

Danys opened his mouth to speak, though before he could, another male's voice cut through the air, causing the centaur to swivel his head and Remus and Tonks to look in the direction of the new voice, and were relieved to see the leader with Norah.

" _That_ , human, is _personal_ business between leaders of which you need know _nothing_ about as such matters do not pertain to you, boy," Astelos growled angrily, watching as Norah shifted nervously from one foot to the other as she rejoined her group and they collectively stood in front of the herd leader.

Tonks clamped her mouth shut, watching silently as her friend glowered up at Astelos, though Norah did not speak to the herd's leader. Instead, she waited for him.

Astelos merely proceed to grit his teeth in annoyance, his gaze unabashed and unwavering as he glared at Norah. "Professor Dumbledore has relieved us of the _witch_. You and your company are free to go provided _you_ provide me with an _explanation_."

Norah shook her head and heaved in frustration, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, stomping her foot, crossing her arms across her chest.

"My friends and I were merely passing through the Forest. I thank you for the assistance, Astelos, in dealing with the spider's offspring. Saved us the trouble of having to do it ourselves," Norah growled, her gaze flitting towards Remus and Tonks before flitting back towards the herd's leader and settling on the centaur. "Our business was to retrieve the _bitch_ from your camp, but as Albus has already taken care of that for us—"

But Astelos neighed in frustration and threw his head back, tossing his mane over his shoulders, stomping his hoof, and flicking his tail in agitation.

"It is not that simple, _She-Wolf_ ," the herd leader spoke languidly, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "As you are well aware, centaurs and humans are _not_ on the best of terms. We know not of your intentions here in our territory. _Why_ , Norah Jameson, would I allow you to pass through mine and my kin's home, when you would not even pay me the courtesy of being honest as to your intentions?"

Norah let out a low, wolfish growl from the back of her throat and moved a half-step forward, only pausing when Ollie reached out and set a firm hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tightly, grinding his teeth in anger, preventing her moving.

"We were not _intending_ to pass through your home," Norah growled lowly, her voice now dangerously low and quiet as her sky-blue, cobalt orbs darkened and flashed angrily, turning almost cerulean in color as she fixed Astelos with a pointed glower. " _You_ brought my companions and I here, Astelos. If you want answers from me, then I believe you owe me some answers _first_. What of the other wolves in the Forest? If I leave this place, can you solemnly _swear_ to me that you would treat them well? That you would leave them well enough alone unless they require your aid?"

Astelos remained silent for several long moments, though finally, he offered a curt nod of his head.

"I give you my word, _She-Wolf._ You are, admittedly, something of a contradiction. Not at all like the other wolves who abide in this Forest and live off her lands, but I like you well enough, and that, and that reason _alone_ is why I am willing to overlook what happened at the mouth of the cave. The three you encountered near the cave at the edge of the Forbidden Forest's borders were _not_ of my clan. Rogue scouts, and they had a reputation among our tribe that labeled them as disturbers of the peace, and if you ask me, the Forest is well rid of them, and though I am a merciful leader, there are some within my ranks who would suggest that such a heinous crime against our race not be allowed to go unpunished, so bearing that mind, and I really suggest that you do, She-Wolf, I suggest you leave the Forbidden Forest immediately before anything _else_ happens and I change my mind and decide not to be so courteous as to let you go free. From what Norah told me, it was mostly you two that successfully ridded the Forest of that monstrous Acromantula, was it not?"

"Y—yes," Tonks mumbled, feeling the heat creep to her cheeks as she looked towards the floor, though what the centaur said next caused her head to whiplash so sharply upwards to regard the herd's leader, that she was barely able to stifle her yelp of pain as a white-hot pain shot up her neck as a muscle pulled the wrong way.

Tonks clamped a hand to her now aching neck and ear in the hopes of soothing the pain.

" _Good_ ," Astelos growled, his tone laced with what Tonks and Lupin could only ascertain to be relief intermingled with perhaps even that of gratitude, or as close as a prideful centaur could come. "The _beast_ has been burdensome in this area too long. Go now, then, and be _free_ of us, before I _change my mind_ and decide to imprison you for annoying me," he snarled, though if Tonks wasn't mistaken, his gaze flitted to Norah.

Tonks could have _sworn_ she saw the edges of the centaur's lips curl upwards in a twisted smirk that Tonks guessed was meant at the creature's attempt at humor, but she had no time to ponder it as Lupin murmured into the shell of her ear that they needed to go.

"Come, love," Remus whispered lowly, his voice husky and heavy with relief.

For a split second, as Tonks, Norah, and Ollie stared after the centaur's retreating form as it barked commands for his comrades to follow him deeper into the depths of the Forbidden Forest, leaving the four of them alone to their own devices, all hung in an eerie but peaceful silence.

Tonks felt whatever strength she had regained from the adrenaline coursing through her veins during Aragog's attempted attack for the past several minutes, was gone. And now she felt nothing but a horrible, fatigued ache.

She thought perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all, to have Madam Pomfrey examine her in the Hospital Wing before they visited Dumbledore and assured the old man that they were relatively unharmed and still quite very much alive.

It felt as though someone had removed all the bones in her legs, it felt so bloody hard just to stand upright. Tonks rested heavily against Remus's side, knowing that she lacked the strength to do it herself.

All she wanted right now was a warm blanket and to sleep. Just sleep.

The young Auror wondered if she'd ever be able to move again.

"Dora?" Lupin's quiet, reserved tones broke through Tonks's haze of thoughts, causing the young witch to cock her head to the side and regard her husband in silence.

"Mmm?" Was all the strength in her voice Tonks could muster to ask Remus.

Lupin noticed how her eyelids had started to droop and grow heavy, and her husband smiled that gentle smile of his that always made her heart skip a beat, before leaning forward and whispering tenderly into the shell of her ear, "Let's go home."

" _Home_." Tonks uttered the word so faint, it was barely a whisper, as she slowly nodded in agreement, her eyes beginning to drift as she allowed Remus to take her arm. "Home sounds nice, Rem. Take us there, sweetheart. Take me… _take us home_."

Needing to say nothing further, Tonks let out a content sigh and rested her head against the crook of her shoulder and allowed her husband to grip tightly onto her arm.

Tonks was already asleep by the time Lupin turned on his heel and Disapparated with Tonks in tow back to Hogwarts, with Norah and Ollie quickly following suit.

* * *

Tonks was safely asleep in a bed of the Hospital Wing, had been now for an hour, with Remus never once leaving her bedside, and did not have to look up to hear the soft clacking footfalls of Professor Dumbledore's boots on the cold cobblestoned floor.

"Headmaster," Remus murmured under his breath, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from the peaceful sleeping form of his wife who had been given a thorough examination by Madame Pomfrey, her wounds treated.

Pomfrey was pleased to report that his wife was out of danger, though she recommended a few nights of a Sleeping and Calming Draught to quell the worst of Tonks's exhaustion and mental trauma of the ordeals she had undergone whilst in the Forbidden Forest with Lupin and had given Remus a few bottles to take home to administer to his wife in appropriate dosages.

Remus sanguinely lifted his head, shifting at the waist, though remaining relatively unstirred from his chair in case Tonks woke up and needed something, to better look Albus Dumbledore in the eyes. "It was good of you to come, Professor Dumbledore. What of Dolores Umbridge, Professor? Where—"

Though the Hogwarts Headmaster cut up a hand and promptly cut him off.

"I thought it best that given the circumstances, Miss Tonks _is not_ to come into contact with our Ministry's Senior Undersecretary at any point, given what Dolores attempted to do to the unborn baby your wife is carrying. The tension and untold amounts of copious stress it would put her body through would be undeniably taxing, and given her vulnerable physical condition where her pregnancy is at a stage where it is most critical that she remains healthy and _calm_ , I thought it best if Tonks were not allowed to see Umbridge from here on out going forward," Albus began slowly and cautiously, though Remus was not fooled.

There was no mistaking the growing look of rancor in his normally kind bright blue eyes.

"I agree with your decision, Albus, wholeheartedly, you _know_ that," Lupin sighed, carding his fingers through his hair, and then running his hand alongside his growing two-day stubble on his jawline, returning his attention to his wife, still sound asleep and probably would be for the next several hours. "But—"

And again, Professor Dumbledore raised a hand and gently cut him off, causing Remus to fall silent.

"If you truly _must_ know, Remus, the Senior Undersecretary is in the dungeons. Professor Snape has courteously agreed to guard her until such a time when an Auror from the Ministry can be arranged to come and collect her to send to Azkaban Prison, where, again, given the circumstances, a cell with her name on it awaits her pending an informal hearing in front of the full Wizengamot."

Lupin nodded, though internally, he was troubled.

Surely, that was not at all that Albus had come to speak to him in regards to, nor, he could tell, had Albus come solely to check up on Dora, though his curiosity was rewarded a moment later by the sound of someone coughing to clear their throat, and he knew the man's voice as a low, gravelly voice spoke up, and Remus rose to his feet hastily to greet the Minister of Magic.

"Minister Scrimgeour," Lupin breathed, his light brown eyes widening in shock as he extended a hand to shake the Minister's hand. "It—the honor is mine, sir. Truly."

Rufus Scrimgeour merely proceeded to bow his head in response and waved Lupin's formalities away with a curt brush of his hand.

"Please. Do not get up on my account, _sit_ ," he murmured, though he too waved away Dumbledore's offer of a chair. "No, no I cannot stay," Rufus growled in a low growl that sounded like a lion's roar. "I merely wished to stop by and see how my highest ranking Auror is recovering from her ailments, and I had been _hoping_ that I could persuade her to take that pay raise she was passed over last year, considering I just received word from Arthur Weasley that she's to become a mother in nine months," he added, a light little twinkle in his eyes, as Lupin quickly nodded his agreement on behalf of his wife.

Scrimgeour nodded and continued.

"Furthermore, I wished to also let the pair of you know that I have already spoken to Miss Jameson and Mr. Brennan following the series of events that unfolded whilst you were in the Forest. I have already instituted a ban on the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act, Mr. Lupin, and have arranged for Miss Jameson to have an official and formal interview with the Ministry of Magic in our Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in a mere matter of days, Mr. Lupin. I would also like to set up reasonable accommodations for the young woman so that she may move out of the Forest at her earliest opportunity. I believe that the Ministry could, for a short while at least, provide her with a relatively modest stipend to live off of pending her acceptance of the job the Ministry would like to offer her. It would be enough for her to afford her own home if she so chooses to make those kinds of arrangements for herself. Given the young woman's extensive knowledge of the creatures that live in the Forbidden Forest and her expertise having spent so much time around centaurs, Acromantula, and the like, I think that, in time, with a little….etiquette training on proper decorum and how to _behave_ in polite society amongst other witches and wizards, the young woman should soon prove herself a most invaluable employee to me in time. I _hope_. "

"Sir?" Remus breathed, not sure what else to say. When did Norah and Ollie speak to him?

The Minister _must_ have been a skilled Legilimens, either that or the shock and surprise was evident upon Lupin's pale features, for Rufus Scrimgeour's thin lips turned upwards into a sardonic little smirk, perhaps the closest thing the man came to smiling.

"The pair spoke to me outside the hallway of your Potions Master's classroom, Albus," Rufus sighed, turning his attention to the Hogwarts Headmaster, and pinching at the bridge of his slender but slightly crooked nose with a rather long thumb and forefinger, an exasperated look etched upon his features. "The young blonde werewolf was quite…ah, _distraught_ , shall we say, upon Severus's refusal to admit her in to see my Senior Undersecretary, apparently to, as she put it 'have a dialogue' with my Ministry employee, and the boy, Brennan, well…he seems quite _taken_ with the girl, that's all I'll say, and I shan't repeat what _insults_ were spat at your Potions Professor when he adamantly refused her entry to see Dolores, though I think it safe to say he is _more_ than capable of guarding Umbridge until the Aurors arrive to escort her to Azkaban," he growled, a note of anger and bitterness laced throughout his tone as his eyes flashed as he thought of the monstrous betrayal of her.

Scrimgeour emanated a tense exhale through his nose, cocking her head to the side and silently regarding the sleeping Auror and wife of Remus Lupin resting peacefully.

"I never have quite met another young witch like Miss Tonks. You are truly _lucky_ , Mr. Lupin, to have a wife that cares and loves you as she does, that she would sacrifice herself in exchange for you is rare. Know this," Scrimgeour murmured, reaching up a hand to toss his long, greyed, and grizzled mane over his shoulders.

Tearing his gaze away, somewhat reluctantly, Lupin noticed, from Tonks's gently sleeping form, the only indicator that she was alive was the steady, slow rise and fall of her chest, and spoke to Dumbledore.

Rufus sighed, sounding utterly exhausted. "Everyone within Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s estate has been captured. A pack of werewolves led by none other than Fenrir Greyback attempted to lay siege to Crouch's estate and _would_ have succeeded, were it not for _this_ man whom I've brought here today to address a matter of concern. He alerted the Ministry at once this man learned that the castle was under siege and claims to have aided your wife in escaping somehow. I was only more than happy to arrest this man on sight for past transgressions and his history of killing those Muggles all those years ago, though he made mention of _your_ name, Mr. Lupin, so I have brought him here with me to see if there holds any truth to his claims and to witness for myself, sir."

Here, his gaze briefly flitted to Remus and let out a tired sigh.

 _"This_ one, however, claims that he knows you and your acquaintance, Mr. Sirius Black, and knows _her_ as well?" Scrimgeour swiveled his head slowly and almost methodically and turned to stare at the open doorway of the Hospital Wing that led out into Hogwarts' corridor, furrowing his brows in a frown. " _Come_ ," he barked in an animalistic growl. " _Now_."

A short, stout man carefully and timidly poked his head around the corner, and Lupin felt his face drain of what little color was left and a low, wolfish growl escape the confines of his chest, throat, and lips as for the first time since admitting Dora to Madame Pomfrey's care here in the Hospital Wing, Remus bolted upright from his chair as he felt his normally kind light brown eyes narrow in utter hatred and disgust for the cowering figure of Wormtail.

"Hello, Peter," Remus growled in a low tone, recognizing that he sounded unwelcoming and uncharacteristically cold, choosing to sacrifice all semblances of pleasantries, current company aside, though from what Ollie had managed to tell him during their time in the Forbidden Forest, Pettigrew had played an ultimate hand in almost poisoning Tonks by slipping her the tea Umbridge had wanted her to drink.

Peter Pettigrew, Lupin was pleased to see, was now looking upward at Remus with such unbridled terror in his eyes that his eyes threatened to escape their lids, and Lupin could swear he heard the deformed man whimper as he curled in on himself.

The man was missing an eye now, alongside several fingers in addition to the one that he had cut off in order to escape imprisonment in Azkaban and fake his death.

 _No less than it deserves. Rip it, tear it, kill it like that rat that it is_ , _sink your fangs into its neck, rip him, flat, tear, kill, kill_... he heard the Mad Beast within him growl its displeasure, practically foaming at the mouth as Remus took in the sight of this betrayer, not just to James and Lily for selling them out to Voldemort but to Tonks as well for allowing his cowardice to get the better of him.

A deep, yet low wolfish growl left the confines of his chest as he stalked towards the hunched over, cowering and chittering form of Peter Pettigrew, who immediately shrank away from his former friend's towering form, and let out a squeak of surprise when Remus had to stoop down to seize fistfuls of the man's pinstriped jacket, lifting him up off his feet slightly and slamming him into the wall, pulling up him to his level, and thrusting his pale, exhausted face to Peter Pettigrew's scrunched up, terrified expression.

Peter squeaked as he witnessed the flickering shadow of the Wolf within dart across Lupin's face as the taller man thrust his face so that the tip of his nose was practically touching Pettigrew's, the other hand not clutching fistfuls of the man's jacket curled impulsively into a fist over his wand as he pressed it squarely into the man's chest. Minister Scrimgeour and Albus Dumbledore wore equal expressions of concern over their face, though made no move to stop Remus, wanting to see what he'd do.

Lupin let out another growl, feeling his breaths coming to him in short, heaving gasps, and his palms began to sweat heavily as his hold on the fabric of Wormtail's jacket tightened.

His hand began to shake violently, and perhaps for the second or third time in his life, Lupin was hit with the onset that he was afraid. Scared so much of the man who lay curled into himself thrown violently against the wall of the Hospital Wing.

Ironic, really, that in this place of healing and comfort, Lupin wanted nothing more than to allow the Wolf within him to take over and _rip_ Peter limb from limb, only a bloody death would do.

The Wolf _itched_ to taste the iron and metallic tang of blood, sweet like mo, on his tongue, though Remus internally, violently fought against the Mad Beast's urgings.

A strange rage spread like a drop of fever in his bloodstream, and Remus felt a muscle in his jaw twitch as for a moment, he said nothing to his former friend and classmate, and let the short stout figure of Marauder Peter Pettigrew stew in his fear.

Lupin felt his eyes drift towards Pettigrew's eyes, wildly and desperately searching his for the truth.

No longer were they filled with eased confidence and cold indifference, much like they had the night he, Sirius, and Harry had confronted Peter in the Shrieking Shack about his despicable betrayal towards James and Lily and allowing Sirius to take the fall for those twelve innocent Muggle lives that Peter had killed.

No. Now, Wormtail's eyes were reduced to almost overwhelming fear. Fear for his own life, but then, out of all of them, Peter had always been the weak one.

A _coward_. A life that Remus now saw as nothing more than pathetic and this man was no longer a friend to him or his family and friends. How _could_ he be, after all that happened? Peter Pettigrew was no longer welcome into Remus's life, not after his monstrous betrayal of selling out James and Lily to Voldemort, and then Tonks…

Lupin let out a low growl and ground his teeth, feeling his molars coming together with a sickening click. Peter had never been a friend and Remus cursed himself for his own blindness.

Why, even as a student back then, had he not seen the truth? Perhaps the answer lay within himself if he allowed himself a second to mull. It was because he did not wish to see it, and for just a fraction of a second, Remus deeply regretted that Harry had prevented him and Sirius from killing him.

He had chosen to ignore James and Lily's viable insights and warnings when they were alive, that they, for reasons that they could not quite put their finger on, had initial misgivings about Peter, though neither when prompted could answer honestly.

In the past, Lily, Merlin bless her soul forever, that lovely young redhead had always spoken the truth to him, had never lied nor lead him astray, not even once.

And he had…he had _ignored_ her the last time the two of them had spoken shortly before Lord Voldemort traveled to Godric's Hallow that fateful night on Halloween all those years ago and brutally murdered her.

He hadn't listened to her.

She had been right about Peter all along, and Remus had _ignored_ her claims.

The proof rested now, in the bed just behind him, as his wife slept soundly, though Madam Pomfrey had informed Remus and Tonks before putting her under with a Sleeping Draught that any further exacerbation to his wife could potentially put her at risk of losing their baby, and that, he was not about to allow. He would protect her.

It was his duty, as Dora's husband, not to let any further harm come to her, and he knew he would do whatever it took.

Even if it meant allowing the Wolf to take over temporarily, to surrender wholly to it, ending the life of this wretched _miserable_ excuse for a human being in front of him that had always made a better rat than man.

Remus did not know who he was angrier with: Peter Pettigrew or himself.

"L—listen to me, R—Remus," Peter stammered from his place shoved up against the wall, a shaking hand, the one with all his missing digits, tried to outstretch in a pleading manner in attempt to placate the man who Wormtail had once called friend.

Remus's light brown eyes flashed with a fathomless, smoldering rage as he turned his raging, deep, darkened orbs on the short Marauder, his jaw rooted shut tight, and the hand currently clasped around his wand tightened its grip as Lupin pointed his wand squarely into the man's thick chest, letting out a vicious, animalistic and wolfish growl.

" _No_ ," he growled, trying to keep the pain of what this man had done to his wife, aided and abetted Dolores Jane Umbridge in attempting to rid Tonks of their baby, trying desperately and feeling like he was failing to keep his voice level and hurt. " _You_ listen to me, Peter, and heed my words, because I will not repeat myself again."

Remus watched in a sick sense of satisfaction as Peter physically recoiled from the werewolf's harsh and biting tones that did not at all sound like his old friend, and attempted to shrink further into himself, his shoulders hunching together as if he were trying to disappear.

Peter had gotten away _once_ ; he'd not be escaping a _second_ time.

Not at all surprisingly, Lupin felt that dark twinge of satisfaction that he was causing Wormtail such fear and uncertainty at not knowing what he was going to do.

As if to emphasize his unspoken point, Remus dug the tip of his wand further into the man's chest, pointing it directly at his heart—or where his heart _would_ have been if he'd had one—and briefly, Remus was tempted to aim for Peter's _head_ , because the man clearly did not have a heart, the way he had so coldly betrayed James and Lily.

 _The way he had betrayed Tonks by slipping her that tea_ , he thought angrily.

For all the pain and suffering Peter had caused when he had betrayed James and Lily, and now his wife, not just to himself, but to Sirius, to Tonks, anyone that Dora cared about, Peter deserved someone treating him in the same manner, just as he had done to _them_.

Lupin drew in a sharp, angered breath that pained his bruised torso, a small side effect from the attack that Aragog had allocated him and Tonks, but he was otherwise unharmed.

There was a _reason_ he held title to one of the master duelist trophies right here in the Hogwarts Trophy Display, something he had meant to show to Tonks, but had forgotten.

Maybe later, before they went home, he thought, then quickly growled, yes, _growled_ , in frustration and violently shook his head to clear his mind.

"Why? Give me one good reason why I _shouldn't_ kill you, Peter. It's no more and no _less_ than you deserve after everything you've done, my _friend_ ," he growled, spitting the last word as though it were a bitter poisonous piece of chocolate that lingered upon his tongue, baring his teeth, feeling the edges of his gums curl upward in a twisted, grotesque snarl, and he was pleased to see Wormtail shrink down even further.

He did not need to look into a mirror to see what Peter was seeing for himself.

Remus saw it every day when he looked in a mirror, his own reflection staring back at him.

At the three scars that snaked diagonally down his face, starting at just above his browbone and working its way down until it reached the corner of his lip, which tugged it down slightly in a minor grimace.

Permanent, courtesy of the Wolf within him during his fifth year, when he bit and scratched at his face in a wild frenzy one full moon's night. They were unusual looking scars, an odd mixture of bright white and light pink. Grotesque looking upon first glance, and while he guessed that witches did not consider him handsome, he was, at the very least, rugged, and Tonks had fallen for him, and Dora was all that he had ever wanted _or_ needed in his life, and for Peter to see the Wolf within him as he was allowing now, was truly a rare moment in Remus's life.

Still breathing heavily and uneasily, Remus raised his hand and risked one glance over his shoulder, but not to see the sharp looks of Minster Scrimgeour and of Albus.

He focused solely to the unmoving figure of his wife who rested soundly asleep on the small bed behind him. Tonks was unstirred, her eyes still closed. She looked, in Remus's mind, much too pale, if the dark circles underneath her eyes were any indication for him to go off of.

She—she looked like Death, and he didn't know what to do to help her. He hated seeing her like this. The taxing events of their time spent in the Forbidden Forest had finally caught up to Tonks after _days_ of a delayed reaction.

Remus felt his anger and despair surge within his veins, hotter than any Chinese Fireball or Hungarian Horntail dragon could ever flame as an uncomfortable pit started churning in his stomach, and he tasted bitter bile as it coated the back of his throat.

He whipped his head back around to once again face Peter Pettigrew, this witless worm, this betrayer, this man who he had once _dared_ to call a friend to him.

Lupin swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat as it hollowed and constricted, digging the tip of his wand deeper into the man's chest until he swore that he heard Peter whimper. He wished that Sirius were here with him by his side.

He could not explain the sudden urge, though he felt Padfoot needed to be here to watch Pettigrew die, as Sirius had been the one to truly suffer for Pettigrew's crimes.

" _Remus_." A voice, Dumbledore's, from behind him, calm and ever-so-stoic, and yet there was a hint of hardened steel within the ancient wizard's voice that told Remus he must listen to him, though Lupin knew there was no stopping the storm.

Professor Dumbledore took a cautious half step forward, an unusually somber and stern look upon his lined and weathered face.

"This is _not_ the way, Professor."

Lupin blinked owlishly at the Hogwarts Headmaster. Professor?! He was not a teacher here at Hogwarts anymore, so why was he addressing him by his former title?

It did not matter. Remus ground his teeth and turned his head back around in anger, brushing off the Headmaster's subtle warning in an attempt to calm himself down.

There was _nothing_ that could be done to stop the storm brewing in his chest. It was already too late, and the Wolf within him was past the point of no return, having snapped itself free of the invisible restraints within Lupin's chest as he let out a roar and turned back around to regard Peter Pettigrew.

The man looked incredibly small, and was seeming as though he was wishing for nothing more than to sink into the very stones of the wall behind him, or perhaps that the floor would open beneath them and swallow him whole until the worst of his former friend's pain and rage had dissipated wholly.

"You _sold_ James and Lily to Voldemort, tried to rid my wife of our _baby_ , and as good as _murdered_ Tonks by your hands by giving her that tea when you _knew_ of Umbridge and Crouch's intentions, Peter. You knew that it could kill her and my baby, and you did _nothing_ to help my wife escape Crouch's torment," Remus growled, his face set in a grim expression and his light brown eyes glistening with unshed moisture that told of his unspoken anger and deep, antagonizing hurt as he thought of what Peter had done.

Lupin exhaled a shaking breath and continued.

"You are a _coward_ , Peter Pettigrew, and lack the convictions to own up to your mistakes and your fears in this life. You should _never_ have been sorted into Gryffindor when we were at school, Peter," Remus snarled, baring his teeth, and letting out a low, wolfish snarl.

"Remus, I—I don't…I—I didn't m— _mean_ to…." Peter stammered pitifully, looking like he was on the brink of near hysteria, tears practically glistening in his eyes.

But Peter's voice instantly trailed off and he fell silent as Remus practically snapped at him in anger, and he shriveled further within himself, a pitiful attempt at escape.

"Give me one good _reason_ why I should not _kill_ you right here where you stand," he snarled. "It's no _less_ than you deserve. Or maybe I should just feed you to the _Dementors_ when they come for our truly _lovely_ Senior Undersecretary," he said. "You are no _friend_ of mine, Peter. You have as good as almost _killed_ my wife, _Peter_."

Remus spat Pettigrew's name with as much hatred and bitterness and loathing as he possibly could, allowing his unspoken hurts and pains of almost losing Dora several times over, and knowing that Peter, though under Crouch's watchful eye or not, could have turned over a new leaf at any time by helping his wife and did _not_ , flowed into his quiet and dangerously low voice as he glowered at Peter, causing him to quake in fear.

Lupin knew without a shadow of a doubt in his heart and conscience that he wanted to hurt Peter Pettigrew. He wanted to hurt Wormtail, his old friend, this Marauder. Hurt him, just as he had hurt him and Sirius and Tonks and everyone else.

They said that only death may pay for life, and Peter needed to pay for James and Lily's with _his_.

Remus wanted to let Peter squirm and writhe in the agony that Remus did now as a series of memories rolled through his head like moving photographs, of James and Lily during their days as First Order of the Phoenix members.

Their time spent together at school when they were all innocent. _Friends_.

His wand hand curled even tighter over the handle of his wand, so much so that Remus felt the Wolf's strength within him grip his wand tight enough that he swore he felt the wood start to crack and splinter, and he was forced (albeit reluctantly so) to loosen his hold on the weapon so Lupin did not wind up snapping his wand into two.

Remus wanted nothing more than this deformed, broken shell of a man before him who he had once considered a friend and would have done anything for if Peter were in trouble, to experience the heart-wrenching pain and agony that he felt at this very moment, as he recollected how when he had found Tonks in the Forest alongside Newt Scamander and Sirius, how Dora had been dangerously close to losing their baby.

Once again, the urge to allow the Wolf to take control and _rip_ this man limb from limb with his own wolfish fangs had overtaken him, with the strong desire to end this wretched miserable human's life, on Hogwarts Grounds or not be damned indeed.

Only this time, his sweet Tonks was not awake and alert enough to pull him back from the darkness that Remus knew that resided in his own heart.

Not even Dumbledore and Rufus Scrimgeour were about to stop what was coming, what had been a _long_ time in the making for his old friend and former Order member, Peter Pettigrew. Lupin let out a low warning growl, courtesy of the Mad Beast within.

He pointed his wand squarely into Peter's chest and closed his eyes.

"Goodbye, Peter."

* * *

**A/N: Ooh ANOTHER cliffhanger! Do you think Lupin has it within himself and give in to the temptation to kill his old classmate and former friend/Marauder?  
**

**I really wanted Remus to have a conversation with Peter first and foremost, though it's very much one-sided as Remus kind of lists off all the things in his life that Peter's done wrong, I felt sort of cheated in POA when Pettigrew escaped and neither Remus nor Sirius got to have that sort of resolve, that closure that their best friend's murderer would one day eventually be brought to justice.**

**Coming up in Ch. 94, also the next couple of chapters will be rather long as I don't want this story to end and am having a hard time letting it go, but want all my loose ends to be wrapped up and give Remus and Tonks the HEA (Happily Ever After) that they deserve, or I'll try to anyway.**


	94. To Let Go

**CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR**

Tonks could faintly hear Lupin's voice saying something in too low tones for her to make out. His broken, soft, quiet reserved tones seemed to call to her with intense despair and horrible, heavy hopelessness, that for a moment, Tonks thought was a dream, a nightmare.

She could not recall a time when her husband's voice sounded so…so… _desperate_ , so _sad_. As if everything he had ever loved and cared for had been ripped away from him in one fell swoop.

But… _why_? Why was Remus in such pain?

What had happened while she'd been out? Lupin shouldn't be in such turmoil, such agony, though his voice currently suggested otherwise, that something was wrong.

Very, _horribly_ wrong with him. She had to find out what was wrong, to stop this.

Tonks let out the tiniest of sighs and struggled, realizing that as her mind slowly began to lift from the after-effects of the haze of sleep given to her courtesy of the Sleeping Draught her husband and Madam Pomfrey had made her drink every _drop_ of, she now had to find a way to wake herself up physically, which was admittedly harder.

A challenge Tonks already found demanding. Her subconsciousness wanted nothing more than to succumb to the sweet blissful abyss of deep sleep for a few days.

Everything felt heavy, though her eyelids slowly fluttered open, and the tiniest of groans escaped her parted, cracked lips, as she cautiously sat upright in the hospital bed.

Even that proved to be physically exhaustive, as a fresh and immense wave of exhaustion and tiredness pressed down like a weight on her shoulders, encouraging her to lay her head back against the fluffy pillow and the pile of blankets and just… _sleep_.

 _Sleep_. Something Tonks would love to continue and could not seem to get enough of. She was exhausted, both in body and soul, not to mention, this was barely the first month of her first trimester and she was already so damned bloody _exhausted_.

Though the anguished yell of her husband, laced to the brim with such an antagonized sense of hurt and sorrow ripped through the thin, crumbling walls of her mind, alerting Tonks to the simple fact that something was wrong with her husband.

Tonks bolted upright in her bed and immediately regretted that decision, having sat up so quickly in her haste to see what was wrong with Remus that the Hospital Room began to spin, and black dots covered the corners of her blurry line of sight.

Feeling lightheaded, Tonks immediately shot out an arm against the cold, cobblestone wall behind the bed, using the wall as a support brace to steady herself.

That was…probably _not_ the smartest move Tonks could have made.

She stifled a growl of frustration and tightly clenched her eyes shut, grinding her teeth in anticipation as a horrible swell of nausea wracked her entire body until the dizziness left.

The muffled whimper of a familiar man's voice caught her attention once Tonks was certain the room wasn't going to move anymore, causing her ears to perk right up.

"R—Remus, p—please don't _do_ this. J—James wouldn't have wanted me _killed_!"

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown.

She _knew_ that voice. _The—the rat_ , she thought wildly, biting the inside wall of her cheek. _Oh, that's Peter Pettigrew, but…_

Tonks thought she'd heard…but no. That couldn't be. Her Rem wouldn't _do_ that.

Then she heard it again. A low voice, dangerously soft and quiet, almost.

"…Goodbye, Peter…" That was Remus's voice! Tonks froze, her face draining of color.

Sanguinely, she lifted her head, her breaths slowly returning to normal as her heart rate slowed down, though the damned corded stubborn muscle within the confines of her chest began to beat erratically again as she looked across the way of the large room.

But where was it coming from? It sounded so far away from her, and muffled, like the pair of them were underwater, or was that just the ringing in her ears?

Shaking her head, cursing wildly under her breath, her retribution for her pausing, Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upward as she heard Peter Pettigrew let out a yell.

Tonks blinked, her frown deepening, as both the Minister of Magic and Professor Dumbledore each had their wands pointed at the very man who held her heart and soul.

Remus had unceremoniously thrown the murderer of Harry's parents, his best friend and his wife, against one of the brick walls of the Hospital Wing, a fistful seized around the material of his jacket, his wand poised to kill him.

And at that, for a moment, Tonks cowered. Her depleted strength crumpled even further, and her soul felt for Remus. All she could see now was a reflection of herself.

The rage and anger she had felt toward the Carrow twins all those years ago when she had thought they had murdered Ollie, how she felt a few days ago towards Crouch.

When she had allowed the She-Wolf within her to be set free of her chains and succumb to her savage, uncontrollable Animagus form and rip them both to shreds.

No one even this Hospital Wing, not Remus, not Dumbledore, not Scrimgeour, Merlin's Beard, not even Professor Snape, knew the devastation that was now rocking Tonks to her core and turned her fragile heart into shattered pieces of broken glass.

To hold the very weapon in your hand that could end another person's life.

Now that she had met James and Lily for herself, however unorthodox it had been to talk to their deceased spirits, little more than caricatures of their real selves in the afterlife, Tonks firmly believed that Harry's parents would not have their friend to kill Peter.

No matter what Peter Pettigrew had or had not done to warrant such a death sentence. Her heart practically ceased its rhythmic beating within her chest and raw panic swept over her entire battered and bruised form like a dark shadow.

Tonks knew that if she were to allow her husband to murder Pettigrew in cold blood like this, in front of the Minister of Magic and Albus Dumbledore, and did nothing to stop Remus, then Lupin would come to regret killing him the rest of his life.

To hear Pettigrew's screams and have it been trapped and replayed like a song on repeat, over and over again.

To look into the man's frightened, tear-filled eyes, red-rimmed at the edge of his irises, a look that still spoke of friendship and forgiveness despite the tip of his wand pressed squarely into Harry's parents' betrayer's chest.

Oh, but Merlin's Beard, Remus did not know what that was like…how it would wreck his psyche, much as it had done to her, and mold him into a truly vile monster.

A monster that would manifest every single second without even the slightest hint.

And then there was the horrible, fatigued ringing in her eardrums, unrelenting, and in her mind, was a heavy dissonance, almost a tolling of a death bell for Pettigrew.

Tonks ground her teeth, feeling her body violently begin to shiver and quake, her chest tightening, while her breathing trembled, horror the only spirit left alive in her eyes.

She could _not_ allow this to happen. She watched the scene unfold in slow motion.

The tip of Remus's wand pointed squarely into Peter Pettigrew's chest, Remus snarling and growling at his former friend and Hogwarts classmate like the Wolf he was.

Peter howled with tightly shut eyes, scrunching his eyes as Lupin raised his wand.

Tonks _remembered_. Tonks remembered killing both Alecto and Amycus Carrow, and her heart violently ripped to pieces, and it was that memory that inspired response.

Summoning what little strength she possessed left, Tonks balled her shaking hands into a fist at her side and summoned every last ounce of breath that dwelled within her lungs, and perhaps for the first time in her life since knowing him, shouted at Remus.

" **REMUS** , **NO**! **STOP**!"

She could only pray that she wasn't too late to stop him.

* * *

Lupin heard the pleading scream of a familiar woman's voice behind him, calling to him, broken, faint, so faint her voice was as a soft susurration as a whisper of wind.

Though his thoughts of seeking retribution against Pettigrew for what Peter had done, not just to James and Lily, but to his beloved wife as well, warred so violently within him and his mind had become so clouded that soon all that was left was the Wolf, that he could no longer discern who the woman's voice belonged to.

Surely, it couldn't be Tonks. She was still _sleeping_ , as he'd left her not but a few seconds ago.

Perhaps McGonagall or Norah? Remus let out a low wolfish growl from the confines of his chest and shook his head to clear it.

His angers towards Peter had escalated to an entirely new level as his mind dwelled on images of Tonks suffering and in immense pain from how he had found her in the brush of the Forbidden Forest.

The fact that this man had played a part in Dolores Umbridge's vicious scheme to try to terminate Dora's pregnancy played in his mind like a serious of painful memories.

Over and over again, until it was all that he could think of. Peter Pettigrew had almost murdered their baby, with no regard for the amount of pain it would cause Tonks not just physically, but emotionally as well, and Lupin's anguish at losing their baby as well, he had not thought when he had slipped his wife the tea laced with the abortifacient.

No. Peter, as always, had been looking out for himself and _only_ himself.

And now, no one could stop something so exhilarating as killing this wretched rat. Not Sirius, not Dumbledore, not even the Minster could stop the storm raging war within his heart and mind as he allowed black, vile, putrid thoughts of revenge to cloud his mind.

The calm voice, Lily's sweet, succulent voice, as she begged and pleaded with Remus not to do this, her voice of reason and sense had all but faded from the recesses of his mind, leaving Remus with only his pure, unbridled rancor, loss, and pain.

He had to kill Peter right here and now, before Pettigrew hurt anyone _else_.

" **REMUS! NO! STOP**!" A young woman's voice rent through the otherwise silent air, occasionally broken by the curt and clipped tones of Scrimgeour and Dumbledore, which Lupin was pointedly ignoring.

He would deal with Albus's displeasure later. Much, much later, Remus knew this.

 _After_ Pettigrew was dead…

Though even as he raised his wand and the command came again, this time to lower his wand, he _didn't_ , and only when something hard instantly collide against his chest, small, shaking arms wrapping themselves tightly around his middle, did he feel something warm and wet begin to the soak the front of his jacket. And a sweet voice.

A voice calling his name. No, scratch that. Not calling. _Begging_ him to stop this. This voice of this woman, whoever she was, so frantic and desperate, was pleading with him, with the Wolf, to cease their conjoined madness and stop this behavior at once.

Remus let out a low wolfish growl, feeling his facial muscles harden as Lupin glanced down to see who dared to step in between himself and Pettigrew, to _stop_ this.

He wanted Pettigrew _dead_ , and he was _not_ in a patient mood, and Merlin _help_ whoever was about to try to intervene and stand in his way of killing Peter where the accursed wretch of a man, what was left of him, stood, though by the time the Wolf, that Mad Beast within him, finished with Pettigrew, there wouldn't _be_ anything left.

" _Don't_ , Rem! Put—put it down! Lower your wand! Please, please put it _away_!"

Through the fog of his utterly blinding rage as he heard the Wolf snarl and growl its displeasure, knowing full well the full moon was a few hours away, though Snape had seen to it the first thing upon returning within the castle walls to take his Wolfsbane Potion by bequest of Albus Dumbledore, he was able to recognize the voice of his wife.

Dora's sweet face flashed through his mind. The image of a bright young witch in her mid-twenties who had so easily captured and stolen his heart before he knew it was gone, with wavy maroon-colored hair most days that cascaded, falling in soft layers and gentle curls to just past her shoulders, thick and luscious, the touch of it truly delish.

Though it was her sweet, succulent smile that Remus cherished the most.

" _Pettigrew isn't worth killing, Remus! Please lower your wand! Listen to me_!"

Tonks's smile was so wide, white, and bright, that Lupin was sure no other witch on Merlin's green earth held such a smile, and he wondered unclearly for a moment just how it could be contained on her face, how the corners of her light, full, pink lips seemed to stretch and touch her ears, creating faint dimples whenever Tonks did smile.

Lupin blinked, feeling a tightening on his backside, and then he blinked a second time, and then a third, blinking owlishly at the figure of his wife wrapped around his middle, pleading with him to lower his wand, seeing the revolt that screamed in her.

"Dora." He breathed, his light brown eyes widening in shock, and immediately, by whatever spell Remus had been placed under temporarily as he had almost allowed his inner Wolf to take control, the woman's image shattered his already tender heart.

This young witch was pregnant with his baby and was his _wife_. Lupin blinked and was immediately thrust back into the harsh, dark reality of his current little predicament.

Namely, being plagued with the matter that Pettigrew still drew in breath while James and Lily's bodies were buried six feet under in Godric's Hollow chafed Remus.

Tonks was breathing raggedly and somewhat violently, gasping and panting for breath, and Remus briefly wondered how it was that Dora had managed to pull herself from such a deep sleep, considering Madame Pomfrey's Sleeping Draughts tended to put you on a whole different plane of existence deep into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.

Unwillingly, every _bit_ of the Wolf within him complied with his wife's request, though the beast bellowed with a begrudging obedience, his wand hand almost shaking.

Even Remus himself could not quite pinpoint and identify where the strength to rebel against the Wolf's baser urges, this almost primeval instinct to rip Peter apart limb from limb was coming from. He felt absolutely resolute that Peter needed to be killed.

He wanted to _see_ the moment that light left Peter Pettigrew's eyes, that witless rat, that worm, that betrayer. His stomach twisted in glee as he wanted nothing more than to do it _himself_ , watch as the lifeforce within Peter Pettigrew became extinguished.

Remus knew what he was. A Wolf. There was no denying this. The Wolf within him was made for this. Built and raised for this.

The Wolf within wanted Peter _dead_.

But what in Merlin's name just _happened_? Dazed and not fully quite coherent yet, Remus glanced down at his wand, which shook so violently in his wand hand he was amazed he was somehow upholding a steady grip upon the weapon, and then to her.

His sweet, innocent, lovely wife, her head currently nestled within his chest, and at that precise moment, Remus felt as though he had been struck squarely in the chest with a particularly powerful Knockback Jinx.

Hard. Tonks was…was crying for him.

No, she was not just crying, she was… _sobbing_. For…for _him_. She didn't _want_ him to kill Peter, not even after the part that Pettigrew had played in Umbridge's plan.

Remus blinked at his wife, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. He would have thought, considering everything that Barty Crouch Jr, Umbridge, and Peter had collectively put her through, that Tonks would have understood more than anyone.

Why he _couldn't_ let Peter live, but she—

" _Please_ , Remus!" Tonks's voice had now become hoarse, nothing more than a whispered plea, as though what little hope and energy remained her voice, had drained. "Do _not_ kill Pettigrew, don't. You'll—you'll _regret_ it for the rest of your life, love."

Remus bristled, feeling the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up as his throat hollowed and constricted, and it felt as though he could not breathe at hearing her words. " _No_ ," he growled in a low, threatening voice as his gaze flitted towards Peter.

Pettigrew was further attempting to curl himself into a fetal position, his odd squeaking chitters, sounding every bit like the rat that Remus always knew the man to be, turned into terrifying little squeaks as the man squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation.

"Y—you're making a _mistake_ , Remus," Tonks whispered, sniffling once or twice as she pulled back slightly to study her husband's pale face, seeing the whiskers of his rough, light beard almost stand upright of their own accord in barely contained anger.

Lupin blinked, having to stare down his nose as he looked at his wife in quandary. Remus felt his teeth chattering, and he knew it wasn't from the cold, but rather, heartbreak.

He could feel his heartbeats breaking in his throat, his heart thrumming wildly against the confines of its cage within his chest until he felt sure his heart would escape.

Electric, tingling spasms filled his fingertips, which he tried to hide by dropping his wand, wincing as it clattered to the floor, not even bothering to pick it up, and wrapping his strong arms around his wife, trying to hide his violent, trembling fingers.

"Remus?" Her sweet voice. Never before had he heard Tonks speak to him in such broken tones before, sounding so helpless, so vulnerable and utterly exhausted.

"Dora?" Lupin cringed at hearing the faltering crack and dip in his voice as it trembled, wavering, and for a moment, he thought he wasn't going to be able to convince himself that this was somehow another one of the Forest's cruel _tricks_.

That the dark enchantments of the Forbidden Forest had followed him back to the castle somehow and had once again for a fourth or fifth time, separated him from Dora.

Lupin furrowed his dark brows into a frown as his fingers curled tightly around Tonks's shirt for support. He was speaking to his wife as if he had never seen Tonks before.

No, that wasn't quite right. This was not one of the Forest's filthy tricks. More in that Remus was shocked to find Tonks in such a state of distress over Pettigrew.

Tonks was clinging onto the material of his jacket, her head buried within his chest as if she somehow thought that Remus would just disappear in front of her.

Though upon hearing the faltering crack and wavering of her husband's quiet tones, his wife quickly drew back her head and craned her neck upright to look Remus in the eyes with such a sense of relief and wonderment brimming in her glistening gray orbs, that he felt his heart within his chest give a quiver and a painful, twisting lurch.

Whether this feeling stemmed from the overwhelming sense of dependency as Lupin realized his wife was yet again the one who had pulled him back from the darkness within his own heart, as he realized what he had almost done to Pettigrew.

Not Dumbledore, not the Minister of Magic, but Tonks had saved him. _Again_.

Remus had been about to commit murder within the very walls of Hogwarts herself.

Yet…Tonks… Dora had stopped him from killing the very man who had almost succeeded in ridding Tonks of their baby, and while Remus had allowed the Wolf within to take control when his mind had been in its most dangerous and vulnerable state, open and willing to suggestive thoughts of a bloody, violent death for Pettigrew, each one worse than the last for Peter, and surely would have sealed his fate if not for her.

When his heart had been filled with fierce, burning rancor, a rage that fevered in his bloodstream that he had never known before, _Tonks_ had been the one to stop him.

From what, Remus couldn't even remember. The only thing he could focus on was Dora, who was suffering, in deep pain as she silently cried into his chest, and all Lupin could think about was how to end it and stop it from hurting his wife more.

His hold on his wife tightened as he drew Tonks's sobbing form in even closer into him.

One of his hands drifted upward and entangled itself in her wavy maroon tresses while the other rested on the small of her back, slowly rubbing small circles on her spine.

Lupin allowed his chin to rest on top of Dora's hair, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of pinewood, elm bark, and the faint scent of autumn rainfall on her person.

A few more deep breaths as he allowed his wife's natural scent to calm him.

What had he almost done to Peter Pettigrew?

He couldn't even remember as his heartbeats slowly returned to normal, the feeble quivering muscle within his chest now calmed.

Though the split second that Tonks shifted her head just slightly, and Remus caught sight of Peter's cowering frame as he attempted to retreat and quit the scene entirely, only to be held at wand point by none other than Sirius, who had come to check on his best friend and baby cousin and make sure they were both okay, a grim expression etched on his handsome features, his face pulled taut and tight with rage.

Sirius slowly lifted his chin and jutted it out slightly defiantly, effectively blocking the only doorway with his slender but imposing and stockier frame than Peter's.

"It's _over_ Peter," Sirius growled lowly from deep within his chest, his voice sounding rougher and coarser than it had during his time in the Forbidden Forest. "You aren't going _anywhere_ that Professor Dumbledore does not want you to, and I think we'll let the Dementors of Azkaban have you, wouldn't you say?" Sirius snarled, seeming to relish and take sick delight at watching Peter let out a squeak of terror.

"No, n—no, please! H—have m— _mercy_ , Sirius! They'll—they'll give me the Kiss!" Peter squeaked, shoving his dirtied, blackened knuckles (what was left of them) into his mouth and nibbling at their frayed edges, chittering, much like a rat would do.

He kept his wand steadily trained at Peter's chest, glowering, and shooting Wormtail a look of daggers, though his blazing gray eyes flitted angrily towards Lupin.

"Why should I show you an _ounce_ of mercy, Pettigrew? You didn't extend that same courtesy to the Potters when you sold them out to Voldemort," Sirius challenged hotly, the edges of his voice hardened and devoid of all affection, almost sounding unrecognizable, to both Remus and Tonks.

Lupin could tell just by looking into his wife's glistening gray eyes, at the tears rolling gracefully down her pale cheeks that she was just as stunned by the sudden shift, this new countenance in her cousin as Remus was.

Sirius shifted his weight from one foot to the other and filled his best friend with an absolutely poisonous glower, silently challenging Remus to tell him why he had not done it.

Remus could feel the intensity despite feeling Tonks gingerly tug on his sleeve.

 _Leave. Leave now. You need to leave before things escalate even worse_.

Remus felt his posture stiffen and he offered a silent but curt nod towards Sirius, before pulling his attention back to Tonks, who was, for the moment, commanding all his attention.

Tonks's lips were parted open slightly to speak, a fierce determination and resolve evident upon her ashen features that Remus was not sure he had seen in his wife before.

"Because then you would be _no better_ than a Death Eater, Sirius," Tonks said, her voice a soft susurration, as her gaze nervously flitted towards Dumbledore and Rufus.

Sirius blinked in surprise, though her cousin offered no comment. Lupin sighed as she began to shift herself to where she was more or less pressed firmly against his chest.

Remus tried to placate her into going back to the bed and laying down, that she should be resting, but Tonks shook her head slightly in light protest.

Lupin let out a tiny, barely audible groan at his wife's refusal to stay still, though his grip around her waist tightened, just in case her strength left her as quickly as it had done in the Forest.

He could tell by the way Dora shook slightly that her equilibrium was still a bit off balance, and in order to keep her balance, she wrapped her arms around Lupin's neck, pulling him down slightly, almost as though she made to kiss him, but she did not, careful not to try to choke him on accident as she did so, and after a few minutes of quiet protesting under her breath, reluctantly allowed her husband to guide her back.

"Here," he murmured helping Tonks to lay back against the pillows, fluffing them for her and pulling up his chair so that he could sit closer to his wife's bedside. " _Rest_."

Remus waited until Tonks was better situated before turning his head slowly and methodically to regard Peter Pettigrew, pleased to see Sirius still keeping his wand trained on Pettigrew's hunched over, cowering form.

Sirius let out a growl and sighed.

"You're making a _mistake_ , Remus. Tonks. He killed James and Lily, Remus! Merlin's left testicle, he tried to poison your _wife_! _My_ baby cousin! You would really grant him a reprieve from death after all of _that_? This man does not _deserve_ to live, but it does not matter to _me_ ," Sirius snarled, his voice escaping his throat as a low bark. His gaze briefly flitted upwards to Tonks before returning his attention back to their former friend. "I am not the one that you almost _killed_ , Peter. Let's let _her_ decide your fate, Peter. Tonks?" Sirius barked, struggling to maintain a fast, steady grip on his wand.

But Tonks shook her head, a curl tumbling in front of her face as she ducked her head, and when she blearily lifted her chin to regard Remus, he was surprised to see the dried tear tracts that marred along her pale cheeks as his wife fixed him with a pointed stare.

"It's _your_ call, Rem," Dora whispered faintly, reaching across the edge of the bed and taking his hand in hers with her left, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, allowing the pads of her fingertips to ghost along his gold wedding ring. "Peter is _your_ friend, Rem."

Remus bit the inside wall of his cheek and stayed silent for several, long excruciating minutes while he weighed his options, and what he thought James and Lily would have wanted.

He had hoped to hear his friends' voices once more in his head, to seek their counsel on what he and Sirius should allow to happen to Peter, but perhaps for the first time since their deaths, his friends were silent on this matter, and he knew.

That this choice, whether to allow Peter Pettigrew to live or not, was _his_ choice and his alone to make, and his family—James, Lily, Sirius, and Dora—could not help him.

Remus allowed his sharp, inquisitive gaze to drift upward and regard his best friend, to see how Sirius's fingers of his wand hand were practically twitching in ire, his entire body shaking, teeth ground in anger, and Lupin swore he heard Black growl with the effort to restrain himself from killing Pettigrew in cold blood right here in front of everyone, though Lupin could tell Sirius was thinking the exact same thing as he was.

James and Lily would not have wanted their two best friends to become killers.

"Let him _go_ , Sirius. Leave him for the Aurors when they come to pick up Umbridge. The Dementors can have him for all I care, but this isn't worth _killing_ Peter over, my friend," Lupin answered at last, albeit with great difficulty as he spoke the words through gritted teeth, his free hand not curled tightly around Tonks's in a vice grip as he wished some of his wife's inner strength would pour into him, give his soul the very courage he needed to do this, "Let him rot in a cell in Azkaban Prison, Sirius."

The whiskers of Sirius's beard twitched without prompting in barely contained anger. "You're making a mistake, Remus, can't you see that Peter needs to d—"

"I _know_ what I said," Remus snapped, unable to keep the note of annoyance out of his voice as he glanced sideways at Tonks out of the corner of his wolfish site. "Let the man _go_. He is _not_ worth it," he retorted, feeling his teeth start to chatter again.

Sirius nodded, gave a curt wave of his wand, and the instant he had finished, a length of rope spouted from the tip of his wand, snaking its way around Peter Pettigrew's cowering form.

Sirius conjured two chairs with another sharp tap of his wand, and violently shoved Peter into one, while he sat in the other, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against his chair, adopting a casual, relaxed stance.

" _Fine_ ," Sirius barked, sounding thoroughly put off with Remus's ultimate decision, as the briefest flickers of anger coursed through his best friend's gray eyes.

Lupin emanated a tense exhale through his nose, twisting his head to the side as he rose from his seat, intent on seeing if Professor McGonagall or perhaps even Dobby, the little house-elf he had met the other night at his and Dora's wedding, would bring him and his wife a sandwich.

He didn't like how Tonks was looking. Much too pale for his liking, and he could not recall the last time his wife had a proper square meal, in days.

"Let him _go_ , Sirius," he repeated again, his voice clipped and hard. The words felt like nettles in his tongue, but sweet as honeydew too, as he felt the weighted burden of the guilt of James and Lily's death, and his lack of action regarding not heeding Lily's concerns all those years ago over Pettigrew leave his shoulders, and Remus stood taller. "If you let me say it again, Sirius, I won't hesitate to jinx you with a Bat-Bogey Hex when you aren't looking, do you understand?" Remus growled, lowering his voice.

Though before Sirius could nod his head in response, Lupin turned away, dipping his head, not leaving himself any time to see his best friend's acrid face that he threatened.

Remus knew he would be wasting his efforts to argue any further on this with Sirius, and he bit the wall of his cheek before addressing his wife. "Sweetheart, I'm heading to the kitchens to get us something to eat. Is there anything you would like in particular, love?"

He stifled a smile as he heard the rustling of bed sheets, not even having to glance back behind him to know that Dora had practically perked up at the mention of food.

"Some hot cider would be great if they have any. Thank you, Rem," came his wife's sweet voice, so faint, it was barely more than a whisper. Remus nodded softly.

Lupin nodded, making to turn away on the heel of his boot to leave, not wanting to look at Peter Pettigrew any more than he had already been forced to. Deep within the confines of his chest and the pit of his churning, twisting stomach, Remus knew there was a horrible swelling, a need to know if what he had just done was the right thing.

That he had spared Peter's life. He wanted someone to tell him it wasn't foolish. That it was not stupid to save Pettigrew's life, knowing that he would full well probably have horrible dreams about this that plagued his conscience for the next several weeks until Lupin was fully able to come to terms with what he had done now.

It would be ugly…as ugly as his years thinking that Sirius had been the one to betray James and Lily and believing all along that Sirius had murdered Peter violently.

"A _moment_ , please, Mr. Lupin," came Professor Dumbledore's voice, sounding solemn, and yet, there was a hint of steel within his ancient voice that told Remus he was not quite yet free to go, and that he must listen to what Albus had to say to him.

Stifling the groan that threatened to escape from the confines of his lips, Remus slowly turned around and almost sanguinely and methodically lifted his head after allowing himself a minute or two to close his eyes, trying to regain his composure.

"Professor," was all Lupin could summon the courage to muster by means of answering the Hogwarts Headmaster with as much dignity as he could, steeling himself for a lecture on proper edict and decorum within Hogwarts' walls, and how he had, just now, unknowingly or not, almost set a bad example for the students Albus was responsible for, teaching them that it was perfectly acceptable to almost murder a man.

Slowly, Remus lifted his gaze, jutting out his chin slightly defiantly, fully prepared to defend his actions against whatever claims Dumbledore was about to unleash against him, though, much to his (and Tonks's surprise), that moment for him did not come.

Instead, the Hogwarts Headmaster merely proceeded to peer inquisitively over the rims of his silver rimless half-moon spectacles with that piercing, icy-blue glacier stare of his that never failed to make Remus feel uneasy, as though he was baring down straight past Remus and seeing into the depths of his heart, his deepest desires, his baser urges.

Though, what the Headmaster did next surprised Lupin. The corners of his mouth and beard twitched as he slowly offered Remus a slight smile, inkling his head just so.

"Your previous position as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor here at Hogwarts will be returned to you if you should so wish it, Professor Lupin," Albus began, his smile widening, his blue eyes taking on a mischievous, twinkling sheen.

Remus blinked, feeling rooted to his spot in the entryway of the Hospital Wing. He turned at the waist and regarded Albus Dumbledore before meeting Tonks's gaze.

He was pleased, at the very least, that Tonks seemed just as surprised as she was.

She was as white as chalk, and her mouth frozen wide open in an expression of stunned surprise, and though her gaze was meeting her husband's before flitting to Dumbledore and the Minister, and although she was staring straight at Scrimgeour and Albus, Tonks appeared not to notice them at all as her eyes drifted back and locked onto Lupin's gaze.

"I…" Words momentarily left him, until he witnessed Tonks give a slow, encouraging nod of her head as a lock of excitement began to seep into her gray eyes.

When he opened his mouth in an effort to express his gratitude towards Albus, the only thing that came out was a strangled attempt at speech, and he was debating whether or not he was having a panic attack or a heart attack, given his paralyzed state.

Tonks, Merlin bless her tired soul, was the first to recover from Dumbledore's unexpected and generous offer.

"I'm sure my husband would only be too delighted to come back, Albus. Wouldn't you, Rem?" Dora encouraged, not unkindly, biting her bottom lip.

 _Say yes_ , Moony, James encouraged, and Remus had to stifle the urge to jump in shock and surprise. _You're going to have a new kid to support. You loved teaching here, it's your dream come true, isn't it? You'd be a fool to pass up this opportunity_.

Lily, as always, the voice of reason, could not help jumping in and contributing her two thoughts to her husband's surprisingly mature piece of advice.

 _You'll regret it, Remus, if you don't do this. My husband is right. You've a wife and child to support, and with Tonks's new raise at the Ministry, if you accept Albus's offer, you won't want for anything in this world. And with the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Ban lifted, this solves so many of your problems. Snape and Tonks can brew the Wolfsbane for you_.

 _What are you waiting for, Moony_? James demanded. _Take Dumbledore's offer_!

Blinking once or twice until he heard his friends' voices inside his head become faint, Lupin swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat and had to blink a few times until he felt like he had regained the power of speech.

"I would like that very much, Headmaster," Remus managed to croak out, flinching at how hoarse he was.

It would be an honor to teach within Hogwarts' walls again at a subject he excelled in. Lupin bowed his head in acknowledgment, motioning with a wave of his arm for Dumbledore and Scrimgeour, accompanied by Sirius and Pettigrew, to follow them out. He did not know where Albus planned to detain Peter until the Aurors arrived to collect him and Umbridge, but Remus _did_ know that he did _not_ want Peter Pettigrew within ten _feet_ of his wife while she was at her most vulnerable and tired.

"Excellent," beamed Dumbledore, clasping his fingers together and folding them in front of his middle as he gestured for Scrimgeour to follow him the moment he saw Madam Pomfrey bustling towards Tonks with a heavily laden medical supply tray. "Come, Minister. Sirius. Mr. Pettigrew," he added towards Peter, almost as an afterthought, though there was no mistaking the slight sniff of disgust and disapproval as he looked down his nose at the pathetic, cowering form of the stout, rat-like former Marauder. "Let us walk. I think it best if allow Mrs. Lupin ample time to rest and recover in a quiet environment with minimal distractions. And Remus, if you would kindly follow me, once you get your wife something to eat from the kitchens, I should like to meet with you in my office to discuss your return to Hogwarts next September. The students have been, shall we say, clamoring eagerly for your return, particularly Harry and his friends. Never before have I had one of my Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers receive such high praise, and I shall be delighted to welcome you back. With a raise."

Lupin blinked, once again feeling as though he had been doused in ice water, though he quickly nodded his agreement, knowing that Albus was not about to take no for an answer, and the fact that he now had a loving wife and a baby that he would have to support, he silently accepted Albus's gracious offer to return to Hogwarts.

He and Dora would have to move into Hogwarts into the staff quarters, at least during the school term, but the growing look of intrigue and excitement in her eyes told him that his wife would not object.

 _Things are finally starting to look up for us both_ , he thought wondrously as Remus let out a tiny sigh as he stepped across the threshold that separated the Hospital Wing from the rest of Hogwarts, feeling _free_ at last.

The Anti-Werewolf Legislation Ban had been lifted. Pettigrew, Crouch, and Umbridge all had cells with their names on them awaiting them in Azkaban, his wife was safe and relatively unharmed, their baby safe.

Remus glanced back over his shoulder, looking around for something he wanted to see but did not know what.

And then, he found it. He knew he found it when, upon seeing his wife seated upright in the hospital bed, he saw the noble, proud face of his sweet love.

Her hair, a dark, rich beautiful plum color this evening, seemed like it glowed amongst the dreary stone walls of the Hospital Wing.

For just a moment, as their gazes met and locked in a brief stare before her eyelids closed as exhaustion slowly began to overtake her, Remus swore he saw Tonks smile.

Though the long silence within the Hospital Wing felt like to Lupin that it stretched out forever, was promptly broken by the sounds of despaired shouting as it rent the air, causing Remus, Dumbledore, Scrimgeour, Sirius, and even Peter, to swivel their heads to their immediate left, all of them looking for the source of the noise.

Lupin felt his heart plummet to the pits of his churning stomach as he recognized Dora's mother's thin, emaciated frame storming up the corridor, trailed behind by Ollie.

Tonks's best friend was pale, paler than Remus had ever seen Ollie Brennan, his tuft of short black hair that was beginning to grow back steadily after being shaved off by Crouch in one last show of humiliation was looking wild and disheveled, his face pulled taut and tight with rage, blue eyes cerulean in color and flashing angrily as the young man had to practically jog to keep up with Andromeda Tonks's long strides.

Mrs. Tonks practically skidded to a halt when she reached the Hospital Wing's entryway, her heavily-lidded dark eyes narrowed, and she did not so much as flinch or react when Ollie practically barreled her over in his attempt to stop and catch up to her.

"S—sir," Ollie wheezed, sounding winded and utterly out of breath, coughing and gasping for breath as he clutched onto his ribcage, turning to address Dumbledore. "M—my apologies, P—Professor, I—I told her Tonks wasn't up to receiving visitors, but..."

"She's my _daughter_ , Brennan," Andromeda Tonks snarled viciously at Dora's best friend by way of response, rounding on the heel of her booth as she turned her wrath on Ollie before turning at the waist to regard Remus, whose expression remained stoic.

Instinctively, he felt his hand drift to the interior pocket of his jacket, where his fingers curled around the handle of his wand. It was a failing attempt to control the violent trembling that was threatening to overtake him as his anger returned tenfold.

Mrs. Tonks was currently eyeing her daughter's husband with a scrunched up expression, as though Remus were nothing more than dirt on the bottom of her shoe.

" _So_ , Mr. Lupin," she spat in disgust, her sharp gaze drifting down to Remus's trembling left hand, where it lingered on his wedding band, the soft yellow gold glinting in the light from the torches from their places in the sconces along the walls of the castle. Andromeda stiffened and sighed. "I see that you have married my daughter."

Lupin flinched, feeling the contempt in Dora's mother's voice, her words poisonous, spewing from her mouth as though they were black, putrid, disgusting bile.

"Yes," he confirmed dryly, hardening the edges of his voice, letting out a tired sigh as he heard the rustling of the bedsheets, not even needing to look behind him to see that Dora had perked up upon hearing the arrival of her mother come to see her.

Andromeda made an odd little noise that sounded like a strangled attempt at a speech at the back of her throat, though upon sensing the darkening look of rancor growing in Remus's eyes, she let out a tired sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose.

It seemed to take Mrs. Tonks an eternity to find her voice, and when she spoke, her voice cracked and faltered.

"I—I do not know how to tell you and Dora this, b—but…" She swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat, shooting out a hand, causing Remus to instinctively stiffen, though his hardened expression softened slightly as Mrs. Tonks laid a gentle hand on her son-in-law's shoulder and squeezed.

She leaned in slightly so as to try to speak to Remus directly, though she did not bother to lower her voice, craning her head over Lupin's shoulder to meet Tonks's gaze.

"Ted is _dead_ , Remus. Dora," she whispered, her voice cracking as she blinked back tears. "I—I came to—to let you know. He was killed by a pair of Snatchers a few hours ago. We're—there was no b—body left for me to—to recover to bury him."

Lupin felt his heart sink at hearing his wife's heart-wrenching, tear-filled scream behind him.

" _No_! Mum! Tell me it's _not_ true," Tonks begged, biting her bottom lip.

The heart-wrenching cry of agony ripped through the Hospital Wing, and Lupin swiveled his head back around as the quiet cry of grief and despair rang in his ears.

Instantly, he felt his anger return at Andromeda Tonks, though this time, for an entirely different reason as he whirled back around, intent on giving her mother a piece of his mind.

How _dare_ she bring up the news to Tonks now that her father was dead, only mere hours after leaving the Forbidden Forest after several days of thinking that they might not make it out of those cursed woods alive, and now, she came here with _this_?

Lupin felt the Mad Beast within the confines of his chest give a low, wolfish growl.

Tonks, thank Merlin, was resting propped up in the hospital bed, and thank goodness for that, otherwise Remus was afraid Tonks would have fallen had she been standing, seeing how the strength was practically sapped from her at hearing her father was dead.

"You _dare_ bring this up in front of her _now_ , Mrs. Tonks?" Lupin growled.

Andromeda, however, did not seem to be paying attention to her daughter's husband's words.

She seemed to have eyes only for her daughter, and made a move as if to sidestep and duck under Lupin's arm, which was pressing against the entryway and currently the only barrier between Mrs. Tonks and her daughter, the only thing standing in her way, though she seemed to wilt and deflate as she met Remus's hardened and listless gaze.

Remus watched, momentarily stunned, feeling torn between the desire to immediately go to his wife's side and comfort her, what little solace he could provide, and deal with the brand-new problem that was currently staring him in the face.

His urge won out in the end, and he shot Mrs. Tonks a glowering wither as he stepped out of the entryway and back towards his wife's bedside, perching himself on the edge of the bed and not even waiting to ask for permission, pulling Dora close.

Brick by brick, her walls came tumbling down. Tonks didn't care who saw. She just broke down. The sobs punched through, ripping through her muscles, bones, and guts. She pressed her forehead against the grimy stall door and began to let her heart yank in and out of her chest.

It pulled back in like one of those Muggle yo-yo's. Over and over. In and out. She was hollow. Her life crumbled in her fingertips.

Then, suddenly, Remus were there, patting and rubbing her. He reached into her hollowness.

" _Please_." Andromeda Tonks spoke up softly from her place, hovering in the entryway of the Hospital Wing, curling the straps of her black bag tightly in her fingers as she held it close to her chest. "I—I know that I cannot make up for the…horrible way that I have treated you, Mr. Lupin. Or for missing your wedding the other night. I—I was too blind to see, that my daughter already _has_ the best. I—I only want what's best for her, a—and I can…see now, that she already has it. T—Ted would have…" She paused, swallowing past the lump in her throat, blinking back briny tears. "Ted would have wanted me to get along with you, Remus, to at least _try_ , and I—I may not _approve_ of this relationship," she began, biting her bottom lip and fixating her gaze on her silently crying daughter, "but…" Her voice trailed off for what felt like several long minutes before she spoke again. "But if you are willing to f—forgive me, th—then I would like to try your advice a—and start over, as a…as a proper family this time, the four of us. If you will have me," Mrs. Tonks whispered in a hushed, breaking whisper.

Andromeda Tonks was a witch who was unused to begging, yet, here she stood, pleading with her son-in-law to allow him entry into the Hospital Wing to see her only child. She tried again.

"I know that I have no right to dream you would want to see me, Dora, but I—I want to be there for you. For my—for my grandchild if you can forgive me."

Andromeda bit her bottom lip and fell silent as Remus, after murmuring something into the shell of her daughter's ear and watched as Nymphadora nodded mutely in response through tear-filled vision, slowly rose from Dora's bedside.

It was then as he stepped in front of Mrs. Tonks, still lingering in the entryway and unsure whether or not she could proceed even further, that she noticed how gaunt and drawn Remus Lupin's face was.

And then it hit her. The full moon was approaching soon.

She flinched as she saw the shadow of the Wolf dart across his scarred, prematurely lined face.

"You are the _last_ person I would think Tonks needs to see right now, given the emotional blow that you have just dealt my wife by telling her Ted is dead," Remus growled, lowering his voice so that Dora could not possibly hear him, and having to lean in so that the tip of his nose was practically touching Andromeda's. "But you are Dora's mother, and I would be a terrible husband to your daughter if I ever permitted you from trying to see her, but make no _mistake_ , Mrs. Tonks. Just because Dora and I are willing to give you a _second_ chance at trying to mend this damaged relationship, does not mean that either one of us will tolerate verbal abuse towards my…problem," he finished lamely, to which Mrs. Tonks offered a nod, though Remus Lupin was not quite finished. He straightened his posture and cleared his throat once or twice.

Mrs. Tonks instinctively stiffened. Here it came. The demand that Andromeda stays away from her granddaughter or grandson, provided it bore its father's wolfish characteristics upon its birth.

She steeled herself, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she waited for the inevitable demand to stay well away from Remus and Dora's child.

And she would do nothing to stop it.

But it did not come.

Lupin straightened his posture and picked absentmindedly at a thread that was coming loose on his threadbare brown jacket, though he lifted his gaze and met hers.

"No matter what our child is or _isn't_ , whether it is like _me_ or not…you will be present at _every_ Quidditch match, birthday, Christmas, summer holiday, or other holidays, for that matter, if you wish to be a part of our child's life, Mrs. Tonks."

Though his words were curt and hard, Andromeda swore she saw him smile.

Perhaps it was just a trick of the dim light overhead, but Mrs. Tonks would swear that she saw her son-in-law's mouth twitch upwards, watching as Andromeda nodded.

"Of course," she murmured. "Now, may I…?" She jerked her head forward over Lupin's shoulder as she strained to try to slip under his arm and go to her daughter.

Remus nodded, stepping out of Mrs. Tonks's way and felt something within him shift as the frantic woman practically moved so fast in her haste to appear at Dora's side that the dark-haired witch was practically a blur, and was at his wife's bedside before a shocked Lupin could move again, though he felt a muscle behind his eyelid twitch in rancor.

The change was coming, his transformation would happen in another half-hour or so, and though he was hit with a pang of regret that he could not stay by his wife's side tonight, he knew that at least, with her mother by her side, she was in good hands.

"I'll watch her. I'll make sure she doesn't do anything rash," Ollie spoke up softly, his low voice causing Lupin to jump and turn towards Dora's best friend, who was leaning against the corridor wall, one leg crossed over the other.

Ollie's arms folded across his chest, seeming to shrink into his woolen black robes for warmth as much as he could, watching in introspective silence while Remus quietly regarded the dark-haired blue-eyed former Slytherin student with a furtive, guilty look in his light brown eyes.

Remus nodded, furrowing his brows in thought as he looked around, not seeing what it was—or _who_ , rather—that he was looking for. "Where did you leave Norah?"

Lupin could not explain it, but the casual way that Ollie Brennan shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes hit him with a sudden sense of unease he couldn't identify.

"She's with Professor Snape. Or _was_ , the last time I left her. I—I heard Tonks's thoughts up here earlier, when she…when she tried to stop you killing that man, and I couldn't just stay down in the dungeons not _knowing_ , Mr. Lupin, I _couldn't_ ," Ollie confessed, a light pink blush speckling along his pale cheeks as the man looked away.

Remus's frown deepened, though he felt the worst of his anxiety towards the unexpected arrival of Dora's mother slowly dissipate as he gripped onto Ollie's arm.

The younger man stiffened, wincing at the strong grip of the Wolf within coming out, though Ollie made no move to pull away or avert his gaze from Remus's. "What?"

Ollie frowned, sensing there was something Dora's husband wanted to say.

He breathed out a slightly relieved breath as the immense pressure immediately lifted off of his arm and he pulled it back slightly, wincing as he rubbed it gingerly, thinking Lupin could have easily broken his arm with that beastlike strength of his if he weren't careful.

If Lupin noticed the gesture, Remus paid it no mind.

"I'm grateful you're in our lives, Mr. Brennan," Remus murmured, feeling a drop of fevered rage begin in his bloodstream.

Lupin swallowed nervously and fought it back. He had maybe a half hour at best to get within a safe distance of everyone, retreat into the Forest again as a necessary precaution.

Ollie blinked, surprised at the admission, though he quickly recovered and was quick to hide his initial shock at his best friend's husband's seemingly genuine statement.

"Me too," he murmured, his gaze flitting back to regard Tonks and Mrs. Tonks in the Hospital Wing, noticing the pair of witches conversing in low tones among themselves.

Tonks was still silently crying, mourning the loss of her father, though at least this time, she had her mother to call upon for strength while Remus was away.

He did not look away from Tonks, not even when he heard Lupin's footfalls begin to fade.

"Will you promise me that you'll look after Dora tonight?" Lupin called out.

Ollie nodded, though Remus had already rounded the corner and disappeared before the man could catch his answer that the Legilimens murmured under his breath.

"Always…"

* * *

**A/N: Ollie, you're making me shed a tear over here! Glad Remus didn't kill Peter. I wanted Tonks to be the one to come to Lupin for a change and help her husband out. Lupin would have regretted it for the rest of his life if he had killed Peter, whether he knew it at the time or not. So much of the story so far has been Remus going after Tonks to keep her safe or doing something she would regret later, and I thought it was high time that Tonks returned the favor and that Remus needed Tonks to be the strong one now.**

**Sad they killed off her dad! :(**


	95. To Taste Her Honey-Sweet Sin

**A/N: Author Special Announcement Time? Lol. Sooo, I know I said previously this was only going to be 100 chapters, but after looking at my finished product and realizing how bloody long the last few chapters are, I have to split it up (again, like it isn't already long enough*) lol. I don't want to overwhelm my lovely readers with 11k word chapters just because I'm trying to tie up all my loose ends.**

**I don't know how* long the final product is going to be, nor do I have a final chapter count yet as I'm still working on splitting up what I have remaining into separate segments, but RL/NT are very, very close to getting their HEA, I can promise you that!**

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**CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE**

Severus Snape stood outside the entrance to his own Potions classroom in the dungeons, a muscle behind his jaw twitching without him bidding it so. He stared ahead blankly, his face a mask of utmost calm and composure, the perfect picture of an impassive indifference he had perfected over the years, unlike his former, bright student, Norah Elizabeth Jameson.

A Gryffindor when she had been Sorted, though Severus was of the firm belief that the blonde would have made an excellent Slytherin, judging by her temper, of which he was unfazed by the younger woman's savage snarling and growls. He remained apathetic to Norah's rather violent and objective personality when he firmly and calmly announced that no one would be permitted entry into this room.

Snape was under strict orders from the Headmaster not to allow _anyone_ — _especially_ anybody connected to the party that had entered into the Forbidden Forest—to see her. The gush of Jameson's furious tears that marred her vision, causing those darkened cerulean blue orbs of hers to brim bright with a wave of smoldering, fathomless anger, muddled with his mind.

_How convenient_ , he thought, biting the inside wall of his cheek. Severus shook his head to clear it, continuing to remain unfazed by the young witch's insults. His former student and admittedly one of his best, Ollie Brennan, had left her down here alone with him and Dolores Jane Umbridge to attend to Tonks.

Convenient, amusing, and terrifying all at the same time, these worldly thoughts. Snape had always thought himself a keen and penetrating mind, a clever, manipulative man, playing both sides of the same coin as he served under Lord Voldemort at Albus's command, putting his own life at great personal risk every time the Dark Mark summoned him. And now, as he once again refused Norah in to let her see Dolores…

Eye to eye, they stared at one another, the She-Wolf and Potions Professor. Hers, brimming with unshed, glistening tears of anger and betrayal, with full-fledged apathy as she slowly began to lose her emotional composure as the full moon neared.

His were bothered by the continuous draining of his emotional strength, though Severus would never dare admit it out loud to anyone except Dumbledore, and even then, in private. She had entered into his dungeons without recourse and without Severus inviting her, but words were never needed with the blonde wild werewolf.

She tried. One more time. "Let me _in_ , Snivellus," Norah growled angrily.

And again, he denied. "You _know_ that I cannot do that, Miss Jameson. No amount of you resorting to pathetic name-calling is going to convince me otherwise. You can talk to me until you're blue in the face, which, at this point, I would very much welcome if you were to pass out from talking as to save me the torment of listening to your incessant screeching, _werewolf_ , though you ask me, dog, you make a better banshee to terrorize the first years than a wolf," Severus snapped, unable to keep the hardened tone of anger out of his voice any longer as he gripped onto his wand.

Norah slowly opened her tired eyes, having squeezed them tightly shut in an effort to quell back the tampered down drop of rage that threatened to poison her bloodstream. She had, at best, maybe a half an hour before the moon would take her.

"You—you keep your forked _tongue_ between your _teeth_ , _snake_ ," she spat, hearing the very anger dripping from her poisonous words as she snarled at Snape.

She saw her visions abruptly clear from a slowed blur. Two lit torchers in their scones hung on either side of the door that led into Professor Snape's Potions room.

This was the first thing that met her turning wolfish sight, and Norah felt her nostrils flare in antagonizing hurt as through the closed oak wooden door of Snape's classroom, she could practically taste the fear, honeyed sweat, on the tip of her tongue.

The pink-loving bitch who had killed her family was terrified of her. _Good_ , Norah thought meanly, clenching her jaw rooted shut in anger, grinding her molars.

Umbridge _ought_ to be scared. Norah shook her head, stifling the low, wolfish growl that threatened to escape the confines of her chest, throat, and her cracked lips.

Norah Jameson held herself perfectly still, staring at Potions Master Severus Snape, her burning blue eyes bright with anger locked right onto his listless black orbs devoid of any emotion. There was a wrinkle in the young blonde female werewolf's nose that had nothing to do with a coming sneeze, Severus knew, her muscles tight, jaw locked.

Her rage at continuously being denied the opportunity to confront the Minister's Senior Undersecretary held all the power of a wildfire. Snape could practically see the flames roaring in Norah Jameson's blue eyes, ready to ignite anything she came into contact with. In this case, Severus correctly assumed that it was going to be himself.

Norah had to remind herself that, for the third or fourth time in the span of just three or four days, she was now clouded with a certain disability. Her condition.

The wound on her right abdomen that smarted, as well as the several cuts and bruises that dotted along her left cheek and the tops of both her palms, courtesy of Aragog's children in the hollow of the Forbidden Forest earlier, came to her mind.

Norah flinched, stiffening as she leaned in slightly, having to stand on her tiptoes. It wasn't bloody fair that pretty much _all_ of the men in this entire damn country towered over her, even when she was wearing her black leather boots with the heels.

The very tip of her nose practically touched Severus's slender, hooked nose. Red. Everything in her wolfish vision went red. Her vision blurred as a hot flame, hotter than any fire a dragon could flame, curled in the pit of her churning stomach as nausea threatened to consume her. Her brain went on overdrive as it picked over every wretched moment that she had spent crying over the deaths of her husband and son.

The memories weighed down on her like they always did right before a full moon, but instead of breaking, even more, her heart turned ice cold and slunk into the shadows as her brain took complete control.

The flames in her stomach rose up to her chest and crawling through her veins, took over the rest of her body. A red hot shower of sparks emitted from the tip of her wand and Norah swore she felt bits of her wand start to crack and splinter in her strengthening wolfish grip as her inner Wolf came out.

Her fingers coiled into fists, her hand not clutching onto her wand seized a fistful of the Potions Professor's robes and shook him with surprising strength for one so small. " _Let. Me. In_ ," she growled, lowering her voice so that it was dangerously quiet.

Waves of fury rolled off of her as the blood rose to her cheeks. The term anger barely even touched the tip of the volcano that she so clearly was in this moment.

She was grateful, at the very least, that her new friend, Ollie, wasn't around to see it. The kid had taken a hell of a liking to her over the last couple of days, she to him.

Though, they would never _dare_ admit to anyone else, or to each other, really.

Norah emanated a tense exhale through her nose and let out another warning growl, closing off the gap of space so now she was close enough to kiss the greasy-haired slimeball if she was of a desire to, though that was the absolute last thing on her mind.

The kid would _kill_ her if she did, and no woman in her right mind would want to kiss _this_ asshole.

"I'm _not_ going to say it a second time, Snivellus. If you don't get out of my way right this instant, I'm not responsible for what comes next," she hissed angrily. "I'll kill you, Snape. See if I don't. Watch what happens when you piss me off."

Snape snorted, repressing the urge to roll his eyes. "Would you care to do it now and save me the further torment of listening to your sniveling whining? Or am I allowed a few moments to compose an epitaph?" he snapped angrily by way of retort.

Severus merely proceeded to look down his slender and slightly hooked nose at Norah, a sneer of his own forming on his face as the last vestiges of his patience were tested.

"You cannot solve _everything_ using your fangs, _dog_ ," he growled, the edges of his tone clipped and curt. "You would do well to remove yourself from this corridor."

Norah growled, feeling the edges of her gums pulling upward as she bared her sharpened canines. For just a brief moment, she thought she saw the shadow of revolt, a look of disgust, intermingled with that of fear, flit across Severus Snape's ashen features.

It would have to be enough. "I'm _warning_ you. I've just about reached my limit, Professor, I don't _care_ if I'm on Hogwarts Grounds," Norah snarled lowly, narrowing her blue eyes until they were mere slits as she proceeded to glower at the Potions Master. "You'd better watch what you say. _Snivellus_ ," she added darkly for emphasis.

Much to her chagrin and mild surprise, Severus Snape's black eyebrows shot so far up onto his forehead with amazement that they practically disappeared into his hairline.

Severus's lips pursed into a thin line as he took in the rapidly declining physical condition of the young blonde She-Wolf as the full moon drew nearer as time passed.

"You're like this because your time approaches, and you've acted this way ever since you came out of the Forest. Is it Brennan?" Snape snapped, sounding disgusted.

Norah scoffed and rolled her eyes, huffing in frustration and folding her arms across her chest at the mention of Ollie.

"Who _cares_? I _told_ you, _never_ to talk about him." She snapped, her voice a low, threatening growl, feeling her hackles raise angrily.

Snape sighed, an exasperated look on his face as he pursed his lips into a thin line.

"It matters not. I grow tired of this conversation. I'm not letting you in, Miss Jameson, and I'm _not_ apologizing for you not letting this go. You have not been able to put what happened behind you. It may have escaped your notice, werewolf, but guess what?" he snarled, the edges of his own voice growing clipped and hard. " _Life. Isn't. Fair_. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. I know that you seek retribution against the Senior Undersecretary for what happened to your _mate_ and _cub_ ," Severus snapped through gritted teeth, spitting the words he used to refer to her deceased husband and son as if they were poison. "You appear to be laboring under the delusion that I am impressed with you, but you could not be _further_ from the truth, Miss Jameson. To me, you're nothing more than a wild animal, a savage _bitch_ incapable of controlling herself. Tell me, _dog_ , are you truly _this_ incapable of controlling your emotions, or shall I conjure a collar and a leash to keep you from taking one step into this room," he hissed.

Norah gritted her teeth, knuckles white with the effort to restrain herself, and she felt something within her snap. "That's such a shame, Severus," Norah growled, plunging her hand into the interior pocket of her black leather jacket, the fingers of her wand hand twitching as she pulled it out and pointed the tip of it squarely at Snape's chest. "Like I said. A _real shame_. You just stepped on a _huge_ , nonnegotiable land mine. There's just one last question I have to ask. What do you want on your _tombstone_?"

Snape fixed Norah with a pointed stare. "Why don't you write, "There's no cure for a fool with a wand?" he growled and did not react as Norah uttered a spell, though he moved fast enough, wrenching her wand arm above her hand, just in time for her jinx to reverberate off the walls until it struck one of the doorknobs on a nearby storage closet and exploded. Snape's face remained angered and pale as Norah lost her temper.

He grunted with the effort to restrain the worst of the She-Wolf's temper.

"This is…not the way," he spat venomously at his former student through clenched teeth and rooted jaw. "Think of what you are doing. You shouldn't do this."

"You really think you can _judge_ me, Severus?" Norah bellowed, her face chalk-white with anger as she shoved his chest so that he stumbled against the door, hard. "What do you know about _my_ life, huh? What the hell do you know about _me_? Go on, why don't you tell me? A guy like you who spends his life in a safe little bubble has _no_ idea what I've been through!" she screamed, not caring if they woke anyone up.

"You're right," Severus answered calmly, his calm demeanor infuriating Norah even further, though she offered no verbal retort to what he was about to say as his fingers curling around his wand as he raised it against the raging She-Wolf in defense, who was panting heavily from the exertion of her rapidly swelling temper. "There's no way I can know that. I'm _not_ you, after all. But still. Let me ask you this, hmm. What do _you_ know about _me_? It does not matter who you are. Or how you live. We all have to suffer."

When Norah did not answer him, merely proceeding to grit her teeth in anger and blink back furious tears, Severus took that as his sign to continue.

He took a moment to straighten the collar of his black robes and let out a haggard sigh.

"You have no _intention_ of understanding that. Instead of owning up to things, you'd rather play the part of the tragic heroine, with her," Here, Snape jerked his thumb towards the door behind him, which he had been tasked with guarding. "as the villain in your sad, pathetic little life. That, in my opinion, is the most _cowardly_ thing about you, _wolf_."

When Norah turned at last to face Snape, there was no trace of tears, not in her eyes or in track marks on her reddening face. Her eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, hard.

At that moment, Snape knew the witch was already far away. Once more, as was his plight in life, he was labeled as the enemy.

These swings from most loved to most hated would be the end of him, he was sure of it. The woman's states had no greyscale, only the polar extremes existed.

Severus drew in a deep breath, the burning hard stare would last only as long as it took Norah to think of the most brutally cutting thing she could attempt to tear him down within her effort to get to Dolores Jane Umbridge, of which, in her emotionally vulnerable state, he could not allow.

And after that, he could kiss anything breakable goodbye. Which right now might just be his nose, it was so hard to tell and so pointless to run, even in the wolfish form that was threatening to emerge from her, as her entire body convulsed with rage.

" **SHUT UP**!" Norah roared, her blue eyes widening in anger as her mind processed what Snape just said to her. She looked around for something to throw and seeing a small side table set off to the side for purposes unknown, thought that efficient enough, and kicked it in anger, sending the contents and vials scattering to the ground. " _It's convenient for you to feel like this, Snivellus! Goddamn it! There are no heroes in this life! Look around you, Snape! It's shit as far as the eye can see. The only good I had in my life was taken from me, Professor. That—that bitch killed my husband, my son_!" she screamed, seizing tufts of her hair and tugging.

"The Aurors will deal with her, Miss Jameson," Severus answered coldly. "Let them handle the witch. It has to be better than feeling _sorry_ for yourself, _crying_ about your _hard_ life," he snarled, watching as Norah's face paled in shock and she faltered backward, the grip of her wand hand slipping a little as her weapon fell to the floor.

" _Shut up! Shut up, Snivellus. I—I'm serious! I'll—I'll kill you_!" Norah yelled.

Severus sighed, ensuring his face remained a mask of calm serenity, despite the undeniable tension in the dungeon corridor. If the hatred between the two of them were a color in the air, this entire hallway would have been a blood-red scarlet color.

"Then _do_ it," Severus replied stoically by means of retort. "Keep chasing your tail like the _dog_ that you are. But if you kill me here and now, you'll just end up proving my point," he answered, fixing Norah Jameson with a cold stare as she charged at him.

" _That's all I know how to do_!" she screamed, picking her wand up off the floor and drawing it so fast that Severus barely had time to blink an eye as a loud bang coupled with a fatigued ringing sound filled his eardrums, and he was propelled backward.

He felt the back of his head connect with the cold stone wall, feeling like his stomach was about to give out. It felt like his innards were being replaced by some kind of black hole.

Then nausea crept from his abdomen and the dungeons went black.

Norah felt the edges of her lips curl upward in a twisted sneer. She supposed were this any other circumstances and not a full moon that she would have been appalled and disgusted with herself for allowing her wolfish, violent temper to get the better of her that had caused her to attack a Hogwarts teacher.

She hoped Snape didn't press charges.

She was no longer a Hogwarts student anymore at age thirty, well past that age, and she was not employed by the castle, so threats of expulsion and job loss would not work against her in this regard, though the threat of jail time in Azkaban certainly would.

The _last_ thing she needed was the Aurors coming for her tonight, too, though there was _nothing_ that could stop this, stop this moment of exhilaration that she had dreamed of for the last four years, and Merlin damn the person that tried, in her heightened temper, she would kill anyone that tried.

_Absolutely nothing_ , she thought, feeling the edges of her incisors on her top wall of teeth start to sharpen, and Norah Jameson ducked into the Potions Classroom, locking it, pointing her wand at the lock and murmuring the Muffliato Sound-Dampening Charm under her breath in a whisper.

Before the moon struggled to dawn between the gray clouds, she had unfinished business with the witch currently seated in a chair near Severus Snape's old oak desk.

Bound by ropes and stripped of her wand with which to defend herself, Umbridge was not going _anywhere_. Umbridge's dark brown eyes widened only for a split second as she took in the haggard, heaving sight of Norah Jameson standing by the front door.

Her ragged breaths seemed to echo across the dank cobblestones of Snape's classroom, and her only consolation to assuage herself of what she was about to do, was that she was grateful, at the very least, Snape had forced both her and Remus to drink copious amounts of Wolfsbane prior to this little meeting.

There was going to be holy hell to pay from Snape later, if and when he woke up from being knocked out, though Norah could not manage to pretend to care anymore. Umbridge was already glaring at her with anticipation as her posture in her chair stiffened and became quite rigid.

She had been expecting Norah. "Come closer, dear," Umbridge simpered in her sickeningly infuriating honeyed voice, though Norah was not fooled. She was afraid.

Though her voice was devoid of fear. Not even the blood from her various cuts and bruises, courtesy of Aragog's attack, that adorned her pale face evoked a cringe.

Norah snorted and obliged, letting a dark little chuckle escape her pursed lips, laughing to herself. If Dolores Jane Umbridge was every afraid of someone, she thought it would be utterly hilarious if Norah herself was part of her wretched list. "Funny…"

Umbridge quirked a dark brow Norah's way as she stood towering over the short, stout witch clad in pink. "I had a feeling that you would come, _dog_. I see that you've attempted to side with Professor Dumbledore after all. What, you're his _bitch_ now?"

Norah gritted her teeth, her knuckles white as her fingers curled around the handle of her wand, forcing her voice that was practically throttling her repelled fury.

" _Shut. Up. Bitch_ ," Norah whisper hissed through gritted teeth, and her anger was only provoked even furth when Umbridge did not respond, merely proceeding to look up at the younger blonde witch, sending shrills of a horrible, honeyed mockery down her spine.

She raked her free hand not clutching onto her wand, which was pointed squarely at Dolores's chest, painfully through her short blonde hair and down alongside her face, sweat, tears, and blood painting her cheeks.

"You _murdered_ my husband and son. My Jax was _barely_ two years old and you _killed_ him," she spat, her entire body convulsing with the effort to restrain herself, and she felt her wand slip from her fingers. " _Why_? Why did you kill them? _Why_ do you _hate_ us? What did our kind _ever_ do to you, Umbridge? You're a _murderer_ , you _bitch_ ," she snarled, feeling her sharpened incisors begin to lengthen, and her eyeballs throbbed as she felt her irises change color.

It was happening. Norah went on a repeat of the whys before kicking the cobblestone wall, her thundering footsteps and savage, wolfish growls echoing within.

Umbridge pressed herself further back into her chair as far as she possibly could, with her pudgy face revealing no remorse as she broke into a simpering but wide grin.

"More than you know," Umbridge hissed. "Oh, my dear Miss Jameson. They say that the apple does not far from the tree. You may or may not have spoken out against me when I instituted the Legislation Ban on your kind, you _filthy_ half-breed, but you know how it feels when you kill, yes?"

Norah froze, feeling her bottom lip tremble as Umbridge, sensing Norah's growing discomfort, continued. "Yes, dearie. It's never about bringing justice to your fallen family members or settling scores. It's about the fun that it brings, personal entertainment, you might even go as far to say. The…truly exhilarating pleasure of causing pain, hearing screams, knowing you had a hand in placing them there, child. To the rest of the wizarding community, you are a _monster_ , Miss Jameson. You do not _belong_ in polite society and were it up to me, I'd have you and Mr. Lupin in cages. To me, you're my version of the broken dog that I once had as a pet before it died."

Dolores Jane Umbridge enjoyed the emphasis on her own last three words. "My little **JAX** ," she screamed, her eyes widening in anger, spittle flying from her lips.

The pressure in Norah's head finally exploded as she felt the color of her blue irises shift to green, along with a blood-curdling scream and a gash on the witch's neck.

She dove at Umbridge, tackling her to the ground, forcing the witch out of her chairs, snapping the rope restraints off her with her own two hands as a series of memories flitted through her mind, and with it, equaling a hard rip of flesh and bone.

The other kids at Hogwarts that ganged up on her when she was eleven in her first year once they found out what she was, her sweet, kind mother, sunsets spent at the edge of the Forbidden Forest because no one else would want them nearby.

Green-eyed Wes. Her sweet husband. Feeling how his lips moved in a kiss, Wes in his black dress robes the night of their illegal wedding. Holding Jax in her arms for the first time right after his birth, crying sweet tears of relief knowing he was not a Wolf like his parents.

And this _bitch_ , this wretched horrible succubus, had _taken_ them.

Norah screamed, almost collapsing to the floor and would have if she hadn't seized a fistful of Dolores's pink wool cardigan for support, ignoring the older witch's shrieks.

Her skin bubbled, bones shifted as she transformed. No amount of Wolfsbane could ever take away the immense pain of such a violent, unbearable transformation.

Norah felt it as her skin split like bark. Wiry black hairs sprouted on her arms. Her once kindly blue eyes melted into a heavier, darker forest green color. Her bones moved under her skin like mechanical snakes. Audible, horrible cracks sliced through her flesh and she felt her feet cement firmly into the ground. Norah was no longer herself.

In her place, a monster. A strange itching sensation erupted on her jaws and she could almost feel herself foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

The last thing Norah remembered was how her teeth gnashed in a wild frenzy as she felt her pupils dilate, and though she could not see it, her eyes changed color, soon, all that was in the place where she had once stood, was the Wolf.

From the Wolf's throat came a low, guttural growl as her teeth bared, coiled with ravenous hunger and hatred. She could hear the Bitch's screams, sweet, succulent music to her ears, and then jinxes, bright red and yellow darting, and firing in every direction.

Then came the scream of Woman. Of the Pink Woman. Of Umbridge. And blood. Warm, sticky bloom skimming around her mouth as the Wolf sank her sharpened fangs in the neck of the Woman—the Murderer of the Cub whose familiar scent had long since faded from her human form's leather jacket.

_Defend. Protect. Attack. Kill_. The instincts of the Wolf as Norah allowed her Wolf to take overran through the She-Wolf's mind like a mantra, and the Wolf had to protect her new family. Ollie. Tonks. Remus. All of them. _Kill. Rip. Tear. Bite. Feed_. The thick scent of terror intermingled with coppery blood filled the She-Wolf's nostrils. Terror. Fear. How it smelled sweet and succulent. She had never known herself to be a savage She-Wolf whenever she transformed.

But now, given what the Bitch had done to her mate and cub, and to her Friends, the She-Wolf snarled and raged and ravished, bearing her blood-soaked fangs, tore at the Woman's arm, lashed at Dolores Jane Umbridge's throat, snapped the Woman's wand in two in between her powerful jaws, and went for the bitch's brown eyes.

Norah felt like her mind was ravaged with pure wrath and ire and she went lunging after Umbridge, successfully snapping, and clamping onto his ankle, and had the man screaming in pain. A sudden, unexpected gash hollered on her left side. Blood.

The Wolf whimpered and howled in pain, as the tall dark-haired man from earlier had regained consciousness, pointing his wand at the She-Wolf, no fear in his eyes.

A pitiful mewling whimper escaped the Bitch's lips, and Norah heard the Wolf growl, though she could not control what was happening.

She still _lived_ , though as the Wolf snapped and snarled, bearing its fangs, foaming at the mouth in pure rancor, the sallow-faced, dark-haired Potions Professor pointed his wand at Umbridge, a length of rope shot from the end of his wand, his pale face even paler than usual as he surveyed the carnage that had stained his Potions Classroom with inquisitive darkened black eyes.

"Merlin's left…" he swore through gritted teeth, his voice trailing off as Snape surveyed the mess, hardly daring to believe his eyes, though he pointed his wand at the Wolf and Umbridge collectively, sending a spell nonverbally that sent both werewolf and the Senior Undersecretary unconscious in a heap.

Snape swore under his breath as he surveyed the bloodied mess the She-Wolf has now made of his office, and he realized what Norah Jameson had done to Umbridge.

The She-Wolf had turned Dolores Umbridge like her. The Senior Undersecretary, racist, hater of all non-purebloods, was now the very thing that she hated most.

She was now a _werewolf_. Snape exhaled a tense breath through his nose as he slumped against the wall, his back bracing against the door for support, blowing out a puff of air in agitation and annoyance. His mind felt like it was reeling. How to explain this mess to Dumbledore?

Though he was given no time as the She-Wolf angrily poised to attack, teeth bared as she snarled. Snape froze, making no move to attack except to outstretch his arm to the wolf with a considerable distance between himself and the grey werewolf.

It was growling at him now, its tail in an exciting check and viciously wagging, but slowly, the She-Wolf's growls and vicious snarling at the mouth lessened until she quieted. The Wolf sidestepped on all fours as it bypassed Umbridge's limp form completely, as Snape slowly summoned the strength within him to stand back upright.

He never took his palm back as the She-Wolf followed him. The wolf snarled, baring its blood-soaked teeth, occasionally snapping at Severus as he drew ever so closer to him, though it ceased her growls and light howling, for which Snape was immensely grateful.

Snape watched, mesmerized, as the wolf began to whimper and its tail lowered, her sharp incisors beginning to conceal, and instead, the wolf's face softened, and she licked her lips like a good dog. Snape's face held silent disbelief as the She-Wolf nudged his hand in what he could only surmise was a display of affection, lips open.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Snape's hand met the snout of the beast that had viciously maimed and mauled Dolores Jane Umbridge not even but two seconds ago.

Snape felt the strength leave his legs, and he chose to sit on the floor before he passed out again. He was equally just as stunned as the Wolf clambered into his lap.

She curled up on Snape's lap, her chin resting on Severus's knee, and nestled his hand and seemed to take pleasure as Snape, somewhat reluctantly scratched her ear.

"I don't know if you can hear me when you're…like _this_ if you can understand me, _dog_ ," he spat, scrunching his nose as the thick tang of blood wafted through his nose. Umbridge's blood, he thought, his stomach recoiling at the carnage that wreaked havoc of his classroom, the usual droll of his baritone voice echoing through the room, though he quieted when he realized no one else was coming, and it was just them, "and you certainly did not hear this from _me_ ," he growled, whispering it in the Wolf's pointed ear.

The She-Wolf sanguinely lifted her head, cocking her head to the side as she looked at Snape. Though Severus was not sure she could understand him, the savage wolf that she was, he had to at least try. He owed Jameson that much if nothing else at all.

"She deserved it," Severus whispered, his voice low as he whispered into her ear.

And his next words were meant for Norah and Norah alone, whether or not she could hear him remained to be seen, but Severus Snape spoke the words anyways.

"Good girl."


	96. A Moment Uninterrupted

**CHAPTER NINETY-SIX**

Tonks glanced down at the book she had taken earlier from Grimmauld Place with a strange sense of unease brooding within the confines of her chest.

The very same egregiously large compendium of Shakespeare's works that Sirius had let her borrow the very first night she met her cousin and soon-to-be godfather of their child in another few days.

At that thought, she smiled and felt her hand drift to her swollen stomach.

It might have seemed a little illogical to select a book that she had read before, as opposed to countless other titles that rested within the shelves of the study, but perhaps there was something within her heart that wanted something familiar, something that reminded her of home. Or at least, a time when her father was still alive. A happier time.

At first, Tonks had taken the book out of pure interest, wanting to have Remus read it to her during the witching hours when all else were asleep soundly in their beds and the two were awake, though now she felt as though she had taken it out of a sense of duty to him.

Thus, now she found herself in a bit of a dilemma, to keep this book safe from Ollie, who'd been coming around, spending increasing amounts of time with her since Norah Jameson's disappearance.

Ollie, in his emotionally fragile state of mind following the devastating blow dealt to him by the cutting wound of Norah abandoning them without so much as a word had hurt him, pouring salt on the tender wound of an already broken heart, still not fully mended from years of torture and abuse at Crouch's cruel hand.

And in Tonks's mind, she did not want him getting his hands on this book, reading some of the tragedies and finding a way to hurt himself, just to numb the pain of her leaving.

Tonks blinked, not wanting to think of the blonde She-Wolf or of her friend right now.

Something within her harbored a twinge of caution towards Ollie, and Tonks _hated_ this feeling, knowing full well that her fear and trepidation towards Ollie came from all of the horrible stories she had been told about Crouch.

The things he would do to him, torturing him to the point where nothing existed but a broken shell of a man who could not even bear to go by his former name anymore, and she let herself sigh in an unrestrained fashion as she climbed the stairs to the second floor of her and Remus's cottage and gingerly closed the door behind her.

Tonks did not know what Ollie would do to himself if he couldn't find Norah. She feared he'd try to hurt himself.

Though for now, she thought, as she rested her hand on the swell of her swollen stomach, she did not want to think of Ollie or Norah. All she wanted was Remus.

 _Just him_ , she thought, a surge of affection in her veins.

She looked to the left and the right. Tonks paused for a moment, lingering near the door, finding Remus to be as still and unmoved in his chair, and if he had not flitted his gaze upward to meet hers, she'd have thought her husband carved onto that chair like a statue of the finest marble.

Tonks found him there, seated against the wall of the simple bedroom, a chair pushed back against the wall as far as it possibly could, a glass of wine in his hands.

As usual. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and stifled a smile.

"Here you are, I thought maybe you had left, Rem. I—I found it," she murmured, holding out the leather-bound copy of the book of William Shakespeare.

He took it wordlessly, a rather stupefied expression on his handsome but scarred face, though Tonks did not give him a chance to speak as she closed off what little gap of space remained between the two of them and flippantly pressed her lips against his.

She broke apart first, each other just staring at the other for a few minutes in silence. "You—you should not have, Tonks," he murmured, though his tone suggested to Tonks that he disapproved what she had done in her heavily pregnant state, knowing full well she'd climbed the ladders in Sirius's parents' library to get it against his commands she not lift anything heavier than a glass of milk over the last nine months, otherwise as he glanced down with an apprehensive look in his eyes at the book which now rested on the small side table in front of him. "But why did you?" The question tumbled unchecked from his lips before Remus could stop himself, causing Tonks to blink owlishly at her husband in surprise and she bit her lip.

"Because I wanted to do something _nice_ for you, Rem," she purred, "that's _why_ ," she whispered, lowing her voice and doing something that she had seen depicted several times in other books, romantic manuscripts of medieval knights of old and their lovers. "After all that you have done for me, it is the least that I can do for you."

She gathered the skirt of her long black maternity maxi dress, which she had taken to wearing long dresses as her pregnancy advanced over the last nine months, finding with her swollen stomach, they were the only things she was comfortable in, and knelt down in front of his chair, resting her arms over his knees, where Tonks leaned her chin and fluttered her eyelashes in a playful manner, catching Remus's incredulous gaze in hers and held him captive there.

Had this perhaps been any other situation with any other man, her behavior would have been considered highly inappropriate, given how bloody pregnant and _huge_ she was.

But she wanted Remus just to see how serious she really was about him.

"You don't like it?" Tonks murmured lowly, unable to keep the note of antagonizing hurt from creeping its way at a rapidly alarming pace into her tone.

His light brown eyes were wide and bright, despite the dark circles underneath, and Tonks reached out with her left hand to allow the pads of her fingertips to ghost along the edges of his lips, tracing the outline of his mouth and feeling his warmth.

"N—no, that's not what I intended, I just did not expect you to…" Remus sighed and caught her hand in mid-air as she pulled her hand move and moved to turn away, bringing her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. "Thank you, Dora. This book shall be cherished for as long as both of us are alive. I know you used to read this with Ted when your father was still alive, sweetheart. I won't let anything happen to this last copy, I promise," he murmured, at last, his gaze briefly flitting to the book before darting back again to her.

Tonks nodded, turning her head and resting her cheek on her arm, allowing the soft fabric of her dress to comfort her frayed nerves over thoughts of what going into labor would be like.

They still had no way of knowing for sure if their baby would be born with wolfish characteristics or not like its father, though she could only hope this wasn't going to be the case, her eyelids fluttering closed to enjoy the tranquility between the two of them, as husband and wife.

Moments of peace like this were hard for her and Remus to come by, though she took them where they could.

"Have you heard from Ollie? Is he still looking for her?" Lupin asked, breaking the silence, and pulling Tonks out of her thoughts. "Will he come tomorrow?"

Tonks flinched, regarding her husband with a furtive, guilty look on her face. Had she _really_ been _that_ obvious?! She was scared for him.

Tomorrow was supposed to be her and Lupin's baby shower. Mrs. Weasley insisted, though a party was honestly the last thing that Tonks felt like attending.

She watched, her gray orbs glistening in intrigue as Remus's expression shifted from that of a peaceful sereneness to one of minor amusement and mischievousness.

"He should be here tomorrow. I _hope_ ," Remus murmured, his inquisitive gaze resting and lingering on Tonks, his brows furrowed in a frown as he watched his pregnant wife furrow her brows at thoughts of her friend. "You truly think Norah will…"

But his voice trailed off and he did not finish his thought.

Tonks nodded mutely. "She will. She just needs…." She paused to allow her mind a moment to consider the right words to say. "A little…encouragement. I begged her in my last letter to come. At least I know she opened it."

This much was true. In the last nine months that Ollie had attempted to track down Jameson, Tonks had helped by sending letters to her new home address, though all except for the last had been returned to her. Untouched and the wax seal unbroken.

Remus nodded, though he offered up no verbal quip of any kind, which Tonks found rather strange, and Tonks heard her voice trail off, unsure of how to phrase exactly what was on her mind, how she had seen the way that Ollie looked, that faraway glint in his eyes whenever someone brought up the young blonde werewolf in front of him.

Jameson's disappearance had wounded Brennan more than he cared to admit, though Tonks could see it. He was cut deeply, and Tonks hoped Norah would show her face tomorrow at their baby shower and delayed wedding reception.

She _hoped_. Frowning, Tonks raised her head just in time to see Remus avert his gaze from her, a telling color in his cheeks and he hung his head and allowed that one stubborn lock of light coarse hair to fall in front of his eyes, effectively shielding her from his view.

"What's wrong?" she asked, hating hearing the urgency in her voice as her eyebrows knitted together in quandary and she almost bit her tongue off in hesitation.

Tonks rose slightly from her kneeling position to feel his forehead.

"Are you sick?" she asked, pulling back slightly in an effort to study her husband's face better.

Remus shook his head, still refusing to meet his wife's gaze. "I thought…maybe that you would have…left when we…when we married, Tonks. And I thought…well. Just look at me, a _werewolf_ , a _monster_. This _is_ what I am, Dora, there is no changing this about me, as much as I might wish to be normal. To be _different_ ," he growled, gesturing to himself. "That I would not blame you if you had."

Tonks blinked and looked up at Remus, a pang of sadness cutting right through her heart, that damned stubborn corded muscle within the confines of her chest that tended to cause her heart to flutter any time she looked into Remus Lupin's eyes.

Their marriage was a strange union, for sure. Was Remus still so unsure of her feelings for him, after now being married for almost a full nine months, not quite a year yet?

She let out a sigh as a series of memories from just a few hours ago underneath the old shaded oak tree in the woods behind their house following a late afternoon walk to allow Tonks to stretch her legs, flitted through her mind, when the moonlight and darkness had courted one another, and in her husband's arms, the time had whittled away to nothing.

Her skin heated with memories of being held, being touched, his trail of kisses that left sparks in his wake as he pressed his lips against the column of her throat, her collarbone, anywhere he could reach as he went lower….and lower…and lower still…

Tonks did not remember much of it, though one thing that stuck with her was the warmth of Remus's lips as they found hers in the darkness of the woods at night.

She blinked as Remus had opened his mouth to speak, pausing to collect his thoughts. His brows furrowed together for a moment in contemplative concentration.

Though as he lifted his chin and his gaze met hers, his hardened exterior softened and seemed to crack under the slightly scrutinizing and admonishing gaze of his wife's. "I just…never thought that what you and I have would happen to me…"

His hands found purchase in Tonks's wavy tresses as she rested her head in his lap, not getting up from her position on the floor, though kneeling in this manner for an extended amount of time was murder on her kneecaps, especially while nine months pregnant, she refused to budge at all.

Tonks's frown deepened as her mind processed her husband's words to her. Her heart ached and her stomach flipped as she thought about Remus's statement.

She supposed she ought not to be surprised by this sentiment.

His initial disbelief that she could genuinely love him due to his status as a werewolf should have been telling enough.

However, knowing that such self-deprecating thoughts were spurred on by a lifetime of scorn and hateful words regarding his lycanthropic condition from members of their own community instilled within Tonks a fierce sense of protectiveness for her husband.

She closed her eyes and ground her teeth as she willed the protective temper that surged within her bloodstream to cool.

Tonks rose slightly from her position on the floor and rested her chin on his shoulder and gave his right forearm a light squeeze.

"You hold too little of an opinion of yourself, Rem," she murmured, raking her fingers through his hair in the manner that she knew Remus liked, and she was rewarded for her efforts as a tremor of pleasure wafted its way down her spine.

The more emotional side of her mind did not want to lose the moment as she felt herself lean forward for another kiss, more passionate.

Though Tonks was a good few heads shorter than Remus, it did not take much effort for the man to push against Tonks's chest so that she was propelled backward away from his chair, and not having anticipated that would be the move her husband would make, she let out a tiny squeak and stumbled against the mattress of their bed.

Which seemed to be her husband's intent. Tonks rolled slightly with the pressure on her left shoulder as Remus moved himself up the bed to lay over his wife, his forearm braced on the bed, his fingers drifting somewhat lazily through Tonks's tresses.

There were many things that Tonks loved about her husband, how Remus abandoned all control whenever he took her for himself, how his handsome face was a mirror of his passions, his pleasures, and his emotions.

He felt no need to hide his feelings whenever it was just the two of them together. Remus tended to react to her featherlight touches with a strange fierceness that made Tonks feel a little overwhelmed.

Tonks loved how Remus's voice deepened, hearing the moans that came from deep within his throat. She loved how that even just for a short while, she could make him forget that he was a werewolf…

Remus opened Tonks's mouth with a gentle pressing of his tongue, warm and a little groan rose out of him. He was eager for another round, it seemed. Tonks loved how her name tumbled from Remus's lips, how she could make him love his own body and its reactions to her wandering hands as she reached up and helped him undo his shirt.

She loved the way he writhed underneath her whenever she was on top, the way he pressed into her, feeling the warmth she gave off, onto her soft, sensitive skin, living for the moment, caught in between their passions and the moment that she knew neither one of them wanted to end.

Remus was never stingy with his love.

He shifted his weight carefully, his free hand trailing down Tonks's inner thighs as he hiked up the skirts of her maxi dress, not even bothering to remove it.

"D—do you have time enough for this right now?" Tonks managed to gasp out in a meek voice, as she _swore_ , she had heard footsteps outside approaching in their house.

No doubt Kingsley or Arthur come to take Lupin away for night watch while on guard duty for the Order.

Remus offered a light smile at his wife and leaned his head down to kiss Tonks's lips again.

"Always," he murmured, whispering it as his tongue forced her mouth open wider, effectively deepening their kiss, as his hand came up to cup her cheek. "Are you all right? I—I don't want to hurt you or the baby, we can…we don't have to, love," Remus asked in a low voice, his soft inquiry lingering in the shell of Tonks's ear and sent his wife smiling as he shifted so that he rested on top of her.

"Y—yes," Tonks stammered, though it was a miracle she could speak at all. "Keep…keep going…d—don't stop," she begged, biting down on her bottom lip.

Tonks loved to feel Remus inside of her, his surprisingly strong fingers wrapped around her waist, his weight pressing her down, effectively rendering her immobile.

She knew that her husband loved to watch her relinquish her control, surrendering wholly to his whims and completely at his mercy. She knew Lupin loved to reduce her to a trembling mess of pleasure, to make her lose any coherent thought.

To render her otherwise speechless whenever they laid together. Remus was the only person in Tonks's life that she would ever allow to see her in such a vulnerable state. She loved it and Remus knew this and took every advantage of this fact.

One of the things Tonks had always been grateful for was that Remus never pushed her, never forced her to do anything that she was not comfortable with, had never hurt her or laid a finger against her in anger, and was always careful to be gentle.

The questions asking after her well-being were always simple and clear, and Remus made it easy to fall in love. His gentleness. How much he understood Tonks.

They really were alike the two of them. They were two of a kind in their own way, and Tonks's heart had firmly planted itself within Remus's heart and she'd never uproot it again if she could help it, no matter what came their way in the future. No matter what.

Tonks trembled and a shudder went down her spine as her husband quickened his pace, each movement feeling like it would fill her to the brink, a little more so than the last.

Tonks grinned into their kiss as his lips met hers with a passionate fever, letting out a half-muffled cry as she buried her head in the crook of Remus's shoulder.

Though he quickly relaxed, and Tonks's name left her husband's lips like a raptured sigh, and his hands moved up to grip onto Tonks's waist almost painfully tight.

He finished quickly, not wanting to hurt her, and Tonks cherished and savored this moment, how Tonks felt owned and anchored, practically pinned to their bed.

Tonks grimaced as she felt a strange pressure in her abdomen, though as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

She wanted the child within her to come out, and _soon_. She would not admit it, but her pregnancy was utterly exhausting her.

Tonks loved how unselfishly Remus gave all of himself to her without her ever having to ask for it. How ready and willing he was to share whatever she needed.

As he finished, nestling himself within the confines of Tonks's gentle embrace as he pulled her close to him on their bed, Tonks could not help but to wonder if Remus understood just how truly remarkable, she found her husband to be.

How perfect and un-assuming the man was. How gentle he was. How much he cared. Tonks had never shared in or confided to Remus her concerns about feeling certain that she would live in this world and die without knowing what it meant to love.

How she had not believed in love until she had met him that night in the forest. When he had saved her from Barty Crouch Jr.

She made it a clear point never to talk about her emotions when it came to that, how impossible the idea of a lover like Remus filling her needs had seemed to her at the time when they had first married all those months ago.

But maybe…maybe she should try.

Did she not owe him that much, at least? As the man's wife and soon-to-be mother of their daughter or son in another couple of days, Tonks shuddered as Remus's arms wrapped around her middle in a bear hug, and with a shift in her weight, she nestled against the mattress and pillows, lowering herself slightly so she could look into her husband's eyes, a brimming light brown, as bright as the boughs of the trees in the forest behind their home and brimming with love.

For _her_. "You are all right, love?" Her husband whispered into the shell of her ear, and Tonks felt the edges of her lips curl upwards, her genuine smile returning again, her eyes crinkling as she nestled her chin against Remus's surprisingly firm chest, snuggling up against him.

"Yes. Thank you," Tonks whispered to Remus by way of response to his query. Remus laughed and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Anytime, Dora. I hope you know that I love you."

He was too generous with her, Tonks believed, feeling like she might weep. Tonks knew that she was selfish, that she craved his touch, and wanted Remus for herself.

 _Just him_ , she thought. Though she thought they balanced each other out. His selflessness with her selfishness. A perfect complement of the other, really, wasn't it?

Remus rested on the edge of their bed for a moment, smiling softly at her before he reached out a firm hand and pushed back a lock of Tonks's hair out of her eyes.

"I love you, Tonks. I hope that you don't forget because if you _do_ , I'll just have to remind you," he said lowly, his voice husky and heavy with desire, almost so easy for the man it came as natural to her husband as breathing, and Tonks's heart lurched.

"And I you," she murmured, closing her eyes and allowing herself to succumb to sleep, thinking that as she heard Remus whisper sweet nothings, words of affirmation into the shell of her ear, that her world, for once, felt extraordinarily right and safe.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.


	97. Before the Storm

**CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN**

Tonks had begun spending an increasing amount of time on her own in the nine months following her discharge (finally) from the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts the day after Madam Pomfrey had given her and her husband clean bills of health.

Though they could not say the same for the Minister of Magic's Senior Undersecretary, who had, by some freak accident, become like Remus, though Lupin _swore_ he had no part of it, considering Tonks had watched him take the Wolfsbane Potion just a few nights ago, but Norah Jameson was nowhere to be found.

She had disappeared following the night that her mother had come to see her and had informed Tonks of her father's death, leaving not only her and Remus concerned as to the whereabouts of her friend but Ollie as well.

Between her father dying and Norah's abandonment, she spent more time alone.

It was how she was slowly but surely learning to cope with her father's death. Remus respected and understood her wishes and gave her the space Tonks craved.

They could not prove it, and no one (not even Snape knew, or so he _claimed_ ) what had happened, how Dolores Jane Umbridge was now a Wolf, but Tonks knew.

She was not a fool. She wasn't _stupid_. Tonks knew that Norah had been the one behind Dolores's maiming, as Norah had _everything_ to lose, and Umbridge had been the one to take her husband and son from her.

If anyone had a right to bear a grudge against Umbridge, it was Norah.

But whether or not the blonde werewolf would return following, she couldn't say, at this point, Tonks hoped so.

If not to see her again, then for Ollie, who wasn't the same. He was broodier these days, and the current moment the two of them shared alone was no exception.

Tonks let out a strangely content sigh as she and Ollie rested in her and Remus's backyard of their simple, rather tumbledown cottage in Wales, though now that Tonks had moved in with the man following their marriage, she was slowly making improvements here and there.

Making their home more habitable and warmer. Not so desolate, and now, the Lupin family cottage resembled a place of peace. Well, _normally_.

Right now, however, under Remus and Mrs. Weasley's watchful eyes (Tonks thought the matronly ginger-haired witch had eyes like that of a hawk) Molly was transforming their backyard into a wide-open space with two rectangular picnic tables.

Tonks repressed the urge to snort and roll her eyes, scooting closer on the blanket she had sprawled out underneath the willow tree in their backyard, resting her head against the crook of Ollie's shoulder, and she heard her mate give out a haggard, disinterested sigh.

"Think it'll rain?" Tonks murmured by way of response as black clouds slowly sprawled their way across the late afternoon sky, threatening a deluge of a storm on what was supposed to be her baby shower combined with a joint delayed wedding reception.

A proper one, in Molly Weasley's eyes, though it was not at the Burrow like she had initially hoped for, Tonks's time was drawing even closer. Another few days.

She barely stifled her smile as a clap of thunder in the distance answered her question, and she heard Molly give a startled yelp of surprise and poor Remus was the one having to bear the brunt of calming down Mrs. Weasley's rancor at being denied the opportunity to throw Remus and Tonks the party that she thought they deserved.

"C'mon, Ol," Tonks grumbled, furrowing her brows, and having to crane her neck upward to the sky, pulling Ollie to his feet by his forearm, frowning at his resistance when he made no move to follow his best friend. " _What_?" she demanded, her hands on her hips. "Look, I don't fancy getting _rained_ on, Ollie, so what's going on with you? Every time I try to talk to you, I don't get even a _little_ bit of sass coming my way so what's _wrong_? You've been like this ever since Norah left—"

But Tonks did not get a chance to finish her sentence as Ollie cut her off.

"I'm _fine_ , T, really. Nothing you need to worry about. You've got your own things to deal with," growled Ollie, and Tonks flinched away at hearing the hardened edges of his voice.

Tonks looked at her best friend with worry and concern, because, perhaps for the first time since getting Ollie back in her life, he looked _away_ from her.

This was _not_ good.

She settled her gaze on Remus, who had noticed his wife's worried expression and headed over.

Tonks frowned at hearing Ollie's voice. It did not sound like her best mate at all. He may have formed the words, but the tone…the tone was not Brennan's at all.

It was flat, emotionless, he wasn't as cheerful anymore. He didn't joke around as much with her or Charlie the few times Charlie had stopped by their cottage to visit Tonks.

She felt his breath hitch in his throat as without a word, without waiting for Ollie to ask, she leaned over as best she could and embraced her friend, feeling her heart rate speed up.

Worry wormed its way into her swollen stomach, and she swore she felt the baby kick. Her intestines tightened into hard coils and made her feel slightly sick suddenly.

In all the years of their friendship, Ollie, either in his impossible telepathy or not with his skills as a natural-born Legilimens, had never once hesitated to tell her anything that was on his mind.

If he were worried about Norah, then why wouldn't he just _say_ it? Ollie never felt like he had to hide from Tonks, and these days, from Remus.

The fact that he was looking away from her now was not exactly promising, and the plain truth of the matter was that Ollie was distraught over Norah's disappearance.

And Tonks knew that no matter what she or Remus said to try to assuage the massive guilt he felt over the young blonde's disappearance, even though the fault was not his, that he would not accept it, and she was beginning to grow scared for him.

Why now? Why did Ollie feel like he needed to choose his words so carefully?

"Dora?" Lupin murmured, a note of concern in his voice as he surveyed Ollie's hardened expression, hearing how cold her best friend's response had been, even from all the way by their front porch, courtesy of his wolfish sense of hearing. "Are you….?"

But his voice trailed off in hesitation as his gaze remained fixated on Ollie.

Sensing this wasn't going to be resolved anytime soon, Remus heaved a tiny exasperated sigh and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before carding his fingers through his hair and joining his wife, purposefully situating himself in between Tonks and Ollie.

Ollie glanced to the side and noticed with no small amount of jealousy in his eyes how Remus's hand instinctively drifted to Tonks's swollen stomach.

Another day or two and their baby would be born. Remus spoke up again.

"What's wrong, love? Has something… _happened_? Is it the baby?" he urged, a note of panic and desperation in his tone. Ollie repressed the urge to snort and roll his eyes.

Lupin noticed, scowling at Tonks's best friend's sudden shift in his countenance.

"No," Tonks murmured lowly, dipping her head, her hand coming to rest on the swell of her stomach protectively, allowing Remus to rest his hand over the top of hers, and allowing a curl to tumble in front of her face, bouncing slightly as she shook her head. "Ollie and I were just having a little chat about Norah. We were hoping she would come today, but I guess not," she confessed, her tone saddened and her face crestfallen as she lifted her chin to meet Ollie's hard gaze, who was pointedly looking away from Tonks.

Tonks sighed and scrunched up her nose, trying to revert her wavy hair to its usual shade of dark maroon pink or plum, though the light brown ash color chose to remain.

As long as Norah was missing from their party, and Ollie was miserable, her hair color was not about to change anytime soon.

Tonks let out a tired sigh as her husband, ever a patient man and an optimist, spoke up after a moment of silence to gather his thoughts, his tone quiet and reserved, a note of hope laced throughout his quiet voice.

"She'll come. There's still time. There's always _hope_ , Ollie, Tonks. Don't give up on her just yet," Lupin said in a voice adapted by confidence, something that had previously been lacking in his tones prior to marrying Tonks, though these days, as a husband and soon-to-be father, he walked taller, held himself prouder, spoke with more confidence than before.

Now as he watched Dora's friend let out a sigh, a pang of guilt wracking his heartstrings as Ollie slowly and methodically swiveled his head to the left to regard Remus in silence.

"How did you _do_ it, Lupin?" Ollie asked, his voice coarse and rough, and sounding much more subdued than before. "I…I want to know how you did it."

Silence fell on the three of them as they sat perched on the blanket Tonks had brought, wanting to get away from the noise and chaos of the party Mrs. Weasley was throwing, and from the horrible sounds of her shouting coming from their cottage.

Tonks was able to suspect that Fred and George had bewitched a plate of food to fly and either had spilled or they had accidentally broken something yet again.

Lupin's abject look of horror quickly turned into one of bewilderment as he exchanged a worried glance with Tonks, still doing nothing to remove his hand from the swell of her stomach before the married couple turned back to see Ollie smirking at the pair of them, a strangely melancholic tinge in his sky-blue orbs, which was something a relief for both Remus and Tonks to see.

As for how the last several months of him coming around their cottage, not wanting to be alone, the look in his eyes following Norah's disappearance was usually one of nonchalance or an icy coldness.

"Excuse me?" Lupin asked politely, his tone quickly shifting into one of professionalism and pleasantries, the same manner that he used to address his students. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Did what?"

His tone may have been quite polite and friendly, non-assuming, and judgmental, however, there was no masking the look of utter shock and confusion on his face.

Remus exchanged another quick glance with Tonks and Tonks did not even have to fully meet her husband's gaze to know that he too was just as concerned for Ollie as she was.

He, like her, did not know how Ollie would take their absence once they vacated their small cottage here in Wales and were forced to re-locate to Hogwarts so Remus could acclimate to becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor again and prepare his lesson plans before the start of term officially began in early September.

The simple, hard truth of the matter was, once they moved, if Ollie was unable to locate Norah Jameson and convince her to come back, then he would be well and truly _alone_.

Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to think what her best friend would do to himself if that were to happen. She did not think he could cope with the loneliness.

The pair of them had slowly but steadily been packing up their belongings, what they would need to move into Hogwarts with their new baby shortly before the start of the new school term here in a few more months.

They had declined Dumbledore's offer to send a carriage to collect them, choosing when September came, with their baby in tow, to ride the Hogwarts Express with the students.

She knew it was Remus's way of making up for lost time, wanting to relive old memories of happier times.

Though she hoped, now that their daughter or son was about to be born, that the two of them as a family unit would begin to make happy memories of their own.

Ollie spoke, sounding hesitant and absolutely unsure of himself. "I…want to know how you lured Tonks into your arms, Professor Lupin. How you managed to convince her to stay. If you tell me, then maybe…maybe I can convince _her_ to come back _home_ ," he said.

His voice faltered and cracked, as Tonks and Lupin proceeded to stare at Ollie in a stunned silence as the expectant parents attempted to process what was happening here.

Ollie slowly swiveled his head to his right and frowned at the pair of his friends.

As distraught as he was over Jameson's unexpected and abrupt disappearance following Umbridge's mauling, he was growing rapidly impatient for their answers.

Seeing Tonks and Remus looking at him as though they weren't sure what to think, utterly responsive, he proceeded to let out a frustrated growl before carding his fingers through his black hair.

His hair now fully grown back after Crouch had shaved it off in an attempt to humiliate him, it stuck up in wild tufts and reminded Remus and Tonks of Harry's wild hair, the way it had a mind of its own no matter what Ollie tried to do to tame it down.

"D'you think maybe we could talk somewhere…a little more _private_?" Ollie murmured, trying hard not to allow his frustration and growing anger to seep into his tones as he noticed Mrs. Weasley poke her head out the front door, a scowl on her face, no doubt wondering where the proud soon-to-be parents had disappeared to again.

After exchanging a brief glance with Tonks, Remus quickly nodded his agreement, mumbling to his wife and Ollie he would be right back, grunting with the effort to get up from his spot, having to erupt into a light jog over to their front porch to give Molly a brief explanation of what was happening.

Tonks chose to remain silent until Lupin got back. Whatever kind of advice Ollie was hoping to receive, she had a feeling she wanted Remus's input more than hers.

Remus returned a moment later, looking thoroughly cross and disgruntled, having exchanged a few short but curt words with Molly, running his fingers through his hair.

"I think we can manage a few minutes alone. Perhaps ten to fifteen minutes, at best. She says don't take too long. She labored over the chocolate cake in the kitchen that truly looks exquisite and wants us to be the first ones to taste it, Dora, since you and I are self-confessed chocoholics, " Lupin joked weakly, a light, pleasant smile over his face, though it quickly faltered as he noticed Ollie abruptly got to his feet, and pulled away from Dora.

Ollie nodded, a smile plastered on his face, though it was evident to both Remus and Tonks that it was forced.

He continued to put on the fake smile to hide his pain at Norah's abandonment of them from his friends. From Lupin, Tonks, even Sirius now.

The reason he did this was he did not want to worry them. He knew they fretted over them enough as it was, however, the pain was becoming too unbearable for him.

It hurt him even now to fake his smile, the depression sitting behind the mask and his heart prayed that someone noticed, that his two closest friends in this world, now that he and Remus had come to a mutual understanding all those months ago, would understand and offer him advice on what the bloody hell to do about her disappearance.

"Ollie." Tonks's soft voice reached his ringing eardrums, tearing Ollie out of his haze of dark thoughts. The thought that tormented the forlorn young man today was,

_Why_? Why had Norah disappeared? Did she truly think that what she had done to Umbridge was worth _banishing_ herself in exile for? It _wasn't_.

There was no one more who deserved what the Wolf within her had done to her.

Had he _done_ something, _said_ something to her that would have caused her to become offended and take off like that?

He swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat and motioned with a wave of his arm for the two of them to follow him into the forest behind their simple cottage.

"Follow me." Ollie chose his words carefully, speaking with great care so as to not come across to either one of them as demanding or hurt.

After overhearing a light series of squabbles amongst Lupin and Tonks, the natural-born Legilimens was relieved to hear them follow behind him.

What he was about to ask them, he didn't want anybody who had gathered her at Mrs. Weasley's party for the two of them to overhear a word.

Quite simply, if this were to get out, it would be the death of him. He did not stop walking until he led them to a clearing in the woods, waving his wand and conjuring a cold stone bench for the three of them to sit on, saving Tonks the trouble of sitting on a blanket on the ground, given how pregnant she was.

He snorted as she lifted the hem of her long black maxi dress and sandwiched herself between her husband and best friend, noticing her feet were bare, the vibrant dark purple toenail polish standing out against the barren earth. "Your feet, aren't they cold?" he murmured, jerking his head to her feet.

"Mmm?" Tonks blinked owlishly up at him, looking up at Ollie before glancing back down at her feet. "Oh. _That_ ," she chirped, waving away his concerns, her brows furrowed in contemplative concentration as they spoke to each other Ollie's preferred way. "No, they're fine. They aren't cold, Ol. Shoes these days hurt my feet, Ollie."

Tonks grimaced at how swollen her feet looked these days, letting the long skirt of her maxi dress fall over her bare feet as she rested her hands nervously in her lap.

Ollie merely grunted by way of response as Tonks lowered the hem of her long dress and toyed with a wavy lock of her hair, still its light brown ash color. He sighed.

He missed the maroons and dark plums that she tended to favor when happy, and Ollie hated to see his friend so morose and miserable, so crestfallen and depressed, knowing that _he_ was the sole cause of it all.

Tonks continued the incessant twirling of her lock of wavy hair in her thumb and forefinger to twirl, seemingly needing a minute to gather her thoughts, what to say.

"You like her, don't you? Norah. Is it…is it love?" Tonks asked, her gray eyes taking on a sudden mischievous sheen as they glinted coyly at her best friend, who blanched.

"Who—who said anything about _love_ , Tonks?" Ollie growled rather bluntly, standing up from his spot on the bench he'd conjured, perhaps a little too quickly and revealed his alarm at his friend's use of a word that invoked this old forgotten emotion.

He spat the word as though it were poison that had settled on his tongue, though when he tried to speak, it felt like there was a gag on his mouth as Ollie stammered.

Tonks said nothing in response, merely proceeding to smile serenely back at Ollie as he regarded his best friend nervously, suddenly not at all sure what it was exactly that he wanted Tonks and Remus to help him with. Lupin jumped to his wife's defense.

"You will have to _excuse_ Dora, Ollie. She is…a romantic witch in nature and assumed over the nature of your relationship with Miss Jameson, please forgive her," Lupin said hastily, fixing his wife by his side with a rather pointed stare as he frowned lightly.

"Apology accepted," murmured Ollie with a begrudging little grunt before looking towards Tonks directly. "As for Norah…I can't find her, but even if she _were_ to come back, I don't think she wants to talk to me, or...be with me, in that way, though we never really discussed it. I…I think that I _hurt_ her, you guys. I—I don't _understand_!" he cried, feeling the onset surge of another one of his panic attacks coming again. "What did I _do_?! Have I _done_ something, _said_ something? Why does she _despise_ me so?" Ollie growled, carding his fingers through his hair and bolting from his spot on the bench. He looked quite livid.

Tonks swallowed hard.

To see Ollie like this was very, very new. Her friend had never fallen for someone before, at least not to her knowledge, and knowing there was little she could say over Jameson's disappearance did not sit well with her.

Ollie's voice was rough and coarse as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, grimacing, flinching as he moved away from the pair of friends, wondering if he had just made a huge mistake in confiding in them both when they had their new baby arriving soon to worry over.

They did not need to be concerned with the likes of him and his problems.

Remus and Tonks watched. Back and forth he went. Back and forth. Repeat his restless pacing a few more times, until Lupin felt quite confident the younger man's agitated movements were going to cause permanent indentations in the woodland floor.

A new pang of emotion flooded through Ollie, and he flinched as the cool April breeze wafted its way through the forest's clearing and seemed to circulate around him, the brilliant sun that poked its way through the trees' canopy now shone brightly with new warmth that had retreated behind the cluster of thunderclouds that still threatened a storm.

Ollie was unable to repress the violent shudder that sent a convulsion clawing up and down his spine and through the salted wound of his heart. Norah was _gone_ …

He felt his heart sink, somehow, he had foolishly gotten it into his head that she might have shown up today.

If not for him, then for Tonks.

She had become a good friend to Dora over the last nine months, and at least _she_ was answering _her_ letters. Or at the very least, _keeping_ them. He didn't know for sure, as Tonks wasn't saying much on that regard.

He had been hoping Norah would show up today, of all days, considering Mrs. Weasley had been planning this delayed wedding reception/baby shower for months, wanting to wait until closer towards Tonks's due date to throw it.

Ollie had hoped Norah would have shown herself, despite how cold he had acted towards her that night when Professor Snape had refused to let her in to see Umbridge.

He had told her that she was wrong in wanting to do this. Ollie had tried to get Norah to come away, to come with him to check on Tonks that night, but she hadn't.

And _now_ look. This was all _his_ fault. He should have…he should have done more. Anything he could have thought of to get her to come with him. Forced her, even, if that's what it took. But he had not done it.

"She doesn't like me. She—she _hates_ me. I _saw_ it in her eyes," he growled.

"You don't _know_ that, Ollie," replied Remus rather warmly, speaking more openly for the first time since Tonks had posed her question to the Legilimens. "Even for you as a Legilimens, to try and guess exactly what Norah was thinking that night would have only led you to madness and ruin. Perhaps it's better that you do not understand her motives."

At Lupin's last remark, Ollie couldn't help but feel another pang of guilt and worry that felt like a stab to his heart with a rusty dagger.

Norah hadn't exactly outright lied to him that night before he had left her alone down in the dungeons, when he had asked her if she would be fine on her own, left alone to her own devices with Severus.

But she had been trying to avoid expressing _something_ to him. He just did not know what or why that was, and the ambiguity of not knowing was driving him mad!

Ollie furrowed his dark brows in a frown and opened his mouth to speak, though Tonks's soft voice cut through his swirling haze of dark thoughts as she interrupted him.

"How do you know?"

Ollie blinked, slightly surprised by the bluntness of Tonks's voice and the question she had just posed to him, but he was not about to lose his resolve. He _couldn't_.

Not in front of these two, not after collectively everything they had gone through together.

Ollie let his head hang in shame as he collapsed back onto the stone bench and sandwiched himself in between Remus and Tonks, allowing a lock of his black bangs to hang in front of his eyes, grateful at least, that he didn't have to look at them during.

"I just _do_ , okay, T? She _hates_ me," Ollie snapped, replying to Tonks through gritted teeth, his head resting in his hands, ignoring how his best friend flinched away in hurt surprise at hearing the hardened and clipped edges of his normally quiet and kind voice.

Tonks scowled, though she didn't make a comment on his attitude, for which Ollie was grateful for.

He tried to shoot her an apologetic look with his eyes, trying to find some way to silently beg with his best friend to accept his silent apology for his harsh words.

She shot him a look that suggested she did not want to hear, nor did he need to say it.

Tonks let out a tired sigh. "Has Norah ever _once_ told you that she detests you, despises you, or hates you in any way, Ollie?" Tonks asked, her voice plain but cautious.

"No," Ollie replied begrudgingly after a long moment to gather his thoughts.

"Then you don't know if she does or _not_ , Ol," Tonks stated with a casual shrug of her shoulders, wincing, a pained grimace contorting and twisting her pale, pretty features as she rose to her feet, a hand over her stomach. "Not until you… _ask_ her."

Tonks fixed her best friend with a pointed stare that was not quite a glower, suggesting she was not angry with Ollie for the way he was behaving regarding the young blonde witch's disappearance, but all the same, the look she was giving him suggested to the former Slytherin that what she was about to say to him was important.

"She'll show. _Listen_ to me, Ollie." Tonks was regarding him with such a serious look and yet, there was something else in his best mate's expression he couldn't identify. "There are going to be some things that Norah isn't…comfortable talking to you about, and the _same_ thing goes for you reading her mind without her knowing about it," she added, almost as an afterthought, crinkling her nose in disgust. "If you ask me, Norah had a good reason for leaving us, and when she's _ready_ to come back, she'll talk to you. I think we're just going to have to be patient. Whatever was going through her mind that night that caused her to leave, it was enough to make her uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that she didn't decide to tell you she was leaving. If I were _you_ , Ol, I'd let this go and let Norah come to you in her own times. She'll come. You'll see," she whispered to Ollie through gritted teeth.

Her voice was alarmingly positive, though Ollie sensed something was wrong.

But before Ollie could comment on Tonks's sudden shift in countenance, she added gently. "Trying to hunt her down like you've been doing and forcing her to talk is only going to drive a wedge between whatever relationship the two of you have, whether as friends or more. I know that you care about her, Ol, you don't have to explain yourself to Remus and I. You might not want to hear this, but I think your best bet is just be patient. Let Norah come to you, Ollie. Don't go looking for her if she _doesn't_ want to be _found_ , Ol," Tonks whispered, glancing sideways at her husband out of the corner of her eye, who quickly and silently nodded his agreement, gripping onto her arm in a tight vice grip.

Ollie sighed. It wasn't necessarily the answer he wanted to hear, but as always, he knew Tonks was right. His best friend was ever scarcely wrong, if at all, really.

"You're right," he grumbled darkly under his breath, rubbing one of his arms nervously and shrinking into his black woolen sweater as much as he could for warmth.

For it only being April, it was bloody freezing this evening as the sun dipped below the horizon, and he was amazed at how Tonks could wear a flowy long black short-sleeved maxi dress and go barefoot in this kind of weather, though he guessed her hormones having to do with the nature of her pregnancy had everything to do with her behavior.

Ollie let out another tired sigh and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of short black hair, feeling at least somewhat better after talking to Tonks and Remus than he did before. He had always trusted Tonks in the past, and he would trust her now.

If she said that Norah would come, then he had to trust that the werewolf would.

After all, he had thought he had made it perfectly clear that he'd never hurt Norah on purpose, that he would not force her to do anything that she was not comfortable with.

There must have been a reason why she had fled from them, from me, he thought, grinding his teeth, and squeezing his eyes shut, trying not to think of it anymore.

He just needed to trust Tonks's advice, that she would come to him when ready. And he would be there when she did.

A noise coming from Tonks that sounded like a groan pulled him out of thoughts of the young blonde werewolf, startling him.

He felt his head whiplash sharply upwards so fast that he felt a neck muscle pull, sending a white-hot flare of pain up his neck and around the shell of his right ear.

It hurt as hell, but the Legilimens ignored the pain, having eyes only for _her_.

Ollie frowned, pursing his lips into a thin line as he noticed how pale Tonks was looking, continuing to keep her eyes squeezed shut, watching as her breathing slowed.

"T?" he murmured, closing off the gap of space between him and Tonks, draping one of his arms over her shoulder. "Are you…is it….is it _time_?" he murmured, his gaze flitting to Remus, who was looking even paler than Tonks and even more terrified.

"I don't…know," Tonks admitted through gritted teeth. "Maybe," she confessed, her voice cracking and faltering as she let out a shudder as a painful spasm wracked its way through her entire body, traveling down her spine.

She opened her eyes and blearily lifted her head to look at her husband, whose face had paled, the color draining from Remus's already pale face with an intense realization. His wife's time had come.

The baby was coming, the likelihood of it making its arrival into the world tonight increasing as Tonks's pains in her stomach grew worse.

Lupin was the first to recover, one hand around his wife's waist, the other on the small of her back as he whispered soothing nothings into the shell of her ear.

He held out his hand for Tonks to take. Ollie watched as Tonks started to take Remus's hand, with the intent on Lupin leading her back to their cottage and get everybody _out_ of their home that had come for the shower so Molly could help deliver their baby, assuming this was it and not a false alarm, though as Tonks took a half step forward, a sharp, twisting pain contorted through her stomach.

Flinching at the intensity of her sudden contraction, clutching her abdomen as she doubled over in agony, Tonks tried to catch her breath, it was lost in her moan of pain as she clenched her teeth shut. Tonks wanted to rebel against the torment of her body.

To shove the pain to the back of her mind and allow her Auror training to take over but could only let an abrupt cry escape her throat, not able to focus on anything.

Not on her husband by her side in an instant, hollering for Molly, though Ollie and Lupin both fell silent at the sight of a Patronus's faint glow whizzing through the air past them, stopping in front of the entrance of Remus and Tonks's cottage, where the partygoers had all gathered in a circle, horrified looks on their faces at the grim message.

Snape's baritone voice filled the air, his normally calm composure now rattled.

_Hogwarts is threatened. Lord Voldemort has attempted to siege the castle in search of Harry Potter. Any able-bodied man or woman willing and of age to fight and bear arms should come to the castle at once to protect that which we cherish._

_Voldemort has threatened to kill every man, woman, and child that dares to conceal Harry from him. He's given Harry Potter only one hour._

_Come. Come at once_ …

The Patronus's message ended, the silver doe dissipated, and all at once there was a flurry of activity as everyone there Disapparated to heed Professor Snape's call to arms.

Ollie blinked owlishly at the spot where Snape's doe Patronus had been only seconds ago.

Tonks's sweet voice cut through the stunned trio, breaking the silence, tension and fear in her voice as it cracked and faltered, like her will.

"Y—you should _go_ , Remus. Harry…Harry who needs you, I—I will be _fine_ , Rem. Molly—Molly will be here at home with me, Remus," Tonks gasped out.

Both Remus and Ollie swiveled their heads to regard Tonks with incredulous looks on their faces, equal looks of aghast horror at what she had just suggested to him.

Tonks's voice was flat and emotionless. She _knew_ that Remus wanted to leave, to go be by Harry's side and protect the place that had become a second home to him.

But…she would be lying to herself if she did not admit she didn't want him to go.

Lupin blinked, still bracing Tonks against the pain of her contraction, feeling helpless and shocked that his wife would even suggest such a thing on the night their child was about to be born.

_"No_ ," he growled angrily, though even as he spoke the word, a heavy pang of guilt rested in his heart, though he swore he caught Sirius offering him a curt nod of reassurance as his best friend turned on the heel of his boot and Disapparated.

Feeling a surge of adrenaline and fear course through his veins, Remus continued, the edges of his voice hardened and clipped.

"You truly think I would _leave_ your side during your labor, Tonks? I can't. I _won't_. I'm not missing the birth of our child, so do not tell me again to go. Harry will be fine..."

Though Ollie could tell Remus's voice lacked the conviction to sell the last part of his argument he really wanted to make. There was no telling if the boy would be fine or not.

"But you…" Tonks's voice trailed off as another spasm worked its way through her, and after a few moments, her muscles relaxed, and she was able to stand upright again. She did not speak again after that.

It took them what felt like an eternity to make it back to the front porch of their cottage, where Molly was quick to usher Remus and Tonks inside to get her upstairs.

Tonks, however, sensed that Ollie was not about to follow them inside. "Ollie?"

When she turned back around, Tonks almost immediately wished she hadn't.

She did not like the darkening look of anger, antagonized hurt laced throughout the man's cerulean blue eyes, currently burning bright with anger and a fierce determination, a smoldering, fathomless rage that she was not sure she had ever seen before in Ollie.

" _I'll_ go," he announced grimly, a somber expression on his face as he watched Tonks's face drain in color. "I'll protect Harry if I can."

Ollie jutted out his chin slightly defiantly and fixed Tonks with an icy cold stare.

"Norah's _not_ coming back, T. I don't think she will," he growled, knowing he had been a blind and bloody _fool_ to even hope she would.

He turned towards Tonks and Remus, fixing Lupin with an unusually grim expression that even Remus wasn't sure he liked to see on Dora's best friend's face.

"Since you will be staying behind," he murmured, bowing his head as a sign of utmost respect for the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, effective in September, "I will do what I can to help protect Harry in your stead. Take care of T, you hear?"

"Ollie, _no_! Please don't _do_ this! Don't go!" Tonks begged tearfully through salty, briny tears, swallowing down hard past the lump in her throat, feeling hot tears marring her vision as they slid without warning down her cheeks. "It's—it's a _suicide mission_!" she cried, unable to stop her tears from falling.

Tonks bloody _knew_ what would happen if Ollie went to Hogwarts in his emotionally compromised state. There was every possibility that he wouldn't return.

Lupin, sensing the unspoken tension between the two best friends, took a cautious half step toward Ollie at the same moment he backed away, and that was then that Remus knew.

There was no changing the man's mind. But still. He had to try. "Won't you stay?" He asked, unable to keep the note of desperation out of his quiet, panicked tone.

Tonks already knew as Ollie shook his head that he wasn't going to listen to Remus or her.

Not this time.

"I'm sorry, T, but I _have_ to go," he murmured, blinking back tears of his own as he leaned forward, pressing a gentle but chaste kiss to both of Tonks's cheeks.

He didn't care that he tasted the salt of her tears as they ran down her cheeks. Ollie let out a sigh, brushing back a lock of her hair, which still retained its light brown ash color.

If this was to be the last time he would look upon his friend, he wanted to make it count. Ollie pursed his lips in a thin line as he straightened his posture.

"Don't walk _away_ from us, Ollie. Don't _do_ this," Tonks begged, sniffling once or twice, shuddering as another painful spasm wracked her body in painful waves, unrelenting. "You _swore_ to be our sides for the rest of our lives, Brennan. Well. I _command_ you to come back to us both. Come back to us. Our son or daughter _needs_ you in their life. You...you swore you would be our kid's uncle, Ollie. Don't make me force you to make the Unbreakable Vow," she growled angrily, narrowing her eyes. "Stay _here_ , Ollie. Please don't leave me..."

She whispered her last words, crying silently. Begging him.

But it wasn't going to work. Not this time.

Ollie nodded, bowing his head in acknowledgment of his best friend's words.

Ollie held out his hand for Remus to take, who looked stunned, though accepted it after a second of hesitation, faltering in his indecision.

"Take good care of Tonks, Professor Lupin."

And without another word, ignoring Tonks's pleading cries to stay with them, Ollie turned on the heel of his black boot and Disapparated off of their property.

Ollie was smart enough not to look back.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so I know this is deviating from canon timeline here in terms of when* the Battle of Hogwarts happened in DH, and Teddy's birth, but since this is an AU, I figure I can tweak it as needed, and for dramatic purposes, BoH is happening in April, and while Tonks/Remus are not attending the Battle during the thick of the action because reasons, that Remus is not about to abandon his wife during labor or miss the birth of his child, that _doesn't_ mean the infamous battle won't be featured in my story. **

**Ollie is a character who has really grown on me, so I've decided the BOH will be told from his POV's next couple of chapters, but first, coming up in the next chapter, our favorite Auror has a baby to deliver, and Remadora are about to become parents, ready or not. Stay tuned! :)**


	98. A Difficult Choice

**CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT**

Lupin was starting to worry. Tonks's labor was lasting unusually long, and though Molly assured him this kind of thing happened often, considering magic would not help them here, it did nothing to quell the twisting, churning coils in his nauseous stomach.

There was no telling if their baby would be born…like _him_. Wolfish, with his tendencies.

Just _that_ thought was enough to make poor Remus feel like he was going to be physically ill, though he shook his head to clear his mind and rid his stomach of the sickening feeling.

Tonks needed him. His wife needed him to be the strong one now for her, and he would.

She was _not_ taking Ollie's abrupt departure to Hogwarts well, given his already emotionally compromised state, her tears rolling down silently with her cheeks, though Lupin supposed it was a combination of the pains of her contractions and Ollie's seemingly cold abandonment of her on the front steps of the porch of their cottage.

_Merlin damn him_ , Remus thought, clenching his teeth in anger as he heard Tonks let out a muted cry through gritted teeth, sounding like a wounded animal in pain.

Ollie, Merlin _damn_ that man, had better not do anything _rash_ or Merlin help him, Lupin knew he was going to have to have words with Brennan upon his return later.

Mrs. Weasley hadn't hesitated to whisk Tonks upstairs to their bedroom, Remus right beside Tonks every step.

He felt Dora tense in his arms as each contraction took hold. At first, Tonks tried to bury her pains within her Auror training, fight the spasms, priding herself on ignoring the immense pain that wracked her way through her body, but that just wasn't possible as each contraction worsened and grew.

Tonks had taken to holding her breath in short spurts as if somehow, she thought by not breathing that would make the hurt stop, though her efforts were in vain.

"Molly," Tonks gasped weakly after what felt like several long moments in silence, with neither one of them speaking to break the tension in their bedroom.

"Mmm?" Mrs. Weasley murmured distractedly, a look of concern etched on her lined and matronly face, her shoulder-length ginger hair wild. "What is it, dear?"

Mrs. Weasley was, by rights, distracted, and rightfully so, Remus thought.

She fumbled the basin of water, spilling hot water onto their hardwood bedroom floor, nearly splashing the scalding water over all Lupin's trousers and sweater as he helped Mrs. Weasley conjure clean rags and extra blankets, extra pillows, anything he could to make his wife's labor easier, and had forgotten to heat the blankets on Lupin and Tonks's bed at least three separate times.

Remus could see it in her eyes. All Molly wanted was to heed the summons that Professor Snape had sent out, the call to arms to go to Harry. To fight alongside Arthur and the rest of her family.

The worry must have been wrought in her eyes because Tonks spoke up, her words faint and barely above a whisper before Remus could suggest that she leave to fight, Tonks said it before he could.

" _Go_ ," she urged, using her elbows to prop herself up on the bed. "Be with your _family_ , Mrs. Weasley. Help Harry, look after Ollie for me. T—tell him for me, if he—if he _dies_ , I'll—I'll find a way to resurrect him, just so I can kill him _myself_ ," she threatened, though a hint of a worried little smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she powered through another contraction. " _Please_ , Molly," Tonks begged tearfully. "I—I will be _fine_. Rem is here with me," Tonks whispered.

As if to prove her point, she shakily reached out a hand and squeezed onto Lupin's hand, hard enough to break his fingers. He grimaced at the gesture, pulling a face, though Remus said nothing at all.

Mrs. Weasley bit the inside wall of her cheek, a pained look in her normally kind light brown eyes.

Clearly, the aging witch was torn between her desire to stay and help Tonks with the birthing process, or to Disapparate and add another wand to the battle.

Lupin let out a tired sigh through his nose and clapped a gentle hand on her shoulder, giving it a light reassuring squeeze.

_"Go_ ," he commanded, repeating Tonks's demand. "I'm _staying_ , Molly. Be alongside your family this night. They need you. Fight for the ones you love and hold most dear. Dora and I will be _fine_ ," he emphasized, though right at that moment, Tonks let out another cry of pain.

He flinched, even as a muscle in his jaw and behind his eyelid twitch as he saw Mrs. Weasley cast her gaze nervously between Tonks and Remus, faltering in the decision.

"Don't make us…say it…again…" Tonks ordered, her voice fading as another contraction threatened to snake its way throughout her body, keeping her eyes squeezed shut as she collapsed her head back against her pillow, though continuing to keep her eyes closed, Dora allowed the faintest ghost of a smile to flit across her face as she silently nodded her agreement.

Molly sighed, something within the matriarch of the Weasley family giving way as her shoulders slumped in defeat and she nodded, turning her back on Remus and Tonks to make downstairs, her hand on the doorway to steady herself as she paused a moment.

"I'll send word to Andromeda to come and provide help before I go," she murmured, glancing back at Remus, biting her bottom lip as she regarded the man whom she considered like one of her own sons, before offering him and his wife a wan smile. "You're going to be just fine, Tonks," Molly soothed. "Another few hours, and you'll be holding your newborn daughter or son in your arms for the very first time. The pain makes it worth it, dear. You'll see. Are you _sure_ you don't need me here to help, Remus?" she tried again, biting down on her bottom lip as she turned towards Lupin for confirmation, who silently shook his head and waved her away with a brush of his hand.

She sighed, carding her fingers through her fiery ginger hair. "Very well. I'll go, but I'll be back as soon as I can. You'll take good care of her, Remus?" she asked softly.

Lupin nodded. Of course, he would. Dora was his _wife_. What kind of a question—

But Molly did not give Remus a chance to respond as she turned away from him. There was the familiar _crack_! as Molly turned on the heel of her show and promptly Disapparated until it was just Remus and Tonks alone in their cottage.

Pensively, Lupin scanned the entire vicinity of their bedroom, looking for something— _anything_ —that he could grab he hadn't already thought of to help Dora.

Nervous with concern for Tonks, he leaped off the edge of the bed, painfully wringing his hands together. He—but Merlin's Beard, he wasn't sure if he could do this! What were they _thinking_ , Mrs. Weasley, needed to be here to help his wife.

He was no skilled Healer or Muggle doctor. Far from it. What was he supposed to _do_?

"Remus?" Tonks asked, concerned.

The panicked question that manifested his fear was out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

"Can't you just…can't you just _hold it in_ , Dora?" he begged pitifully, biting his lip.

Remus didn't even have to look to see Tonks's incredulous, horrified look as she stared at him with her wide, almond-shaped gray eyes, as though Remus had spontaneously sprouted antlers.

" _No, Remus_! I can't! I...I would if I could, you know that but...I...don't...have control over this..." she cried exasperatedly through locked teeth and rooted jaw, throwing her head back, eyes squeezed shut as she sensed another contraction coming.

Restless and agitated, wishing for nothing more than the pain to stop, Tonks painstakingly heaved herself off the edge of the bed, both hands on her stomach, and restlessly paced their bedroom floor to try to walk off the pains and distract herself.

"B-but this—this doesn't _happen_ this fast, _no one has babies this quick_!" Lupin yelled, feeling a surge of a panic prick at his heartstrings, his heart thrumming against the confines of its cage, and Remus felt certain he was about to have a bloody heart attack.

Tonks glowered at Remus with such venom in her flashing grey eyes that rivaled the finely polished metal suits of the knight's armor of old that guarded the Great Hall back at Hogwarts.

"Our baby is _coming_ , Remus. It's just you and me here, like it or not, I—I need you to _be calm_ if you're going to stay here and help me. _Please_ , Remus," she begged, whisper-hissing her words through clenched teeth, in clear pain.

It did not escape Remus's attention that by some miracle of Merlin, her light ash brown hair had miraculously changed color to a vibrant, rich red hue.

She could have passed for Ginny Weasley's older sister, and it did not take an intellectual genius like Professor Dumbledore to know that Dora was worried about the Weasley family, especially Molly and Ginny, who she thought of as a maternal figure and a younger sister. Lupin felt his lips part open to speak as he searched Tonks's nervous face.

However, her face became crestfallen as her painful spasm passed, and her wavy tresses reverted to a light ash brown in color again.

Through her haze of brief, flickering anger at his plea to keep her body from doing what it was inclined to do naturally in order to bring their child into the world, he saw Dora's fear.

Both of them jumped as a clap of thunder rent the otherwise silent air outside of their cottage, and howling wind had begun to pick up as the sky darkened.

A storm was coming, and there was nothing now could be done to stop it.

Tonks and Remus both paused to look out the window at the pitch-black sky, equal expressions of worry taut on their faces.

The thunder seemed to crack the air as if the very heavens might split apart. It rolled like the ash could of a volcano, becoming a rolling booming rumble. It declared to all the raw power of nature and gave fair warning of the wrath that was to come.

Tonks was the first one to break the silence.

"Ollie. I...I'm scared for him, sweetheart. And Harry, oh, Harry, what he must be _feeling_ right now, if he's even still _alive_ , Remus," Tonks sobbed. "M—Mrs. Weasley and the others. Sirius, your father," she breathed, slowly turning to regard her husband with red-rimmed irises, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. "What if they…what if they don't…I don't think I can…wait here and not know what's..."

But her quiet voice cracked, and Tonks could not finish her sentence.

Lupin did not immediately respond, not sure what to say to put Dora at ease.

Worry wormed its way through his churning stomach as he thought of Harry, of Sirius, their family and friends fighting for their very lives to protect Hogwarts, that sacred place which had become like a second home to him, and for him to not be there…

_No_. James's voice spoke up, uncharacteristically gruff at the back of his mind. _You're needed here, Moony. You're about to become a father. There is nothing more important than this. Tonks needs you to help her through this. This is perhaps one of the most defining and important moments of your life. You are needed here, Remus_.

Remus nodded silently; Lily's quiet susurrations joined her husband's somber advice.

_James is right, Rem. Harry is well-looked after at Hogwarts. Sirius, Dumbledore, and the others are watching him. You'd regret it forever if you missed the birth of your child. It's a truly magical moment, holding your son or daughter in your arms for the first time, and your wife can't do this on her own. You need to be here_.

When, by some miracle of Merlin, Lupin _did_ manage to find his voice, even he was momentarily surprised by how confident he sounded.

"Harry is the best hope we have, Dora. _Trust him_. Harry is going to be _fine_. The others will make sure he's safe."

His voice trailed off as he fell silent, turning back towards Tonks, not liking how pale she was looking.

Nervous with concern for his wife, Remus felt like he was hardly able to breathe as he guided her towards the edge of their bed to sit down, waving his wand and conjuring extra blankets.

Tonks's hands clutched onto fistfuls of their bedsheets, her face scrunched uptight as another contraction threatened to tear her insides in half, her face already wearing the newfound fear of an expectant mother preparing to bring her child into the world on this storming, black April's evening.

"I need to find you something to eat, sweetheart," Lupin explained softly, turning away for a moment to head downstairs to the kitchens. "To keep up your strength."

But Tonks shook her head, beads of sweat starting to perspire and throng on her brow, a curl of her hair tumbling in front of her face as she did so. "I'm not hungry."

Her ashen expression and the way she was biting down hard on her bottom lip showed Lupin nausea his poor wife was currently experiencing, and he ached for her.

Were that he could bottle up the pain that she was feeling in a vial and keep it for himself to save her the physical anguish of not having to feel it for herself, then he would do it.

However, since no such magic existed, Lupin recognized with a heavy heart that there was little else he could do for his wife other than to help her in whatever way he could, though Tonks's refusal of food caused Remus to grow even more worried.

"But you've not eaten breakfast _or_ lunch today, Dora," he reminded her.

Tonks let out a tiny sigh and merely proceeded to look at her husband incredulously.

"We'll be _fine_ , Rem, both of us," Tonks reassured Remus quietly, resting her hands on top of her swollen abdomen, her eyes drifting lovingly down to rest at her stomach before lifting her chin upwards and gazing at Remus affectionately.

Remus stifled his tiny groan of frustration that his offer to find his wife something to eat was denied.

He searched urgently about their bedroom for something he could offer to care for his pregnant wife's needs, trying to think of something Molly hadn't already thought to conjure before she'd fled to go be alongside her family at Hogwarts.

Blankets, a basin of hot water, a glass of ice water on the night table by her side of the bed, though he planned to have her lay in the middle in order to provide as much room for the birth of their child as possible.

"Rest then, Dora, take deeps breaths, nice and slow," Lupin heard himself murmur, painfully twisting his fingers together, his nails digging into his palms tightly.

Hard enough to pierce his calloused skin. It hurt, but he ignored the pain.

Lupin knew he had to say something— _anything_ —to ease Tonks's mind to try to take her mind off the pains her body was undergoing.

"What can I do for you, Dora?" he begged. "I—I don't know what you want me to _do_ , what do you _need_ me to do?"

His voice was so panicked, that his words tumbled unchecked from his lips as a steady stream of strung together words that were laced together as a shaking fragment.

Remus turned and smiled reluctantly at Dora, though it did not little to moderate his fears.

Tonks was quiet for a moment, not looking directly at Remus but instead out the window.

Her brows were furrowed in a concentrated and contemplative frown as she forced her mind to try to focus on something else other than her crippling contractions.

When she spoke, it was through gritted teeth, as though every word that left her mouth was causing her great pain.

"Ollie," she panted, gasping for breath in the midst of her spasmodic, jerking reactions. "He—he left us. _He left us_!" she cried, bordering near pure hysteria at this point, sniffling once or twice as she blinked back angry tears with a well-practiced flick of her finger, ducking her head so that Remus would not see, though it was already too late. "What if that was his plan all along?" Tonks wailed.

The heart-wrenching cry of agony that left Tonks's chest, throat, and lips tore Lupin's own heart to shreds as he met her gaze, sitting with her on the edge of their bed.

Tonks turned her head away, though Remus was not having it as he lifted up his hand and cupped her chin firmly in his strong grip, turning her head back around so that Tonks was forced to meet his gaze and was able to tear her gaze away from him.

"Don't talk like that, Tonks. _Listen_ to me, Dora. Ollie is going to be just _fine_ , sweetheart. Have faith. None of this negative talking of what you think he may or may not do to himself is helping you, Tonks," he answered, unable to keep the note of bewilderment out of his voice. "I _don't_ want to hear you talk that way about our friend, Dora. Ollie _knows_ what he's doing. What, do you really think that he would volunteer to go fight because, without her, he feels…?"

Remus's voice cracked as he trailed off, not wanting to say what he was implying.

But Tonks sensed his thoughts, finishing his statement for him, frowning through her tears.

"Like _nothing_ , Remus. _Yes_." Tonks's voice was so soft, so faint and barely above a whisper, that Lupin almost missed it. "I'm _scared_ for him, Rem. What Ollie's gone through in his life is unbelievably _cruel_ , and this…I…don't know what to _do_ for him, how we could _possibly_ help him unless Jameson decides to come back," she confessed.

The moment Remus heard his wife's muffled, half-choked sob that escaped from the back of her throat, he did not hesitate to hold her as tightly as he dared, careful to be mindful of her swollen stomach, wanting to protect his wife and unborn child, running his hands through Dora's wavy light ash brown tresses that for a moment, looked like that of his own, minus the flecks of grey scattered throughout his hair.

"Hush, love," he soothed, whispering his words into the shell of her ear, his voice soft and reserved. "I'm right here, Tonks. I'm not going _anywhere_. Ollie's going to be just _fine_ , you hear me?"

Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump that had formed in her throat, hollowing and constricting it until it felt like she could no longer breathe, and the young witch and expectant mother could no longer hold back her tears, sobbing openly in her husband's arms and clinging to him as if he were the only thing left in this world.

The thought of their family, friends, fighting at Hogwarts, and the ambiguity of not knowing if they were alive or dead was _torture_ for her.

It hurt her so much that it physically _ached_ , and she had not the power to stop nor prevent any of it from happening.

Tonks, perhaps for the first time in her entire adult life, did not know what to do.

She wanted everything to turn out all right, for her and Remus's baby to be healthy, no lycanthropic tendencies, though she knew the two of them would love it no less than if he or she did, for their family, the Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Sirius, Lyall, Ollie, Norah, to come home from Hogwarts alive and unscathed. For Lord Voldemort to be _dead_ , his reign of terror throughout Great Britain and Europe ended for good.

Ollie, poor sweet Ollie had been heartbroken. He had formed an unspoken bond with Jameson during their time in the Forest, though what words had been exchanged between the two of them, only Norah and Ollie knew for sure, she _knew_ he cared.

Maybe…maybe even dared to _love_ the young blonde werewolf, not caring for her lycanthropic condition, much as she had learned to overlook Remus's condition, though Norah's thoughts on the matter still remained a mystery, though something within her told Tonks she had fled because of that fact.

And now that perhaps the one good thing in his life escaping Crouch's clutches aside from getting Tonks back in his life as his friend, and Lupin as a friend now, too, was gone, which left poor Ollie with almost nothing.

At this point in his life, what else was left for him, but _that_?

"W—we h—have to go _back_ , Remus." Tonks pulled herself out of Remus's grasp and made to remove herself from his hold, standing up from the bed with difficulty. "I should _never_ have let Ollie go alone. Who _knows_ what he's going to do to himself?"

But before Tonks could shuffle painstakingly slow towards the door, Lupin caught Tonks gently around the waist and pulled her back to him, forcing her to sit back down.

One, because she was _pregnant_ and they were in _no_ condition to go anywhere _near_ the castle, and two, his wife needed to hear what he was about to say about Ollie.

"Let him _go_ , Dora," Remus began slowly, his light brown eyes glistening with unshed moisture that was not exactly tears, per se, but a melancholic sadness, nonetheless. "Let him be. This was _his_ choice, Tonks. We could not force him to stay, you know that, love."

Tonks blinked owlishly at Lupin as confusion swam in her tear-filled, red-rimmed gray irises. She shook her head. "We—we have to _go_ , Remus. I can't just stay here—"

" _Yes, you can_ ," Remus demanded, the tiniest growls of frustration escaping his lips as he held onto her left hand and gave it a light but firm squeeze. "You're _pregnant_ , Dora, in case you've forgotten. Our—our baby is coming _tonight_. You're in _no_ condition to go anywhere _near_ Hogwarts tonight, and neither am I, sweetheart. _No_. We're staying right here. End of this discussion and I won't argue with you about this."

He spoke with a finality in his quiet, reserved tones that told Dora better than to argue, though her gray, almond-shaped eyes remained wide in confusion and horror.

"Wh—what are you _saying_?" she breathed, her voice faint. "That I just _let_ him?"

"Yes." Remus sighed painfully, bringing one of his hands to rest on her swollen stomach, the other pressing in gently against the back of her hair as he pulled her close. "Think of it for a moment, Dora. Would _you_ want to live if something happened to take away the only thing that made this world bearable? Tell me. If you were in his position, if…if something ever happened to _me_ , with no one else who cared or loved you as you were, would _you_ want to continue in a world that _hates_ you, _despises_ you, Dora?"

"Don't _say_ that!" Tonks protested, as gently as she could, gently pounding one of her fists against his shoulder in grief as tears poured down her cheeks.

Not hard enough to hurt Lupin, but enough to get her intended message across.

That she could not bear to hear such things coming from him.

"What about _me_ , Remus? Or _you_ , or _Charlie_? Is it not enough for Ollie to—to have friends like us in his life? He could _do_ that to us. To take his own life with _no_ regard for the pain he'd cause us is _despicable_ , Remus. Ollie _isn't_ hated or despised. Y—yes, he was a Slytherin, a—and Crouch abused him all those years, b—but he's getting _help_! He's getting _better_!" she cried, sniffling once as she cried. "He's got friends who love him, care for him. That—that should be _enough_!"

"But it _isn't_ enough. _We_ simply are not enough for him, Dora. He wants _more_ out of this life. Norah could have given that for him if she would have stayed, but she _didn't_ , Tonks. Like it or not, Ollie Brennan has only us in this world, and I do not believe we are enough for him anymore. It was _his_ choice to return to Hogwarts, not ours, Dora," Remus spoke up calmly, bothered by his wife's silent crying spell, loathe to see her shed tears, and knowing there was little else he could do to stop it.

Words would not come to him as he searched his wife's nervous face as she rose gingerly from their bed, moving to stand by the window to watch the storm raging war against the elements outside.

He needed no skills as a Legilimens to tell Tonks worried.

Tonks shook her head, ducking her head, not wanting to accept her husband's harsh but true words, as tears flowed down her cheeks, showing no signs of stopping.

The young witch did not want to admit it to herself, but she knew Rem was right.

As always. She had perhaps _foolishly_ believed that Ollie could move on from his torment, with their help and the help of a licensed counselor sent to his new flat in London, and with frequent home visits from Charlie, Bill, Mr., and Mrs. Weasley.

Anything to remind the man that he was loved. That he could live a normal life now that the Obscurus attached to his body and soul had been successfully removed.

Even one without Jameson by their side. He'd lived so much of his life following their graduation from Hogwarts imprisoned, within the walls of his abusive family home, and then later, unbeknownst to her, at the hands of Crouch in his dungeons.

And the one thing that had the potential to show him that not all was lost, was gone. Vanished.

Had fled from Hogwarts that night following her transformation without so much as a single word to either one of them where she was going.

According to Minister Scrimgeour, she had accepted the job at the Ministry and had never missed a day, but considering they worked in completely different departments, two floors down from each other and held varied schedules, Tonks had never seen if Norah had thrived in her new environment in polite society at work.

With Norah gone, not knowing if she was coming back anytime soon, and with Remus and Tonks about to move to Hogwarts in a few more months for the start of the school term, not to return to their cottage save for holidays and when school was out of term, Ollie would not know what to do with himself when it was just him by himself alone. He would never be the same. Ollie had no one else, not really. He was alone.

The fact remained that she and Remus were not enough for him anymore.

"Then, what do we do, Remus?" Tonks begged, pleading with her husband to provide an answer that she could understand. "Do we…do we just let him go, Rem?"

"He'll come _back_ , Dora," Lupin reassured, holding her tighter and stroking the back of her hair gently, providing as much support as he could, while also taking comfort in knowing that Tonks and their baby was safe, feeling, just for a moment, relieved that his wife who he loved more than anything, and their baby, whenever it decided to make its way into this world, was out of danger's way and safe in his arms.

Tonks parted her lips open slightly to speak, though before she could say whatever was on her mind, a pained grimace painted her pale features, twisting and contorting it, as yet another violent spasm, this one painful, wracked its way through her body.

She reached out to latch onto the small night table next to the bed for support and stumbled in the process, losing her balance and would have fallen to the ground had Lupin not shot out an arm to catch Tonks in the process, holding her in his arms until she could stand upright and steady herself. Almost sanguinely, Tonks lifted her head.

For a moment, there was nothing between them. Just them, and it was as if all the pains and hurts the two of them had experienced within that first year of knowing each other had never happened, though as soon as the unspoken moment passed between them had come, it was gone as they were reminded of the life they had created that was demanding to be born.

Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut and groaned as another pain threatened to consume her entire being.

Pulling herself back and out of Remus's ironclad grip, her jaw dropped open slightly in shock as her eyes traveled to the floor.

Furrowing his brows in a frown, Lupin followed Tonks's gaze downward and realized the cause of his wife's rapidly paling face and dismay. A large puddle of clear liquid was gathering at her feet. Her water had broken.

Their baby was coming soon. Tonight.

"Merlin's Beard, ugh, why _now_? Molly—Molly should—should be here with us, Rem," Tonks groaned tearfully, fear laced throughout her voice, her gray eyes showing the panic that her heart was so clearly beginning to feel as it pounded against her chest.

She waved her wand wordlessly, exhaling a tense sigh of relief as the mess at her feet vanished. "I—I'm sorry, Rem, I—I didn't mean to—" she started to say apologetically, but Lupin held up a hand and cut her off, shaking his head vehemently. "I'll...I won't push," she whispered through clenched teeth. "I'll make sure it doesn't come out. I can...I can wait until Molly or my mum gets here..." Tonks moaned, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Don't _apologize_ , Dora," he murmured lowly, whispering it into the shell of her ear, one hand firmly on her shoulders. "You have nothing to apologize or be ashamed for, sweetheart. This is natural, love. It's your body's natural reaction to what's happening. Try to stay _calm_ if you can, just breathe, deep breaths, nice and slow, Dora, that's it," he murmured, and unwilling to be patient any longer, he carefully steered Tonks towards their bed, feeling Tonks tensing in his grip as her body betrayed her.

As difficult as a choice it was for both of them to remain behind, waiting within the walls of their cottage for news from Hogwarts, of Harry, their family, and friends, they had no other choice.

Both of them knew there wasn't much time left. Dora's delivery was not going to wait for the Battle of Hogwarts to be over, for Molly to return to them and help them with the birth.

They would have to bring their baby into the world together, alone, and in their own home.


	99. Lightning Strikes

**A/N: Since this is a Norah chapter, and this character has a trash mouth (not that I regret writing her this way) slight warning ahead for some minor coarse language.**

* * *

**CHAPTER NINETY-NINE**

Norah did not bother to stifle her gasp of surprise at the devastation that lay in wait for her the second the soles of her black leather boots touched down on Hogwarts Grounds. The crumbling stone of the majestic castle lay ash-like on the ground, a speck of cold dust over every blade of grass and leaf. There it would stay until the wind carried it away and the threat of rain would come, if those storm clouds above her head were any indication, to wash every little thing clean.

Images of dead Hogwarts students, all sixth and seventh years, all of legal age and had been willing to lay down their lives to fight, had done just that. The students laid like lifeless dolls over the grass, the enchantments long since vanished, their limbs at awkward angles, their heads held in such a way they could not be sleeping. These bodies, once the repositories of people as alive as Norah currently was, were now abandoned shells left to rot in the open.

Dead was permanent, from which there was no coming back from unless you chose to exist after this life as a ghost, which Norah did not want for herself. Dead was forever. Dead was _better_. Dead was when the spark in the eyes became extinguished, yet unlike fires burning, was utter without smoke.

Though Norah had no time to mourn for these lives of these kids lost too soon, at the moment, the thick scent of melted paint and scorched wood and stone entered her nose. Her vision became blurred, hazy at the edges, as black spots danced in her vision, and smoke began to fill her lungs. She couldn't see it.

All she could hear was the sound of someone shouting at those few precious Hogwarts students who were still alive that had not evacuated, shouting at them to Disapparate (apparently the ban had been lifted) and go home—was it Snape?

"You… ...all… _leave_ …once… _now_ …go…exit...understand?"

It was him. There was no mistaking that droll baritone.

Briefly, Norah met Professor Snape's gaze, who startled, seemingly surprised to see her there, given their last initial encounter had not been exactly a pleasant one, though he was the first to recover, and reverted to the same manner of impossible telepathy that Ollie used in order to communicate quickly with her.

The young blonde werewolf tensed, feeling her entire body stiffen, and she fully prepared for the sallow-faced, raven-haired Potions Professor to raise his wand against her in anger for the savage, carnage she had made of his classroom that night in retaliation against what she had done to him—jinxing him to the point of causing him to lose consciousness, and then turning Umbridge like her.

Merlin only knew how many of the wizarding communities laws she had broken, and she had fully been expecting the job offer she had received from Minister Rufus Scrimgeour himself to be rescinded and taken to prison in chains. But it had not come. Severus murmured something under his breath, causing Norah to blink owlishly at the greasy-haired Professor, pulling herself out of her thoughts, which at this point in time, were irrelevant to her mission.

Norah gave a curt nod, closing her eyes as she listened to Severus's message.

Lord Voldemort was dead, Harry and the others alive, thank Merlin, no one that they knew was dead (yet), their bodies not recovered, as a search for anyone left alive was under commencement by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Professors Flitwick, Slughorn, and her own former Head of House, Professor McGonagall conducting the search, but the castle still remained under siege from what few straggling Death Eaters were left. Greyback, it was rumored, among them, and had attacked a young girl, Lavender Brown, and had killed her, though it was rumored he was still here.

That was all Norah could hear, and all she _needed_ to know, heading for the roof, as she sprinted into a run up the Grand Staircase, for a moment, she saw the flames burn with colors she never thought regular fire even capable of.

With each flare as the flames grew higher, she knew Hogwarts was on fire, and no amount of water from any Augamenti Charm would be enough to put it out. Norah was the only one who appeared to be heading to the roof of the castle, wheezing, coughing, and desperate for air as her vision threatened to leave her.

She couldn't afford to black out, not right bloody now.

Though before she could reach the door that led out onto the roof, near the Astronomy Tower, Norah thought, if she'd gone in the right direction, when she could no longer see where she was going, she collapsed to the floor before she could make it, thinking it wasn't fair she was dying of smoke inhalation, of all things.

If she were to die tonight, let her go out in the throes of battle, though Fate, this cruel bastard without a face, had a different idea in mind for her, as she suddenly felt a pain that wasn't sharp like needlepoint or a knife, and she felt it burn her insides like she was taking a shower in boiling hot, excruciating water.

Norah barely managed to make it to the roof, but when she did, she felt a piercing pain go down her leg. And when she looked down, all she saw was her leg burning. " _Fuck_ ," she growled through gritted teeth, hissing the curse word.

No amount of magic or salve from Madame Pomfrey would fix this…

For a moment, Norah could not remember why she had come to Hogwarts, and then, as if by witch's curse, as the fog lifted for a moment from her eyes, she remembered why. Because she did not want to see Ollie and explain her disappearance these last nine months. It was too painful for her to rehash memories she'd rather soon forget. She wanted but to bury them forever.

Norah had chickened out. She'd come to the edge of the woods that rested just behind the Lupins' cottage, intent on revealing herself to Tonks, Remus, though it was the kid she had truly come to see. She had promised Tonks…

And in the end, she could not do it. She'd lingered, meditating like Death, hidden behind the boughs of an old oak tree. She was petite enough she slipped behind it undetected, though her slightly pointed ears had perked up the moment she heard Ollie's voice cut through the tree line, dripping with anger.

_Anger, thet antagonized hurt, and…and…heartbreak_ , Norah thought, dejected.

She had not been able to reveal herself to either one of them, too afraid.

_Coward_ , she thought violently through gritted teeth, Disapparating the moment she got Professor Snape's message that Hogwarts was now threatened.

Norah, upon finally making it to the roof of the distinguished castle, marveled at the dismay and destruction that met her eyes below. Utter chaos.

Giants had lain waste to the courtyard, she swore dragons flew overheard, the thunderous flapping of their wings. She'd be surprised if Charlie Weasley weren't heading the attack, from what she'd known of the man from stories.

Hogwarts was ravaged, the courtyard below practically a skeleton, stripped of its flesh long ago by the devastation Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters caused.

The Grounds over the way were still burning, as was the edge of the Forest. The smoke-filled air intermingled with that of the fires burning caused the atmosphere to become blood-red. There was no shortage of blood that congealed and browned, Norah thought, her heightened wolfish senses on alert.

The very air that was forced into her lungs, albeit reluctantly, was pungent with the odor of the recently deceased, and no one could figure out how they had earned this one-way ticket to Hell, but if she was to die tonight, then she was going to take Greyback and any other Death Eater she could manage, with her.

Norah slowly opened her tired eyes, albeit with great difficulty, barely managing to limp her way to the edge of the Astronomy Tower, letting her legs dangle precariously over the edge, not giving a damn anymore if she fell off of.

The ravaged courtyard and hundreds of dead bodies littered on the Grounds below met Norah Jameson's wolfish sight, and Norah was forced to remind herself, there was nothing that she could do, and she was clouded now with this fucking disability.

Almost as if to remind her of the fact that she had been careless, the pain throbbed in her leg. " _Goddamn_ , Merlin's left nutsack, _fuck_ , _this_ _really_ _hurts_ ," she growled, whisper-hissing her words through clenched teeth, the edges of her lips pulling backwards as she let out a hiss of pain.

At least no one was up here to hear her curse, so she had that relatively small amount of comfort, at least. The pain throbbed in her leg, deep and warm, but not in that nice way that would eventually lead to numbing where, someone could cut it off and she wouldn't feel a damn thing, oh, no. This was _worse_.

It felt like someone had their hand-wound tightly around the nerves in her leg, which, by this point, thanks to the fire was blackened, almost charred.

When the sensation of that invisible hand squeezing onto the nerves, the tendons of her leg had waned, Norah could move closer to the edge of the ledge of the Astronomy Tower's roof. When it returns, she could only hold still and breathe, breathe deep and slow with a fool's prayer of hoping it went away.

If it weren't for the fact that she was waiting for Greyback to show his hairy, ugly _mug_ and confront her, then she would just…let herself slide right off this damned ledge, where the cloaked hooded figure of Death would greet her below once her broken, scorched body hit the cobblestones of the courtyard.

To allow Death to take her away into the next life would be a sweet relief from this pain. To see her son again. Her husband again. Waiting for her, but…

Norah had a feeling her wounds would not grant her even that courtesy. She moved a tired hand to rest on her multiple wounds, her burnt leg the worst of them, though the blood soaking through the side of her black shirt was more than enough cause for concern. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling…useless.

_Weak_. Norah's teeth bared, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing up at just the thought. A feeling she despised, something she swore she would never be again. Being a fully-fledged werewolf, a young woman alone in this world, left to fend for her own devices, up until this point now that the Anti-Werewolf Legislation Ban had been lifted by Minister Scrimgeour, Umbridge in her newly turned She-Wolf status taken inbound chains to Azkaban, where the old _bitch_ would _rot_ for the rest of her miserable, desolate existence, she was used to constantly looking after herself. Forced to take jobs well below her pay grade, not to mention her skill set, just to get by and buy food for the week.

She had always prided herself on her ability to push past pain and ignore it, to never show a semblance of any kind of weakness, but it was not possible now.

The pain of her burnt leg and the bleeding wound at her ribcage, though from what caused it, Norah did not know, threatened to engulf her entirely.

Merlin's left saggy buttock, what she wouldn't _give_ for an entire bottle of Fire Whiskey right now. Anything to numb the pain that spiraled through her.

She did not like sitting up here on the ledge of the Astronomy Tower, at the top of the world, helpless, immovable, and dependent on someone finding her.

Though there was a small part of her the only one she hoped to discover her here in this eerie place of solitude was Greyback. She wanted to kill him before she allowed herself to succumb to her wounds and sink into an eternal sleep.

But Merlin's Beard…how had her life come to this?! To succumb to her wounds, a vicious burn mark on her leg, the bleeding wound seeping the essence of her very life force out of her and staining her shirt and precious leather jacket?! And she had not even had the opportunity to take him down.

As visions of Greyback's face flitted in front of her mind, she let out an animalistic, wolfish growl. Norah let out a tired sigh and stared down and out, past the ruined courtyard, past the broken and mangled bodies of the students.

And into the fires that ravaged what remained of the Forbidden Forest. The flame has no culture, no pity, no mind, yet it consumes whatever it pleases.

Its only criteria are if it can take it and reduce it to ash or something molten and foul, then it will. The flames burned hot, short, and violent, with no care what will be left behind. So, when Norah stared, it was not fire she saw, though the hot tear-drop dances yellow in the cold April breeze, Norah saw Greyback.

She felt him. Norah felt his presence here. He was close now. She recalled how the wolf torched his insides until they charred before disappearing with her humanity intact the night of her Turning when she was a little girl.

Norah wanted, no, she _needed_ for Fenrir to suffer for his crimes….

For what he had done to her, he had taken away her humanity with one swift bite, taking a chunk of her neck and collarbone along with him, then.

If she hadn't, maybe, then maybe, she could have entertained a future with Ollie, and— _No_. Her conscience piped up, rather violently at that, bedsides.

Norah forced her mind to grind to a halt. She would not— _could_ not—think of him. She had said goodbye to Ollie Brennan (though not in so many words) the night of Umbridge's turning, when the two of them were arguing with Severus.

The moment Ollie had left to check on Tonks and she had stepped inside Snape's Potions classroom and closed the door; she had effectively forced that chapter of her life to come to an end. It had all been a blissful dream, really.

A dream that had been forced to come to an end the morning after she had woken up in the throes of the Forbidden Forest, dazed, though fully coherent.

She had taken sick delight in ending Umbridge's life as the old hag had known it, never knowing herself to be a savage She-Wolf until that moment.

Tasting the bitch's blood, sweet like mo on her fangs, relishing her Turning.

And she had _enjoyed_ it. _Wished_ for it for _years_ , so long that it became a desire. She could not— _would_ not—subject Ollie or Tonks to that danger. _No_.

Norah had sworn to herself to leave the kid and Lupin and Tonks, her new friends, in her past that day that she had disappeared into the Forbidden Forest.

As practical as Norah prided herself on being, there were times when the pain of the life that she _could_ have had, had Greyback not bitten her, would seep to the surface from where she had attempted to bury it deep within the confines of her heart, the deep recesses of her mind, rendering her breathless.

Right now, was one of those times. She had slept so little and had woken up late, which was why she had Apparated so late to Tonks's delayed baby shower.

Norah was increasingly finding the darkness to be an unwelcome, heavy burden in her life, as she struggled in vain to keep thoughts of Ollie, Tonks, and Remus from her mind, and ultimately failing. How she had disappointed them.

But it was better this way, for what sane human would befriend a monster? Norah had lain awake in her bed in her new flat in London, a rented tumbledown place, ultimately the last place any of them would look for her.

It proved to be a difficult feat, just to force her chest to rise and fall, how sucking in the night air in her cold, empty bedroom pushed against the forming lump in her throat and filled the void hole deep within her chest. Ollie's absence, though she realized she had been holding onto a truly fruitless dream.

Norah furrowed her brows in a frown, recollecting how hours ago, she willed her mind to think of nothing as she paced barefoot against her bedroom's hardwood floor, the wood cold against her bruised and battered peaky skin.

She clung to the small shreds of dignity and sanity he had taken with him the moment he had turned his back on her, leaving Norah to watch as his black woolen robes billowed behind him as he had chosen to leave her, to see Tonks.

Her white-boned fists clenched tightly into balls at her side against her raging anger, her chest heaving, frantic for any semblance of quiet serenity.

But it had not come to her, and so it was that Norah was forced to spend another long dark chasm of a sleepless night, fighting against her nightmares.

All to keep herself from sinking into a horrible, fatigued, anguished misery, though her life was already gone to shit now that she had pushed Ollie away.

_It's for his own good_ , she thought bitterly, grinding her teeth in annoyance, though it did not stop her from becoming racked with the memory of his smile.

And all that was left in place of her worthless heart was a hollow empty pit. At times, she wished for nothing more than to plunge her own fist into her chest and pull out the damned offending, stubborn corded muscle resting inside.

If this was what it meant to care for someone following her husband and son's death, then she did not want it. Could not allow herself to feel this unimaginable thing which had been building up inside of her for weeks on end.

Her very hands tingled, mocking her, burning as they recollected against her mind's will to make them forget how the pads of his fingertips left hot sparks.

How it felt like that night he had more or less forced her to dance at Lupin and Tonks's wedding, how the Forest clearing had melted away until it was just them. _Just them_. The thought startled the young blonde werewolf. She sighed.

Norah growled in frustration, reaching up with a shaking hand and wiped at her eyes with the back of the sleeve of her now-ruined black leather jacket. She battled against the tears that had stung at her eyes. Norah had cried enough.

At last, sleep had succumbed, though it had not lasted long. As usual. She had dreamed of Ollie, his bright blue twinkling eyes, and his kind white smile.

She saw the depths of his crystalline blue orbs in her sleep, haunting her. He had not exactly taken her departure well, nor had Norah really expected him to. The letters addressed to her from Brennan following her abandonment of the group the day after Umbridge's mauling had been every few days since.

The young blonde werewolf was sure, yes, she was _sure_ , that Ollie wrote to her daily but only sent half of them via owl post, the ones he thought were more eloquent and better put. She knew this because he'd _said_ as much in his last letter. Norah had naively believed that she could cut Ollie away, that he would stay put wherever he lived in London and never to bother her again.

Of course, she should have bloody known better. The letters persisted, and soon it was not just letters that he sent, but money as well. Galleons, enough to cover the cost of affording her own cottage in the countryside if she no longer wished to rent out a flat in downtown London, money that he explained, would help her to start a new life away from the Forest, settle down somewhere quiet, forget about things that she was not too proud of.

And that was when Norah began to grow incredibly angry. Ollie would simply not leave her alone in peace. He was pestering her to come back on purpose. A sign that he still remained utterly ignorant or deaf that night that she had explained to him, that whatever he felt for her, he was bloody _confused_ , and was _not_ thinking straight.

That if he knew her, really, truly knew her, outside of what she was like of the Forest, outside of those special 'times of the month,' then he wouldn't even want to be her friend, much less take a romantic interest in her. She knew this.

He had not wanted to accept it, and they had almost argued because of it.

Norah cringed as she thought of that particular unpleasant conversation, how her sadness turned into anger. She had borne her soul to him, and he to her, had gone against everything that she once believed to be true. That no one could—or _should_ —love a _monster_ like her.

There was no denying what she was. A werewolf, a _beast_ , a wretched creature of the shadows, a _cursed_ _witch_.

Still. His letters to her via owl post were bloody relentless, and despite Norah continuing to send the letters and the money-back unopened, their wax seals unbroken, still, he kept sending that poor barn owl of his, with new letters, letters she began to send back unopened, and every time she sent that poor, exhausted owl back after giving him an owl treat for his troubles, it felt like a thorn was being twisted into her heart, churning, piercing and agonizing hurt.

Despite the pain, she felt whenever she thought of their last conversation, how the kid had practically begged her to come upstairs with him and check on Tonks, to quit arguing with his old Head of House to demand Snape let her in to see Umbridge, she could no longer deny the raw determination and clarity she'd seen in his eyes. Ollie Brennan was different whenever around her, with an eerie sense of inner calm that she herself usually possessed on a good day, but found it slipped away whenever she was in his presence. He had spoken to her of torment.

Well. Now _he_ was _hers_. She spent most of her days alone.

Though her mind lingered over the last time she had laid eyes on the kid while she was still cognizant, before allowing the She-Wolf within her to take total, utter control. In that moment, just before Ollie had left to go upstairs to the Hospital Wing to check on Tonks and see how her condition was progressing, she had seen it in the man's brilliant blue eyes, that he felt the same way that she did.

The kid had taken to looking at her as though nothing else existed in this world, the exact same way that her Wes had used to look at her back then…

Norah knew it was blind and bloody foolish to resent or ignore it any longer, that 'something' was happening between them. She felt it when the two of them danced at Tonks and Remus's wedding in the Forbidden Forest.

Though just because she felt it, did not mean she could allow this to happen.

She knew what would happen if she did. Norah knew she was too old for him; he was four years younger than she was. The kid was only twenty-six years old, she thirty. He deserved someone closer to his age who would give him a good life. One where Brennan did not constantly have to live in fear of being bitten.

One where whomever he chose to date wouldn't get odd, fearful looks in the streets of London whenever she walked down the street, pointing in hushed, antagonizing whispers at the scars upon her neck and her collarbone.

Almost as a reflective instinct by this point, she felt the pads of her fingertip drift up to her neck. Two long jagged scars snaked down the right side of her neck. It was an unusual looking scar, an odd mixture of bright white and light pink. The skin around the scar was also slightly discolored, suggesting that it did not heal properly. Norah slowly unclenched one of her hands from resting at her sides and lightly brushed it down the scar, tracing the jagged line slowly with the tips of her fingers. Norah sighed and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

It's been years since she had gotten the scar, but Norah was still unable to look at it for longer than a minute. She hung her head, shame washing over her. Try as she might, she could not undo the images that were embedded thickly in her troubled mind.

Visions of Greyback, the Wolf who'd turned her when she was only six years old and nowhere near old enough to understand, flitted through her mind. She had heard whispers of other Wolves in the Forest within the last few weeks leading up to this moment that he had gotten out.

The Wolf had escaped from Azkaban Prison during a mass breakout and was here. Her nostrils flared like that of a raging bull's. She could smell him. He was here, all right, but where…? Norah let out a growl of utter frustration and rage.

She had come here on a mission, kill Greyback and end his vicious, savage attacks on innocent young children, but thoughts of Ollie were _distracting_ her.

Her knuckles went white at just the _concept_ of the kid dating another woman, someone _normal_ , and she clutched onto the wall on the topmost level of Hogwarts for support, as waves of jealousy practically rocked her to her core, though she shook her head to clear it, grinding her teeth in annoyance, and pressed on, heading for the roof to see what defenses she could provide. No one else, except for Greyback, to the best of her ability, knew that she was here, and it _stayed_ that way.

Norah let out a strangled scream that she quickly shoved her bruised and broken knuckles into her mouth to stifle it, feeling the blood well within her throat from the tongue she had just bitten through in a vain attempt to keep quiet, though she knew as the footsteps drew closer, she'd been found out.

Though as her pointed ears perked up at the footfalls, much too light to belong to Fenrir Greyback, Norah's brows furrowed in a slight, angered frown.

She tilted her head just over her shoulder, though she made no move to get up from her precarious position seated at the ledge of the Astronomy Tower.

Norah let out a tired sigh, raking her hands through her short blonde pixie, anticipating the arrival of whoever had thought to bloody come look for her.

Her cobalt blue eyes widened in shock and horror as the door to the tower that led out here onto the roof flung wide open, the oak door rattling in its rusted hinges, and there stood Ollie, his own blue eyes wide, but in anger, not of shock and horror as Norah's were.

His lips were pursed into such a thin line, his pale face ashen, pulled taut with rage, that at first, Norah thought it was the young man's intent to hex her.

She wouldn't have blamed him if he had. She'd be the first to admit she deserved it. Norah emanated a tense exhale through her flaring nostrils and relinquished her grip on her wand, letting the weapon rest idly near her thigh.

Norah swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat. "I…er…I didn't know that you would…be here," she finished lamely, feeling an incredible heat creep to her cheeks, setting her entire face aflame with shame.

Ollie said nothing at first, which only intensified the embarrassment she felt.

The former Slytherin and Obscurus who had, by means foreign to her, had managed to find a way to sneak underneath her skin and make it crawl, though not in an unpleasant way. Norah felt certain she had to be bloody dreaming.

_Maybe I've died_. This was bloody it, wasn't it? She had died from blood loss on top of the roof of the Astronomy Tower, her burnt, charred leg infected, and Ollie, Merlin bless this man, had come to escort her to that sweet place of relief in the afterlife where there was no pain, no suffering, no torment.

There was nowhere to hide from Ollie Brennan, and Norah flinched as the ashes from the raging fire of the Hogwarts Grounds fell like snowflakes on her shoulder. She winced, her nose tickling as it fought back a sneeze, and the urge to cough overcame her lungs, though she forced itself back as she gaped openly.

It was the first time she had seen Ollie in nine months, yet it might as well have been an eternity. While she stood there in a disheveled state on the brink of death, for she had lost any interest in keeping up her appearances, he stood now merely a footfall's pace away from him, looking even more well put together than he had at Remus and Tonks's wedding, his black robes pristine.

He stood in front of her, his black boots spotless and glinting in the dim light, as he knelt into a crouch and shrugged off his robes, revealing the thick black woolen sweater underneath. She almost snorted at that little revelation.

Brennan and Remus Lupin were more like than they knew. Both quiet men, both preferring sweaters, given how slender they both were. Easily susceptible to the discomforts the colder elements of this harsh world provided.

"You're _hurt_ ," Ollie growled, his voice rougher, coarser, more subdued than before as his widened eyes took the insight of the horrific sight that was her leg, and the wound still seeping crimson blood from her right upper ribcage.

He stretched his rough, calloused hand and touched her burned leg, eliciting a hiss of pain from Norah as she jerked away from his touch. His hand was cold.

"You look terrible," Ollie merely grunted by way of response, without a light jest in his eyes, which gave Norah pause for concern. She stared at his hand, which was shaking slightly, causing her to flex her fingers in response.

"It doesn't matter," Norah growled, pursing her lips into a thin line, her eyebrows quirking in quandary as she felt her pale features furrow in a frown.

Something was _off_.

He was not ranting at her, not screaming at her as she had fully expected, judging by the harsh way he had spoken to Remus and Tonks earlier when she'd lain in wait at the edge of the woods behind their cottage. His sky-blue eyes held a certain fire that Norah had, for the first time, saw within the young man's eyes. His black hair was disheveled and wild.

"Lightning struck, in case you haven't already heard," Norah murmured, allowing a dark little chuckle to escape her lips as she slowly swiveled her head away from Ollie Brennan's piercing gaze. Unable to resist, she glanced at the dark-haired young man out of the corner of her eyes, snorting, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the look of confusion he shot her. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb. "Harry did it. He killed Voldemort."

Norah was not exactly sure what she had been expecting, but for Ollie to kneel into a crouch at her side, and to cup her chin in his strong hand was not what she anticipated, and as a consequence, was not at all sure how to react.

Norah felt her heart skip a beat, beads of sweat beginning to form on her brow bone, all while watching the smoldering, fathomless rage in her friend's darkened cerulean blue orbs, his face drawing closer, tilting slightly as if he meant to…to…

Though before he could, Norah pulled back, raised a hand, and placed two dainty but shaking fingers on Ollie Brennan's lips. The other stopped and looked at the light blue eyes currently clouded with a haze and a fiery spark.

"You know it's _illegal_ to embody the form of another, _Greyback_ ," Norah barked in a low sigh, looking straight into the questioning blue eyes before her. Norah continued, seeing Brennan's face drain in shock, mouth hung slack. "You're such a bad impersonator, _werewolf_ ," she spat poisonously. She pointed to her own right eyebrow and smirked at the man. "You forgot his scar, just here."

The harsh retort of her words, Norah was pleased to see, had the desired effect, and she watched as the man blanched and bolted upright to his feet.

Polyjuice Potion never lasted long at all, and as the man's skin bubbled underneath the surface, Norah was not at all surprised to see the towering figure of Fenrir Greyback now looming over her, near the edge of the Tower.

She heard the werewolf let out a snort. "Just to let you know, Jameson," he barked in a low, wolfish growl. "My body has not changed. Your eyes deceive you, She-Wolf. Take a look again for yourself. See me as I truly am, wolf."

Norah's blue eyes flung wide open upon hearing the familiar baritone voice of her former Alpha.

Her eyes fixed upon this imposter, this intruder, looking at her with that all-too-familiar spark of flame she had always felt whenever she got a glimpse of another werewolf that sparked her interest, though, with Fenrir, it was different. Her only interest lay in killing this man, this child murderer.

Norah felt her cracked lips part open slightly to speak, feeling a wavering in her vision, and she would have fallen off the ledge of the Astronomy Tower at that moment had she not shot out an arm to catch herself, but she didn't whine.

She was not about to give Greyback satisfaction. Norah shakily rose to her feet, gritting her teeth with the effort to remain silent to keep crying out.

Her burnt leg throbbed, sending fiery swells of pain up and down her spine. She turned her head to cough as Greyback's curled claws wound around her throat. "Can you feel it now?" he growled. "The same suffocation you give me, you little _bitch_ ," Fenrir snarled. He had longed for this day, ached for it, even.

Much as the other, Remus Lupin had denied joining his encampments, stung, somehow, this blonde She-Wolf's rejection of his generous offer hurt worse. Yet no matter how much Greyback wanted Norah Jameson to suffer, the only response he received from the blonde She-Wolf was utter silence.

_Silence_. Fenrir growled with the effort to restrain himself from driving his claws through her heart. He wanted this one to _suffer_. To die slowly as possible.

" _Scream_ ," he breathed. "Whine like the wolf that you are, Jameson. Call for help."

And yet, she did neither of those things, causing his eyebrows to come together in frustration. Fenrir Greyback never averted his gaze from Jameson.

He felt weakened somehow, by the blonde bitch's impassive expression. There was no fear in her dimming blue eyes, no desperation, just a numb acceptance of whatever fate Greyback had in mind for his newest little prize.

No plea on her face, and instead, he was the one who began to feel nervous, and his troubled mind over the Dark Lord's defeat began to churn and reel.

He lifted her up slightly by the neck. "I could kill you. _If_ I _wanted_. Can you not _realize_ that, _bitch_?" Greyback bellowed, his angry words piercing the air.

By way of response, Norah merely proceeded to glower at him coldly, all the while lifting an arm to his in the effort to pry his claws off of her throat.

" _You are dying_!" Greyback seized fistfuls of the young blonde's leather jacket and shook her slightly as he screamed and raged at her, his angry tones worsening. "How…can you…be…so… **CALM**?!" Fenrir roared, losing the last remnants of his patience and composure as he fixed her with an icy stare as he ranted and yelled at Norah.

"Let…go…" Norah gasped, arching her spine, trying to shove him hard against his burly chest. Her face felt hot, pinpricks of needles across her cheeks.

Suddenly, Norah did not want to look Greyback in the eyes. She had failed. She'd set out to kill this bastard, and she could not even accomplish that in life.

A sudden sound rent the otherwise silent night atmosphere around them, save for Greyback's savage snarls and vicious grunts as he seethed, glaring at her.

Norah heard what sounded like the door banging open again on its hinges, and a muffled yell from someone, though she did not recognize the speaker.

"They're watching…" Norah managed to choke out hoarsely, and she froze, her prying, grasping fingers ceasing their movements to pull his hand off the column of her throat as he slowly strangled Norah as she heard him chuckle.

This was _not_ good. It was always a bad sign to hear her old Alpha laugh.

Though before Norah's cracked and parted lips could manage a pitiful mewling for help, she swore she saw a familiar tuft of wild black hair behind Greyback, a look of outrage intermingled with that of unbridled fear, shimmering as glistening moisture in blue eyes. Her eyes widened. It was Ollie.

At that single moment, however, before Ollie could so much as raise his wand in his hand a fraction of an inch higher, Greyback loosened his grip on the column of her throat, and moved with her in tow, stepping up on the ledge, and Norah was awakened from her dazed and hazy stupor, coughing.

"What a pleasant surprise. Look, _bitch_ ," Greyback growled. "Your little _plaything_ came to save you. We wouldn't want to ruin the _surprise_ , yes?"

She let out a pained, choking gasp from where it had rested over top his hands while trying to pry his hand off of her throat, their noses almost touching. " _What the hell do you think you're_ _doing_?" Norah whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, wincing, ignoring Ollie's muffled shouting from behind them.

Norah felt Fenrir smile, and she did not bother to repress the chill of fear that traveled down her spine, her skin crawling as he leaned in to whisper his next statement into the shell of her ear, his voice dangerously low and somber.

"Making it worth the _show_ , She-Wolf."

And with that final statement, Norah felt his ironclad grip around her arm loosen as he threw her over the ledge of the Astronomy Tower and into the fires that wrecked the courtyard of Hogwarts below.

* * *

**A/N: I really might be a fan of these darn cliffhangers. Poor Norah! It was originally going to be Ollie that I chucked off the Tower roof, but I put that man through enough physical torment as it was, I switched it to Norah at the last minute.**

**I thought it would be kind of neat to do a parallel to Remus and Tonks's relationship, taking Lupin's stance of 'I'm too old, too poor,' etc. and giving that particular argument to Norah and Ollie, with the roles reversed.**

**Norah sees herself as unclean, unworthy, given her hard life of what happened to her poor husband and son in her other life, and Ollie, Merlin bless this minor character who I've come to love over the course of several chapters, just wants her back, and he might find he might have to go to hell and back if that's what it takes to keep her around a little while longer.**

**I wasn't going to originally pair them together but decided they might* be a cute couple and a chance at some small semblance of happiness and peace. Both have immensely tragic lives, Ollie coming from an abusive family and home life, and then suffering all those years under Barty Crouch Jr.'s hand, and Norah with losing her family to Umbridge, and forced to live in the Forbidden Forest in exile for all of her adult life.**

**Things are looking bleak for my favorite blonde werewolf and dark-haired, blue-eyed Legillimens, but will they be able to pull out of this? Coming up! The next chapter checks in on our favorite werewolf and Auror as they continue to struggle to bring their new baby into the world.**

**Stay tuned!**


	100. Teddy Remus Lupin

**A/N: So, it looked really weird when I wrote out the chapters and typed it out like 'Chapter One-Hundred', so formatting wise, I'm just doing it this way going forward. Not that it matters, but anyway.**

**On with the show!**

* * *

**100**

Remus, for whatever reason as Tonks's labor progressed, could not seem to stop the memories of the time he'd tried to leave her, shortly after she had kissed him following telling him the nature behind her Boggart's unusual form, from flitting through his mind. He had closed his heart and mind, fighting with his heart to accept that by leaving her as he attempted to do, it was better that way.

He was much too poor for Tonks, too dangerous, not quite 'whole,' enough. He had forced himself to believe that, and he was glad he'd been proven wrong, and that it had taken Molly, Arthur, Severus, Sirius, and finally Dora herself to make him see what a blind and bloody utter fool he had been.

It was that memory of his time alone following their first kiss, and the knowledge of how badly he had hurt Tonks that wounded him the most, cut him more deeply than any Dark magic or curse ever could be dealt him, then.

It was the only peace at the time that Remus had been able to find in his otherwise desolate existence, knowing that by leaving, he was protecting her.

Remus had tried to hurt Tonks, wanting Dora to hate him for what he had done to her, that she would stay well away from a monster, a beast, as him.

It had been the _only_ way to ensure her safety, and Tonks, never one to abide by what others told her to do, had not listened to Remus's pleas to go.

He was grateful, in the end, that she had not abided by his wishes to leave him in his miserable and desolate solitude, allowing a more pleasant memory to flit through the confines of his mind.

That night they had spent up on the roof, and Tonks was nervous over her first time keeping a night watch, and Remus had done what he could for his partner to assuage her fears by telling her the story of the first time he had kept watch, and had gotten so startled by his own owl flying right at him that he'd screamed bloody murder and woken them all.

That was the night that everything changed. How she had looked upon his scars with no fear in those glistening gray orbs of hers, no disgust at his scars, which were truly grotesque upon first glance, that even Muggle women shirked away from him in the streets of London, most afraid of him, some pitying him.

How she had taken hold of his hand and given it a small squeeze, and the very touch of her palm against his still burned, tingling, numb with the memory. Remus hoped it never left him. He would keep it always if he could.

Their first kiss following her telling him the true form of her Boggart…

Lupin blinked, forced out of the steady stream of memories as another shrill cry of pain rent their bedroom. Poor Dora was in utter agony, and nothing he could say or do was going to quell it for her, as much as he wished he could.

This was _torturous_ for her, as an Auror, a witch who prided herself on her ability to push past through pains and get through it, but there was no magic, no spell, that would aid a young witch in pregnancy, much like in death.

Tonks's body was ravaged by the intense pains that were coming in more frequent spurts now, faster, lasting even longer, twisting, and warping her insides harder with each passing second, they turned into agonizing minutes. She rested her head heavily against the crook of his shoulder, her breaths escaping from her panicked lungs in uncontrollable gasps and tortured moans.

The pain-filled whimpers that sounded truly pitiful as they escaped her throat had increased in volume, which hurt his wolfish sense of hearing, though Remus was not about to complain. It was nothing compared to what she felt.

At the very least, the two of them would have privacy, given it was just them alone in their home, though a stinging reality hit him like a Knockback Jinx, that their baby would enter into this world welcomed by the chill of the cold April weather outside as the thunderstorm raged war against the elements.

Poor Tonks was in agony. It was torturous for her, and he did not know what to do for her to help ease the pains of her contractions and her suffering. His wife had long since abandoned the firm belief that, as an Auror, she could cope with her pains and she did not need anything from Remus in return. She was now resting her head heavily against the crook of his shoulder.

Her body wracked and ravaged against the intense pains which came faster, longer, and twisting her stomach with each second as they dragged into minutes. Tonks's breath erupted from her lungs in uncontrollable gasps. The whines filled with pain that escaped her throat were slowly becoming louder until her guttural groans drowned out even the loud claps of thunder outside.

"I—I'm sorry," Tonks whispered faintly, squeezing her eyes shut, one hand over her swollen stomach. "I—I don't mean to be so loud, Remus." She panted regretfully, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as she ducked her head in shame, her shoulders heaving, her bottom lip bleeding from her biting down on it so hard in the effort to keep from crying out in pain.

"No." Lupin flinched as he realized how forceful his voice sounded. "You don't apologize, Dora," he reassured her, reaching over, and laying his left hand over top hers, giving it a firm but reassuring squeeze. "It's just you and me. There's no one else here, love. Scream as loud as you need to if it helps, Dora."

Remus couldn't be sure, but he swore he felt her smile weakly against his shoulder as a muscle in her jaw twitched, but he wasn't certain, though it did make him feel a little about the precarious position he had placed her in.

But only for a moment, though it was soon gone as another contraction came. "Merlin's Beard…" she moaned, sounding on the brink of fresh tears desperately, and Lupin shifted, turning around in time to see her fingers spasming in a panic, trying to calm the tremors in her abdomen by drawing circles. "You—" she started to say but was interrupted by a light chittering.

Both Remus and Tonks swiveled their heads in the direction of the interruption and were this any other circumstance, Remus might have laughed.

However, laughing was the last thing he felt like doing right now, though the scene before them was a most unusual one.

Ptelea, Merlin bless this tiny little Bowtruckle, was perched on top of their dresser, his nap interrupted at hearing his owner's groans and moaning of pain, his tiny beady eyes narrowed.

Remus watched, the corners of his mouth twitching back the ghost of a smile as the little green Bowtruckle hopped off their dresser, albeit with some difficulty, scrambling up onto the mattress, and into Tonks's outstretched hand.

Though not before turning towards Remus and blowing a well-deserved raspberry, which even Lupin did not dispute he had especially earned that one.

It seemed to take Tonks an eternity to find her voice.

"I—I will need to—to lie down soon," she whispered, and Remus flinched at hearing the fear in her voice, though he would be lying to himself if he did not admit his own nervousness. He had battled all manner of Dark Creatures. Grindylows, kappas, water demons, Dementors, Death Eaters, but had never delivered a baby before.

The prospect of having to do it on his own without someone like Molly or even Dora's mother around to help with the birth terrified him more than any creature he was ever sure to come across.

He watched as Ptelea squeaked again. The leaves on top of Ptelea's head drooped slightly as another spasm wracked Tonks's form, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, throwing her head back to the ceiling. The Bowtruckle did what he could to comfort his owner by using one of the leaves on top of its head to faintly stroke her cheek.

She was beginning to feel the pressure of their baby moving down in her hips. Remus furrowed his brows. "I know," he answered, hearing the intensity in his quiet tone, which shook slightly as the words tumbled out of his mouth.

He swore he heard Tonks snort when Remus reached out a hand to lay over top of hers, only for Ptelea to immediately come to his owner's defense and hop on top of her lap, smacking Remus's away with its tiny, twig-like arms.

The Bowtruckle's beady, black eyes narrowed in suspicion as it blew a raspberry, and it continued this annoying behavior until his eyes were mere slits.

Lupin allowed a dark little chuckle of bemusement to escape his lips, despite the immense worry that was working its way through his mind right now. "I think he's mad at me, Dora, don't you think?" Lupin joked weakly.

Tonks could only manage a small smile, though as another contraction took over, it turned into a pained grimace, and Remus flinched at hearing her.

 _Merlin's Beard, but she deserves better than me_ , his soul screamed, and the crushing guilt at what he had done to his wife came back to haunt him again.

They should have…they should have been more careful! For a moment, Remus felt Tonks relax slightly in his arms as he sat with her on the edge of their bed. She let out a tiny relieved sigh through her pursed sigh, resting her head against the crook of his shoulder.

"Y—you're going to be _fine_ , Dora," he murmured, whispering it into the shell of his ear. "You're tough. Tougher than anybody gives you credit for," he soothed, rubbing small circles into the small of her back near her spine, though it did not mask the worry in his quiet voice.

Ptelea, from his perch on top of Tonks's head, as he nestled underneath his favorite lock of his owner's light ash brown hair to burrow, blew a raspberry, as if to tell Remus, " _No, she's not going to be fine, you moron! This is your fault_!" Remus moved his lips into a fake little smile at his wife's pet Bowtruckle's ornery antics towards him, and shot the same prayer up to Merlin in the heavens above and James and Lily, whoever else was listening, his mother, he hoped, that his wife was going to be all right. Please let her live.

This was the first incident that he knew of where a human female had ever dared to date and marry a werewolf, though he knew Norah had married a werewolf-like her and their child had not been born with lycanthropic features.

He could only pray their child would be blessed not to share any of his condition. He hoped their child would be a Metamorphmagus like its mother.

Oh, Merlin's Beard, but how had this _happened_? Of course, he knew _how_ it happened, and when.

Sirius's prominent use of inappropriate terms made bloody sure that even Harry knew about that, and Remus did not like to admit this of James's son, but James's son was rather thick-headed at the _best_ of times.

As the minutes dragged into going on two hours, though Molly had reassured Remus this sort of case was not isolated to just the two of them, some of his original worries about Tonks's pregnancy began to resurface. Would Tonks and the baby be all right?

They had never exactly _planned_ this, after all. It just sort of… _happened_. They knew the likeliness of the child being born with Remus's pain-inducing features, his lycanthropy. It had just…happened, really.

Lupin remembered how excited he had been going with Mrs. Weasley and Tonks to Diagon Alley, picking out a crib and toys and clothes for their child.

How everything following Umbridge's arrest and the rest of Tonks's pregnancy had seemed so perfect. Tonks had almost no further problems, until now. He had not thought ahead to this part. Blearily, Remus lifted his chin and noticed his reflection in the mirror hung up across the way of their bedroom.

Furrowing his brows into a frown, Lupin ran a hand through his thick tuft of light brown hair, noticing another gray hair that he could have sworn had not been there this morning. Ah, but Merlin's Beard, what had he _done_ to her?

Remus was jolted out of his inner torment as Tonks's momentary respite of calm did not last long, and her contractions returned in full force, harder.

The aching in her body was growing more urgent as the minutes passed. He did not know what to do. Molly or Mrs. Tonks should be here, and neither of them were. He—he was not a Healer of St. Mungo's or a Muggle doctor!

Tonks's loud, agonizing wail pierced the otherwise relative calm of their bedroom, and Remus felt his panic return full force.

"I'll—I'll go fetch you another blanket, love," he murmured, his heart frantic, pounding against his chest. "Here," he urged, as Tonks practically crumpled into Lupin's grasp, any resistance that she had been fighting to keep their child inside now vanished.

As gingerly as he could, he nestled the woman that he loved protectively in his arms as he bade her sit, firmly but gently, onto the bed. She was ready to give birth to their child and nothing was going to stop it. He had to help her.

 _Blankets, we're going to need more blankets for this_ , he thought wildly. Remus bolted upright from his seat on the edge of their bed, wand gripped firmly in his hand as he began heading for the door, though not before chancing another glance over his shoulder and looking at poor Tonks, who was doubled over, her hand resting on her rounded, swollen stomach, in excruciating pain.

"Hurry," she pleaded, a flicker of something unreadable daring through her light gray eyes. Was it nervousness? Trepidation? Fear that he would leave?

Whatever was going through Dora's mind, Remus did not have time to ponder it as he offered his wife a curt little nod of agreement and ran out of the doorway and done the hall of the second floor of their small tumbledown home.

Admittedly, since Tonks had moved in, it was becoming warmer, her presence felt within the very walls of his house. Decorations added here and there, she had migrated the furniture from her old flat into their living room.

This was perhaps the first time his house that he had lived in since he was twenty-six, felt truly like a home, now that Tonks was in his life, and their baby…oh, their baby! Lupin blinked, pulling his mind out of his wandering thoughts and shook his head to clear it, cursing himself for his foolishness, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he strode to the end of the hallway, near the bathroom and wrenched open the spare closet door, grabbing any blanket or towel he could find.

They would at least have something clean to wrap their baby in—

 ** _ARE YOU A WIZARD OR AREN'T YOU, MOONY?!_** James's voice erupted from the dark recesses of his mind, so audibly loud that Remus swore under his breath and almost dropped the blanket he held.

" _What_?" Remus barked sharply, not even caring if Tonks heard through the open door of their bedroom as another shrill cry of pain coming from within prompted another surge of adrenaline and a prick of terror at his heartstrings.

 _For the love of Merlin's left saggy—use your wand, Remus_! James barked, sounding highly impatient with his best friend. _You're in such a state, you're running around like a bloody Muggle! Your baby is coming now. Go help her_!

Remus let out a low growl of frustration, and James made a noise that sounded like a sniff of disapproval, though his hardened voice quieted down. Begrudgingly, he glanced down at his wand in his hand, which was trembling so badly, he was honestly surprised he hadn't dropped it already.

Murmuring a dark curse to James under his breath that Tonks would have stared at him for if he would have said it loud enough for his wife to hear, he waved his wand and conjured another pile of woolen folded old blankets.

By the time Remus got back to their bedroom, he found his poor suffering wife in the midst of another contraction.

She had gotten up from her perch on the bed and was pacing the hardwood floor, back and forth, clutching her stomach with one hand, supporting her arching back with the other, groaning.

Tonks was trying to breathe slowly and calmly through the pains and failing. Remus cringed, hating himself for heaving to leave her alone even for a few seconds, and he set the pile of blankets down near their bed, going to her. Remus wanted so badly to bottle up the pain she felt and keep it for himself, hating that he was little more than a bystander at this moment.

This was ultimately her work. He could do nothing but offer encouraging words of support. "Are…are you all right, Dora?" Lupin asked, feeling helpless.

"No, Rem, I am _not_ all right," Tonks shot back vehemently through gritted teeth as her head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard her husband. " _I am having our baby_ ," she hissed, stifling a groan in her throat, eyeing Remus.

Lupin cringed, lowering his head in shame, feeling like he was solely the one to blame for her pains at the moment.

Merlin's Beard, but they should have been more careful! Eager to appease his wife, he turned towards the blankets he had brought from the closet that housed their bathroom towels. He spread it out against their mattress once he'd stripped the bed of the wine-colored duvet color, not wanting his father's gift to become ruined.

"I—I'm afraid this was all I could find, sweetheart," Remus apologized, his brows coming together in shame, wishing there were more he could do for Dora. Tonks chose to ignore his apology, waving it away with a brush of her hand.

Dora took a moment to settle back on their bed and on top of the blanket, trying to shoot him a silent look of gratitude with her eyes for thinking to get a different blanket than their precious wine-colored duvet, a gift from his father, the pair of them had grown increasingly fond of, how comfortable it was.

Tonks did not want it to get ruined with the filth that came with bearing a new life into this world. Lupin needed a task to occupy his frayed nervousness.

So, he set about conjuring items needed for a small fire, suddenly wishing they had a fireplace, of all things, in their room, but the materials he conjured with his wand were going to have to go. Tonks burrowed herself under the blanket, wrapping her arms around her agonized body, and rocked in anguish.

Their baby was coming quickly, and Remus felt like a blind and bloody fool working as hard as he could to light a makeshift fire for light and warmth.

Outside their window, the storm raged on, the wind competing against his wife's pained groans and agonized shrill cries. Lupin felt overwhelmed with fear.

Pointing his wand at the makeshift firepit he had conjured, one of the bursts of flames he pointed at the pit accidentally misfired and the little ball of flame ricocheted off the wall, scorching the wallpaper of their room in the process, until, once Remus managed to steady his shaking wand enough, he pointed his wand again at the ball of flame, and sent it out the window, with a well-practiced flick of his wand, turning to face Tonks, wishing he hadn't.

His wife's focus on remaining calm had, naturally, become distracted by that little show of her husband's. Tonks looked up angrily.

" _What are you doing, Remus_?" she screamed, losing the last of her composure, bracing her abdomen, squeezing her eyes shut, and throwing back her head to the ceiling.

"I—I was trying to light a fire for you, love. So, you're warm, and for light," Lupin answered, shame pinking his cheeks. He was only trying to help Dora, but so far, it felt as though all he had done was make things even worse.

Gingerly, he set his wand down on the night table, thinking that if he were to help his wife bring their baby into the world, it was going to have to be the 'normal' way. He did not want to risk using magic and harming their baby.

Much to his relief, Tonks slowly lifted her chin, as well as her gaze, and exhaled a tense relief through her parted lips, silently communicating with him that she understood where his nervousness had come from and the need for the horrible little pyrotechnic display that had ruined her intense concentration.

Ptelea, for his part, poked his leafy little head out from underneath his favorite lock of Dora's light ash brown hair and blew a raspberry at Lupin. No doubt that little incident with the misfired flame had scared her Bowtruckle, and suddenly, Remus felt guilty and not sure at all what to do.

Feeling defeated, Lupin knelt beside his wife on the edge of their bed. Tonks was curled up in a fetal position, hugging her knees, facing the left wall of their bedroom, moaning through her breaths.

Timidly, he rested his hand on her elbow and tugged at it slightly, trying to get Dora to turn around and look.

" _What_?" she whispered hoarsely, her voice faint and barely audible.

"Dora," Remus began, feeling more flustered than on the day he had married this beautiful, amazing, funny witch, trying to be as calm as his racing heart, that damned stubborn corded muscle in his chest, would allow him to be, "you _need_ help. I—I'm your _husband_. You need to let me _help_ you, Tonks."

That did it. It was more than enough to inspire a heated emotional response from Dora, who felt her eyes fling wide open and she slowly, with great difficulty, raised herself to a seated position and propped herself upright with her elbows, Tonks's chest heaving with exertion at remaining like this.

"I—I don't _need_ your help, Remus. I can—I can do this _on my own_ ," Tonks asserted through gritted teeth, desperate to hang onto that last shred of sanity that her Auror training had always required, her ability to withstand pain.

" _Please_ ," Remus begged her, hopelessly. "Let me _help_ you, sweetheart."

Tonks breathed slowly through her nose, sanguinely, almost in slow motion lifting her head, allowing her fiercely determined, flashing gray eyes to meet his petrified brown orbs. The look on her face mirrored his, he was sure.

Hopeless. Terrified of what was to come next, though before she could answer her husband's plea, another contraction came, Tonks squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself against their mattress and the headboard of their large bed.

Dora was deep into her labor at this point, and she and Remus could no longer tell where one contraction stopped and the next one started. It was hell.

Tonks clutched handfuls of the bedsheets and woolen blankets beneath her, twisting the fabric's material into knots around her tightly clenched fists.

Her pet Bowtruckle did what it could to help her through her spasms, hopping out of his favorite lock of her hair and marching up and down her swollen stomach, continuously blowing raspberries at the baby within her.

As if to say, " _Quit hurting her and come out of there already_!"

Tonks made a muted noise that at first Remus thought to be another cry of pain, though as her shoulders shook, Lupin quickly realized she was laughing.

"T—take him, please. I—I _can't_ …when he's…like this, Remus," Tonks begged Remus faintly, and Ptelea, for once, thankfully, did not protest as Remus held out his hand and gently coaxed the Bowtruckle off her stomach.

Lupin was loath even to turn his back on her for one second. "Stay. Here," he commanded, hardening his voice as he gingerly set Ptelea down on the dresser. "You can _watch_ , but don't interfere," Remus heard himself growl.

Ptelea responded in kind by shooting Lupin a truly offended look with his narrowed beady black eyes and blowing yet another raspberry at poor Remus.

Shaking his head in minor amusement at the ornery woodland creature's antics, Remus turned back around, wanting to know what else he could do.

His wife's poor voice had become a ragged, hoarse wail against her hurts. He swore he heard her back crack as a muscle pulled as it arched with the sheer force beginning to take control of her body.

He was right beside Tonks, holding her hand and grimacing as she gripped onto her hand hard enough to break his fingers. He was right here where he was sitting, as he had promised her, but he might as well have been over a hundred miles away at Hogwarts.

Remus could not recall a time in his life where he felt more useless than right now. What was even _worse_ , Lupin thought, was he felt he added to Tonks's torment, how his presence in the room with her was _surely_ a burden.

This was supposed to be a joyous moment, the happiest of their lives, and it had been made a mess of trauma, uncertainty at not knowing if their friends, their family, were still alive or not, and both of them powerless to help them.

Remus squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, pleading with James and Lily, Merlin, whoever was up there and listening to his silent prayer, to will Tonks's body to have mercy on her. Dora had suffered more than enough with all this.

His thoughts were interrupted as suddenly, startling him so bad he almost slipped off the edge of their bed, Tonks drew in a sharp breath and propped herself up on her elbows, with help of her husband who adjusted her pillows.

Her gray eyes glistening with unshed tears grew wide with fear as she glanced down at her swollen stomach. Tonks couldn't delay this any longer.

Lupin watched as Tonks pulled her knees closer to her, clutching onto the fistfuls of the blanket even harder, her knuckles white-boned and trembling. Remus felt utterly helpless as Tonks gritted her teeth, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, forcing the muscles of her abdomen downward, her already-tired body needing its good first hard push to bring a brand-new life into this world.

A half-choked sob that quickly turned into a groan left the confines of Tonks's chest, throat, and her lips as she closed her eyes, trying to find some sweet semblance of relief, anything to escape the haze of pressure and pains.

But even as his wife futilely attempted to catch her breath, it would seem Dora's body had other ideas in mind for her and would not grant her that rest.

It urged her to push again. Finally, after a few more minutes, she relaxed, her lungs screaming for air, her head falling back against the pillow, fatigued. Tonks lay collapsed against their bed, still and unmoved, her gray eyes frantic as over and over again, his wife worked hard to push their baby into life.

Dora's screams and moaning had become even more anguished as time passed, and all Lupin was able to do was whisper soothing words into the shell of her ear and sit by her side in torment as a useless bystander, unable to help. There was silence, just for a fleeting moment, and Remus thought that maybe Dora's body had taken pity on her and last and she lay motionless.

Watching his wife intensely, Remus could not help noticing how slick tears dripped from her lids and drenched the pillow, her wavy tresses splayed out on either side of her head like a fan, a sheen of sweat on her browbone.

Tonks lay there, her strength failing her, staring up at their bedroom ceiling fan, watching as the fan rotated lazily, trying to circulate air through the room, nearly in shock from the immense pain that wracked her betrayed body.

"Rem," Tonks whimpered. " _Help me_ ," she begged, her voice faint, weak.

Squeezing onto Tonks's left hand with his own, he allowed the pads of his fingers to ghost tenderly over the plain yellow gold wedding band that was his mother's. Now it was Dora's. He stared lovingly into his wife's eyes and the sheer amount of fear and terror laced within made his heart shatter into pieces.

"I—I can't," Tonks cried, closing her eyes, engulfed in the torturous pains of her childbirth. "I—I can't _do_ this, Remus," she sobbed, swallowing down hard past a growing lump in her throat as her eyes slowly fluttered open. "Y—you have to _promise_ me, th—that no matter what happens to _me_ …" She paused, her face twisting and contorting in pain. "That you'll save our baby."

Remus felt his heart gave a painful lurch, refusing to accept her words. He could not lose his wife. Lupin shook his head and stared grimly into Dora's eyes, trying in whatever menial way he could manage to give his wife strength.

" _Don't_ talk like that. You're—you're going to be just _fine_ , love. You're the strongest woman I know. You're going to get through this, Tonks. I solemnly swear it," he murmured, feeling tears beginning to mist in his eyes.

But Tonks shook her head. " _Swear it to me, Remus_!" she shouted.

Remus froze. He did not want his wife to think he was giving up on her, and he could not allow his wife to quit. Not when their baby was so close to making its way into the world. However, he knew he needed to ease her fear.

"I—I swear it, Dora. You have my word," Lupin vowed, albeit reluctantly, though he already knew that he lacked the courage to do this.

He couldn't. He would not cut open his wife's body to save their baby if something went wrong. Merlin's Beard, no! Remus shuddered just thinking it. He would not let himself think it. "Let me help you, sweetheart. We'll do this together. Just you and me," he pleaded, stroking her sweat-soaked tresses.

Tonks regarded him weakly in silence for what felt like an eternity before reluctantly nodding her head, allowing Lupin to shift Tonks in his arms slightly and prop her up against their headboard, her ashen face registering every move as torment, and Remus grimaced as he heard Dora let out a tiny moan of pain.

Lupin took a deep breath to steel his own frayed nerves and squeezed onto her hand.

 _You can do this, Rem_ , Lily's sweet voice piped up from the back of his mind. _James and I, we've done this before. We'll guide you through this_.

Remus nodded in acknowledgment of his friend's phantom voice inside his head, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater, feeling a muscle in his jaw twitch. "What—what do you need me to do, Dora?" he begged, biting his lip.

"You need to—to catch it, when I—when I push it out, that's—that's all I need you to do, Remus. Just…help me catch him, Rem," Tonks gasped faintly, still keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she rested against the pillow.

If Lupin had thought he was white before, it paled in comparison to how he looked now, and he was grateful there was no mirror nearby to catch a glimpse of just how truly pallid his expression had become. " _Catch_ it?" he repeated, his voice hoarse and rough. " _Oh, God_! _Merlin's Beard_!" he exclaimed, exploding as a surge of panic threatened to consume him entirely. "Well—well just… _underhand_ it, okay, I've never been good at Quidditch!"

" _Remus_!" Tonks screamed, the shrill cry of pain that escaped her lips causing her poor husband to jump, startled. "There _are_ no Healers or doctors around. Molly and my mum are _not_ here to help us! _You_ have to do this! _Please_ ," she begged, a fresh wave of tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.

Lupin froze, feeling what little color was left in his face drained, though as his wife's pitiful moans and whimpers as another painful spasm wracked its way through her body, he felt something within himself shift and gave way, determination and resolve clear on his features, and he nodded.

"Okay," he murmured through gritted teeth, more to steel himself and less so her. "We—we can do this, Dora, we can _do_ this. I—I may have panicked a little back there but we're going to do this."

Lifting his head, he nodded positively, encouraging his wife, as he still, never once relinquishing control of Tonks's hand, he moved between her legs and as gingerly as he could, forced her thighs apart and hiked up the skirts of her maxi dress, not caring to preserve her modesty since it was just the two of them alone in their cottage. He had _no_ idea what to do here.

The best thing Remus could give Dora at this time was the focus of hope as he waited to catch their baby.

"I need you to _push_ , Dora," he commanded, hardening the edges of his voice as he recognized this was the tone that he adapted whenever he had taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

He urged his wife to push, though, at this point, there was no need for it. Tonks's body was now completing the painful task of bringing their baby into the world all on its own, and it needed no further encouragement from Remus.

Tonks had zero control over her own muscles, unable to ignore the burning as his wife eagerly complied with her body's wishes, accepting what it demanded of her, and gritted her teeth, throwing back her head and she cried.

"Dora? Dora, I need you to stop crying and _look_ at me, look into my eyes!" Lupin's tone was harsh but confident, and it allowed Tonks to blearily open her eyes and focus on Remus's face through the blurry haze of agony.

Tonks made eye contact and tried to breathe deeply. This was bloody _it_ , figuratively, and literally. Soon, she would meet their baby.

A passing fear overcame her for a moment, and then was quickly replaced by the same fierce determination that Tonks had been feeling these last few months leading up to this very moment, a fierce sense of protectiveness and love for their child.

The raw powers of nature and existence took over, and with a strength Tonks didn't even know possessed, gritted her teeth and bore down hard in the effort to bring a new life into this world, trying to push the baby out of her womb.

The pain was worse than anything she had ever felt in her life, burning. But she did not stop. Her screams filled their humble little cottage as her body began to stretch with the child inside of her, eager to push it out already.

Again, Lupin ordered her, commanding her to push, and again, Tonks complied, her screams rippling through the room, grateful no one else was here. Otherwise, they'd surely think someone was being tortured or murdered.

A few more good, strong pushes, and though her sight was blocked by her bulging stomach, Tonks chose to focus on Remus's face, feeling her bottom lip begin to quiver as she bit down hard, crying quietly against the burning pain.

Lupin stared for a moment until he caught on that Tonks was trying to crane her neck to see, and finished his gaze for his wife, his eyes drifting down to rest in between his legs. His eyes widened until they matched Tonks's when he saw their baby's head beginning to emerge from her body.

Tonks saw a smile appear on Lupin's face, making him look years younger than his actual age of thirty-six, which she took as a good sign. For a moment, as he lifted his head and grinned at her, Tonks didn't even notice his scars.

"I can see its head! It's—it's got hair like mine, love! Keep going, it's almost over!" Remus did not bother to stifle his small smile of amazement. "Push, love, push!"

In his growing excitement at the thought of meeting their baby, this precious life that he and Dora had created together, he hadn't realized his instructions had become louder and more urgent, though Tonks's Bowtruckle was only too happy to remind them both as it squeaked and chirped its displeasure at the noise from its perch on the desk, blowing raspberries at both Remus and Tonks now, wanting to know what was going on, and _furious_ with Remus for making him stay put on top of their dresser.

For all of Tonks's strength and resolve, try as hard as she might, Tonks could not overcome the pain, and her bloodcurdling screams carried into the early evening. Remus had to practically shout over her to make himself heard.

" _Push_!" he yelled again as Tonks bore down for at least the tenth time.

" _I am pushing_!" Tonks screamed at Lupin and then began to openly sob.

Remus cursed himself and bit the wall of his cheek, forcing himself to remain calm in order to help his wife through this last bit of her labor. He hadn't meant to cause his wife distress. "I know, I know, love, and you're doing so great," he encouraged gently, soothingly as he rubbed her leg. "Keep going!"

Tonks shot Lupin a dark look, leaning her head back against the fluffed up pillow Mrs. Weasley had gone to painstaking lengths to provide for her and breathed deep, regaining some small semblance of strength before propping herself up and leaning forward, her body struggling to bring forth their baby.

Dora's jaw locked up and became tense, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, groaning with exertion and exhaustion, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. She pushed and bore down as hard as she could, feeling herself stretch and felt her baby's head leave her body between her widespread legs.

Her screams carried on, each one louder than the last, but they brought with them the announcement of a birth, a new wondrous life brought into this world. Lupin moved his crimson-stained fingers to support their baby's neck.

Tonks let out an agonized cry of pain as she pushed the infant's shoulders out of her, grunting and pushing with the effort, her hands coming up to wrap around her husband's neck, bracing herself through gritted teeth for one final hard push.

"It's coming, Dora," Remus reported eagerly, not bothering to keep the note of excitement out of his voice now. It was almost over. "You're doing so wonderful, darling, I'm so _proud_ of you! Keep going, one more good push!"

Tonks nodded mutely, determination and resolve clear upon her exhausted features, never once taking her eyes off of Lupin as she drew in a shaking breath and bore her body down hard for one final push. She grunted and groaned with the effort, and though she could not see it, she could hear the slightest sound of release and after a few more minutes, the pain-filled scream that left her lips was drowned out by the sound of their baby's first loud wail that pierced the air.

And then Lupin found his arms filled with his squirming, wriggling baby boy. "It's a boy!" he called out to Dora as his wife collapsed against the pillow, panting, and heaving with exhaustion, with a joyful, almost prideful shout. "We have a son, Dora! He's beautiful, sweetheart, you did wonderfully!" he grinned.

They had a _son_. A beautiful baby boy. Tonks had been so sure they'd be having a girl. She had been wrong in that regard, but it didn't matter one bit.

Tonks blearily opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up against the pillows. The color was drained from her face and she looked utterly exhausted.

But she was smiling in the way that only a new mother could, as the happiness on Tonks's face matched that of Remus's as she looked down into the eyes of their precious little boy. Eyes that matched his father's, and his hair, much to Dora's delight. She had been hoping their child would look like him.

Tonks sat up in their bed as Lupin gently laid their wailing infant into her outstretched arms, with Remus turning his back on her for a moment so he could wave his wand to clear up the mess, gathering fresh rags and blankets.

Tonks felt her breath catch in her throat, her lips parted open to speak, though she found herself at a total loss for words, unable to find words special and dear enough to her heart to describe the overwhelming feeling of joy she felt as it swelled and surged as heat in her chest. Shaking slightly, she gingerly lifted the newborn infant to her heart, cradling her newborn son in her arms.

By the time Lupin turned back around with fresh rags clutched in his hands, Remus thought to himself that his wife was an angel holding their baby. Her wavy hair had reverted to its usual plum color, causing her to look a little bit peaky, though he guessed too it was because Tonks was exhausted.

Lupin watched his wife and newborn son for a moment in silence through red-rimmed eyes as tears of happiness brimmed at the edges of his lids, feeling like his heart was going to burst out of its cage with pride and love for them.

Remus waved his wand and conjured a dagger, little more than something Molly might use in the kitchens, but their son's umbilical cord had to be cut, and trying to be as gentle as possible, severed the cord and discarded it quickly.

Tonks had hardly noticed her husband's movements, too engrossed in staring in awe at the miracle that was her and Remus's precious baby boy. Hot tears stung and marred her vision as they trailed down her pale cheeks in tracts.

She smiled through her relieved gasps; grateful the painful ordeal was over. Remus watched with bated breath as he joined his wife on their bed, as their son stared up at his mother as if he could already understand the love she held for him, and slowly opened his eyes. Their son had his father's brown eyes.

The bond between mother and son was already forming, and Lupin blinked as he heard Tonks let out an audible gasp as their baby's hair slowly started to change color. "Is that…?" he breathed out; eyes wide in shock.

"Uh-huh," Tonks nodded numbly, a look of utter shock and disbelief on her features, confirming Remus's suspicions. Their son was not like him, after all, at least in terms of inheriting any of Remus's wolfish characteristics, and Lupin thought he might weep.

He had; however, it would seem, inherited his mother's Metamorphmagus abilities as their newborn son's hair, just one lock, slowly started to turn ginger, creeping its way down the strand at a snail's pace.

Lupin felt tears sting and blur at the edges of his vision, not sure what he was happier with at the moment. The fact that his son was not like him in terms of his lycanthropy, or that their baby was healthy, and his wife was all right.

He leaned forward and pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to Dora's forehead and then her cheek, before leaning down and planting one on his new son's head. Remus fell silent as he heard Dora speak to their son.

"I didn't think you'd ever come out. That I would ever see your face," Tonks managed to choke out in a hoarse whisper, caressing her baby's hair with the pads of her fingers. "Or see your face," she confessed to their baby, tears sliding down her pale cheeks. Tonks's gaze swept over their swaddled son in the disbelief that her son was actually here, in her and Remus's arms. "Or hold you," she wept quietly. Tonks, with a graceful tenderness, leaned down and kissed her little son's forehead, and a smile graced her exhausted face. "He has your eyes and your hair, Remus. Our son, he looks like you..."

She smiled down at their baby, desperately in love with him already. "I'm your mother. That's Daddy," she whispered, lifting her head to look at Remus, who sat back against the headrest of their bed and listened to Tonks.

In ways, her words to their newborn son were a heartbreaking lament. He could barely comprehend the despair she must have gone through while held in captivity at Crouch's estate, wondering if Crouch would kill her and their baby. To be held prisoner against her will and fearing for her life and that of their child's, he was honestly amazed that Tonks had never given up on hope.

But nothing could compare to this moment, nothing more important to her than having him here by her side, so they could hold their new son together. Remus forced his mind to come back to the reality of his situation. That he was now a _father_. Just that thought alone caused his heart to swell with pride. Remus raised his gaze to see Tonks's ecstatic smile bearing into him.

"Here. Hold your son, Remus," Tonks commanded, firmly but kindly, glancing at her husband almost timidly, smiling at her husband, the corners of her mouth twitching as she smiled. Remus held out his slightly trembling arms, and Tonks gingerly laid their baby carefully in his grasp. "Be sure to—to support his head, Rem," she said. "We—we don't even have a name for you yet, little one…"

Lupin nodded, leaning in so that his shoulder was brushing against Tonks's, nestling his newborn baby son close to his chest, and he was smaller than a bag of sugar you could buy in Diagon Alley or one of the Muggle grocery stores.

Their son's head, a thick tuft of light brown hair wobbled beneath his supporting hand. Remus could not believe how tiny new humans were, how vulnerable, how awe inspiring. He glanced sideways at his wife, seeing how through her exhaustion, Dora could not help but smile at her husband and son.

She lets her eyes leave his face to take in the baby in Remus's arms, how Lupin's tears of joy silently left his lids as he raised the boy to his face, nuzzling his tiny cheeks. Tonks smiled faintly as the newborn babe raised his tiny hands and explored his father's nose and his rough close-cropped beard. Remus lifted his chin slightly and met Dora's gaze, beaming with unconditional love in his eyes that washed over his body and rocked the proud new father to his core.

Peering down at the newborn baby in his arms, Remus was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. His son would need a name, one a wizard could be proud of. Then he glanced back up and looked seriously towards Tonks, staring deeply into her light gray eyes.

"Ted," Remus announced, earnestly. "Let's name our son after your father, sweetheart. Let's call him Ted," he murmured. He remembered how distraught Tonks had been over the loss of her father, and Remus could think of no better way to honor Dora's fallen father.

Tonks's eyes brimmed with unshed tears of happiness and she nodded.

"Ted. Teddy. Teddy Remus Lupin, named after the two bravest men I've ever known," she whispered hoarsely, looking at Remus with a kindness that made his heart pound and flutter against his chest. Her husband had chosen to name their son after her father, and Tonks doubted Lupin would never truly know how much that meant to her. Tonks swallowed down hard, fighting back against the growing lump in her throat as she blinked back a fresh wave of tears.

After what felt like an eternity, Tonks was able to find her voice at least.

"It's perfect. Our _son_ is perfect," Tonks agreed wholeheartedly in a faint whisper, officially naming their newborn son. "Teddy Remus Lupin. A great wizard in the making." She let out a tired sigh and collapsed against the pillow.

Remus smiled at his wife and glanced down at Teddy, now sleeping in his arms. "He's perfect, Dora," Lupin praised. "I think he looks like you, darling."

Even throughout the duration of her pregnancy, their trials and tribulations in dealing with Barty Crouch Jr. and Dolores Jane Umbridge, and then what Tonks went through in the Forbidden Forest with the centaurs and Aragog and his offspring, Tonks had miraculously managed to keep their precious baby safe.

The fact that the two of them were successfully able to have a home birth and deliver their newborn son healthy and well into the world, was a true miracle of Merlin indeed. Remus looked down proudly at his little boy.

His _son_. Here was a miracle that he could truly claim was his, his status as a fully-fledged werewolf be damned. He could walk down the streets of Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade and loudly proclaim that Teddy Remus Lupin was _his_ son.

And his precious newborn baby son was given to him by the woman he loved more than his own life. Overwhelmed with a sense of pride and joy that rocked him to his core, he glanced sideways at Dora. She was utterly exhausted.

But still, she smiled in only a way that a new mother could, though he could already see the fatigue that was beginning to take hold of Tonks at last.

Worry wormed its way into his stomach once more as he noticed her pale face become tinged with alarm. "Remus." Her voice was a hushed whisper, as she peered between her legs, having to lift the skirts of her black maxi dress to look. Lupin followed where his wife was looking and with a jolt of alarm, saw what she was cautiously eyeing as a rush of blood and tissue seeped from her.

He began to grow worried, thinking something was wrong, but then Tonks, upon noticing his alarmed expression, spoke up, her voice hushed. "Th—this is normal, Remus," Tonks murmured quietly. "Mrs. Weasley explained it to me a few months ago. That's normal," she soothed softly.

"Let me help you, then, Dora." Remus managed a light smile at his wife, returning their precious son to Tonks's outstretched and waiting arms. He took one of the rags he'd gotten from their bathroom closet and cleaned her as best he could, using the hot water from the basin Molly Weasley had provided.

Tonks set to work herself, using another rag to clean Teddy off of the remnants of his birth. Remus watched with a slightly scrutinizing eye as Tonks carefully dabbed and dried their baby off of what remained of the fluid on his delicate skin. Lupin set aside the basin of water and helped Dora wrap Teddy in the blanket they'd been saving until their son was securely swaddled and safe.

"I'm going to need more of those rags, Rem," Tonks confessed to Remus, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks. "I will bleed for a little while."

Embarrassed, she glanced down, a tumble of curl falling in front of her face, her son nestled against her arms, but Remus wasn't having any of that.

Gently, he cupped her chin in his strong hand and tilted it upward, forcing Dora to meet his gaze. He watched as her light gray eyes widened, her lips parted open to speak, but her husband did not give her a chance, pressing his lips to hers, gently but still passionately, and when he pulled back, Remus saw yet again how tired she was.

"I'm going to look after you, Dora. _Both_ of you. And now, you are exhausted. You should sleep, sweetheart," he offered quietly.

"No," Tonks muttered in response, shaking her head, wincing as she shrugged out of her dress and pulling the blankets of their bed up to cover herself, allowing their son to feed for the first time, his instincts already strong.

Though she flinched at the soreness that was beginning to conquer her body, the final remnants of her difficult but successful labor at bringing Teddy into this world. "Tonks." Remus pressed, unable to keep the note of urgency out of his voice once Teddy had finished feeding and was swaddled snuggly.

He knew she would become ill if she did not allow herself to rest, time for her body to recover from its ordeals, and Remus said as much to his tired wife. "That's what I'm here for," he smiled gently. "Let me do this, love."

Tonks furrowed her brows in a slight frown for just a moment, looking somewhat apprehensive, looking, and feeling as though she wanted to protest. Though as a yawn escaped her, Tonks knew Remus was right. As usual. She needed to sleep, to rest, and allow ample time for her body to recover. She had never felt so bloody tired in all her life, of this she was sure.

Looking down at Teddy in her arms, she quietly gave a tiny nod of her head.

Remus smiled at his wife, carefully moving towards Tonks on their bed, placing a gentle hand around her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Gently pushing her back against the sheets of their bed, he fluffed the pillows behind her head and helped her stretch out onto her right side, lovingly placing Teddy into the crook of her arm so their son would be near her while she slept, and the proud new mother would feel any need from Teddy.

It didn't escape Tonks's notice how gentle and careful Remus was, how thoughtful he was, and before he could pull away to pull up the rocking chair Molly had always taken great pains to conjure, Tonks caught his hand, pulling him back, looking up into her husband's eyes with red-rimmed, teary gray eyes.

"Thank you, Rem," she whispered faintly, her lids becoming heavy with sleep, and a faint ghost of a smile on her face as she nestled back into the pillow.

Remus felt his adoring smile wash over him, and for the second time in his life, he felt happier than he had ever been in his otherwise desolate and miserable existence, the first time being when he had married this woman and taken this remarkable young witch as his wife, and now he called her his.

"It's _I_ who should be thanking _you_. So…thank you, Dora, sweetheart," he whispered affectionately. "For being you. For accepting me as I am. For Teddy." Tonks had gone through hell and back in order to bring their son into this world, and just for a moment, Remus allowed his gaze to travel downward and watched their newborn son sleeping safely in Dora's arms, and by the time he brought his gaze back up to meet Tonks's, his wife was already sound asleep.

Lupin smiled, bending down slightly and kissed Tonks's temple tenderly, knowing that he loved his wife and now his newborn son more than anything.

He had gotten her back when the Forest and Crouch Jr. would have otherwise claimed her, and now the two of them could celebrate the birth of their son, this precious gift of a child that she had given him this stormy night.

Remus made a silent declaration as he situated himself on the right side of the bed, snuggling in close next to his wife on the opposite side so as to not crush little Teddy, that he would watch over them both as long as he lived.

He was Teddy Remus Lupin's father, he was his. The most perfect feeling he had ever known had swept through him. He was rocked to his core, and Lupin knew he would do anything in the world for Teddy. He would be his son's hero, his keeper, the one who gave his son cuddles and kept him safe whenever their son felt scared or threatened in any way.

He would be Teddy's _dad_. Remus did not know this kind of devoted love could be possible for a werewolf like him, until tonight. He would never give up this feeling, not for anything in the world, and he swore silently to James and Lily and his mother's spirits and anyone else who would listen that he would let nothing happen to Teddy or to Dora.

Tears silently streamed down his face as he nestled his face into the crook of Dora's chest as she slept soundly. He would give his life for them if that's what it took to protect his wife and newborn son. As he too slowly succumbed to sleep, Remus could not help but think of their friends, their family at Hogwarts, praying that they were safe. _Especially poor Ollie_ , he thought, burying his face in Tonks's shoulder, inhaling the scent of the shampoo Tonks used that smelled like autumn and apples. They had successfully delivered their newborn son into this world, but it was up to those who were fighting at the Battle of Hogwarts to keep it safe.

So that the next generation of wizards, kids like his own precious son, Teddy, could enjoy the world that people like himself and Dora and Ollie were fighting in, trying to make the world a better place for kids like Ted to grow up. As Lupin felt his lids become heavy and he allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep, his wife and baby by his side, he could only pray that their friends and family were safe.

That Ollie was safe…

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**A/N: Yayyy Teddy's into the world, finally! I'm glad I was able to mark his birth as chapter 100, kind of a landmark moment for me honestly lol. Coming up next, did Norah perish in the fires of the BoH, or will Ollie be able to save her?**


	101. An Open Mind

**A/N: So I know I left poor Nollie (I really can't think of a ship name for these two, but they're really growing on me) hanging, but this chapter is an Ollie POV (Merlin bless this man, he really is a character who has grown on me) and it kind of back-tracks a tiny bit to the point where he got on the roof, so we can see what the heck Ollie got up to.**

**It has me super tempted to write my own Ollie spin-off after I'm done, though not sure if I would post it yet because he's a minor character so far, a huge part of Tonks and Remus's life and I think it might be fun to kind of explore those parts of his life that I kind of merely alluded to. Who knows if I'll write it yet. Maybe one day!**

**Anyway, rant aside, I hope you enjoy it!**

**On with the show!**

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**1O1**

Bloody chaos ensued when the barrier west of the castle was destroyed by what remained of Lord Voldemort's faithful followers, and Death Eaters swarmed the grounds of Hogwarts, murdering students and staff alike left and right, spilling blood in the name of the Dark Lord himself.

As the lush green grass beneath their feet turned garish, sticky red, and Hogwarts drowned in the screams of the dead and the dying alike, the castle was reluctantly forced to welcome plunder, though the staff, namely, Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, and Sprout, did what they could to prevent the siege.

The Death Eaters raved their path as they advanced without giving a chance for the Hogwarts Professors to recuperate, much less prepare themselves for such a fight.

The ambush that took place was a glorious slaughter bathed in blood, and by the end of it, the tip of Ollie Brennan's wand was coated in the stuff, he spent his fury at not knowing if his friends and family were still alive—if Norah was still _alive_ , if she was even here at Hogwarts, fighting amongst the rest of the Professors—in a sea of men, all bearing Crouch's face.

It did not matter that his methods for ending their lives were violent and vicious, the last remnants of the Obscurus that clung to him, he guessed. But Ollie did not care. He _welcomed_ it. _Wanted_ them to suffer.

Ollie severed through the flesh and bones of Voldemort's followers, much like a deranged and starving dog would have torn through lambs. The former Slytherin and best friend to Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin warred his way down the Grand Staircase, firing jinxes left and right ungracefully, though they hit his targets. Rookwood, then Rosier.

His pale skin was flushing with both terror and excitement as his black leather boot crashed open the door to the dungeons, the last place he had seen Norah all those months ago, with the strength of ten wizards.

He roared her name, hoping that somehow, even if she were just a phantom, that the young blonde werewolf would be here.

" **NORAH**!"

The dungeons near the Slytherin Common Room were empty, and Ollie slowly felt his rapid breaths die down. The dungeons of Hogwarts were cold and shadowy, the only source of light coming from the torches in their sconces at each intersection of the passageways. Ollie had not been down here since the night Norah left.

It was truly the ugliest side to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, of that there was no denying it. As Ollie breathed, a fume escaped between his lips, and he was not sure what he was doing down here, when the battle still waged war on the courtyard outside, though, from the victorious shouts of the various Hogwarts Professors, it sounded as though, from the inner thoughts screaming inside his mind, that Harry Potter had just defeated Lord Voldemort, for the final time.

He was dead. Lord Voldemort was… _dead_. Ollie knew that he should have been upstairs in what was left of the Great Hall, rejoicing with the others. But Ollie could not manage to pretend to care. He didn't give a damn. His footfalls were careful, quiet as a mouse, and he tightened the hood of his black robes that shrouded his head and veiled his tall but lean body from view.

Its hem scraped against the rough, cobblestoned floor. He bolted towards Snape's classroom, the cause of his fury, why Norah had left. It was where _she_ had been held, that pink-wearing old hag, that witch, the vicious short, stout little old _bitch_.

Wrenching the door open to Professor Snape's classroom, he was dismayed to find that Norah was not here. Ollie felt the rage rekindle in his bloodstream at Norah's absence, at not knowing if Jameson was safe.

There were days he filled with chaos and noise to keep her ghost at bay. There were days Ollie spoke to Norah, fearful to lose her all over again. To feel her presence, to swear he could hear her thoughts, and only to see an empty room, to reach out his hand and feel only the cold air, shatters his already fractured heart all over again. Yet, stay, please. _Stay_.

Ollie, these days, had taken to retreating to the chaos because his feelings for the young She-Wolf were so strong, it had started to break him in ways that were difficult to mend, ways that he felt sure Tonks and Lupin simply would not understand, so he could not burden them of it.

So, here he stood, between chaos and a fondness for the woman, both of them hurting, both of them helping. The difference was, Ollie thought he could be happy with just Norah's presence by his side, whole and well. And yet, the chaos alone would kill him.

Ollie's gaze wandered the length of Professor Snape's empty Potions classroom, his eyes narrowing.

His rage held all the power of a wildfire, if you were to stumble across Ollie Brennan at this particular point in time, you could practically see the flames roaring in his cerulean, narrowed blue eyes, ready to ignite anything he came into contact with. Ollie clenched his teeth, his jaw locking in anger, fists curling and un-curling at his sides.

He made short work of his old Head of House's office, thrashing Severus's desk, overturning the tables and chairs, wrenching open the drawers of the man's desk, looking for some clue, some whisper of any sign of Norah's whereabouts. His rage spent after several minutes of trashing Snape's office, forcing himself to repress the taut of worry, Ollie slumped against the cold cobblestoned wall of the classroom. The last space she had been.

The last night he had touched her, his hand on her right shoulder. Slowly, gently, he traced the outlines of the lines on his inner palm, not caring that they were stained with the fresh blood of several Death Eaters.

Ollie sat slumped on the floor of the Potions classroom, amidst the ruins, the wreckage he had made of Snape's office, not caring if the man himself were to walk in and see the mess. He was no longer a student here at Hogwarts and considering the mess the rest of the castle found itself in at the moment, he figured Snape had much _bigger_ problems to deal with.

The raven-haired blue-eyed former Slytherin remained unstirred on the floor of Severus Snape's classroom, contemplating where Norah was. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to shut out all of the voices, to see if he could listen to any thoughts that belonged to her.

_Just her_ … Ollie hoped that if he were to see her again, if she were, by some miracle of Merlin, to show up on Hogwarts Grounds tonight, to imagine her agony at not knowing if Ollie was alive, revel in the shock within those electric, bewitching blue eyes of hers once Norah sees him alive and well.

His fingers curled into a tight fist over the handle of his wand as his ears practically perked up at the sound of boot heels against cobblestones. He perceived a new ghostly, timorous presence somewhere in the dungeons with him, and it made poor Ollie's hackles rise in defense. Though he did not move.

The whispers and cries of the students' thoughts as the Legilimens was unable to shut them out filled his ears.

As such, it sent him back in a temporary haze, and Ollie sanguinely lifted his head to see none other than his old Head of House in the doorway, his already pale face turning white as if Snape had seen a ghost.

Oh, but he was seeing one. Ollie glowered, noticing Snape's thin lips part open to speak as he scowled, surveying the mess his former student has made of his office. " _Where. Is. She_?" Ollie barked; his tone harsh.

Ollie was not able to dip into Professor Snape's mind, which meant the sallow-faced, raven-haired Potions Master was keeping something from him, and he knew of only one matter in this life to conceal from him.

Shakily, Ollie rose to his feet, almost tripping over the hem of his long black robes, having to use the wall behind him as a support brace, his fist tightening over his wand handle, calculating his chances of self-defense or escape as he saw Professor Snape slowly raise his own wand at Ollie.

Though Ollie made no move to attack his former Head of House, merely watching and blinking owlishly at the Head of Slytherin as the man silently waved his wand and righted his office of the mess Ollie had made in his fit of anger towards Norah's disappearance, and at Crouch.

When Severus had finished, he pocketed his wand into an interior pocket of his black, billow robes and calmly folded his hands across his chest. His black, narrowed eyes shone like glass reflected with wildfire.

Tonight, during the Battle of Hogwarts, this blood-soaked red dawn as the sun rose and spat red and orange and yellow venom, they glimmered much more than Ollie had ever seen in his Head of House.

Severus Snape's face remained infuriatingly impassive and calm, despite the fact that one of his best and brightest former students, in spite of the tragic home life he had escaped from and the hellish torment he had no doubt suffered under the hands of a classmate of Snape's when he had been in school, Barty Crouch Jr., he had, for all his hardships thrived.

Professor Snap felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked at him. Ollie Brennan, at age twenty-six, now donned the face of a bloodthirsty savage, and Snape could not help the blood that curdled within his veins.

Half of the boy's short black hair, disheveled and stuck up in thick tufts every which way, not unlike that of Harry Potter's, was caked with drying blood, and a crimson line of Evan Rosier's blood made his way between Brennan's tensed jaw and his distressed, shining sky-blue eyes.

Severus furrowed his dark brows into a frown at the stench of a bloodbath that his former student emitted, and he snorted in light jest. "Well, well…Brennan…I see that you have enjoyed this even better than _I_ did," he growled, a slight mocking lilt to his voice as he scrunched his nose in disgust at Ollie's haggard and blood-soaked appearance.

Ollie clenched his jaws, tightening the grip on the handle of his wand, thinking that the longer he wasted time in this bloody forsaken dank classroom, there was a chance that Norah was here at Hogwarts.

_Alive_. He shivered, unable to repress the violent tremor that shot down his spine. Just that thought plastered a quiet vibration underneath his skin.

"What do you _want_?" Ollie managed to croak out hoarsely.

Severus sniffed, huffing in frustration. "For you to _listen_ to me, Mr. Brennan. Considering the redecorated _mess_ you have just made of my Potions Classroom, Oliver Brennan, I am in something of a vicious _mood_ , and you are lucky that I do not raise my own wand against you for this _insolence_ , boy," Severus Snape snapped, narrowing his blackened eyes even further until they resembled that of a pit viper's slit-like pupils. "And you _will_ listen to me or Merlin help you, you will find that you—"

But Ollie did not give Snape a chance to respond as he let out a low warning growl deep from within the confines of his throat.

He knew Snape knew something about Norah, and Merlin damn him, he was going to talk, or so help him, not even Dumbledore would be able to save him.

He stalked towards his old Potions Professor and Head of House in two swift movements, his black woolen robes billowing behind him as he stormed towards Snape, who was a good at least three heads taller than he was, but Ollie thought, given his status as a former Obscurus, who still fought against that dark feeling repressed deep within, to be much more intimidating.

He reached out a hand and grasped a fistful of the man's black robes, pulling him down to his level and thrusting his pale face pulled tight and taut with rage to Snape's impassive one, utterly seething.

"You—you're hiding her from me! Tell me where Norah is! **NOW**! The longer you stand there not talking, the shorter I'll make of your bloody fingers, see if I don't!" he screamed angrily. " **WHERE IS SHE**?"

It was _not_ a question and it was not about to be denied. Ollie was _not_ in a patient mood, and he was not going to tolerate Severus Snape's tricks.

He _wanted_ Norah and this damned bloody shell of a man was going to tell him where she was, if she were here in Hogwarts or not, what he was _hiding_ from him with his Occlumency or Merlin _help_ him, he would—

" _Ollie_." An aging woman's voice rent the air, clipped, and angered.

Ollie looked up sharply, about near his breaking point, and ready to warn everybody whoever had spoken that he was not about to be kind to anyone who would deter him from finding the young blonde werewolf, when he blinked, discovering that it was Norah's old Head of House, Professor McGonagall, who had spoken, the edges of her voice hardened.

" _What_?" Ollie barked harshly, his tone dark and his pale blue eyes alight with a smoldering, fathomless rage, making no move to relinquish his ironclad grip on the fistfuls of Professor Snape's robes he had seized.

He was not in a patient mood and McGonagall had better speak fast.

Despite the darkness of Professor Snape's dimly lit classroom that shrouded the three of them, Ollie swore he saw Severus's lips twitch, with his black eyes that resembled that of pity, and he knew he did not _like_ it.

Though, for the moment, Ollie chose to let his gaze remain fixated on Professor McGonagall, who was peering at the broken shell of a young man through her silver spectacles and giving a curt shake of her head no.

Ollie suddenly did not want to see the disappointment ridden in Professor McGonagall's eyes, closing his eyes against her aloof judgment of him that she has surely made upon walking in and witnessing… _this_.

He prayed to Merlin and anybody else up there who might take pity on him that he would find Norah at last.

Nine months since he had seen her, and there had been much left unsaid between the two of them, he thought. Nine months since Norah had _abandoned_ him. Remus. Tonks.

Taking a deep breath, trying will his temper to quell, he tried again.

"Mr. Brennan. _Open your eyes_. Look at me, please," McGonagall commanded, a hint of steel laced throughout her slightly warbling, aged tones that told Ollie he had to listen to Norah's old Head of House now.

He almost wished that she had not focused her attention on him, and the same went for Snape.

Since Master Crouch had forced himself to reveal to Tonks that he was still alive that fateful night of that wedding they had crashed, he no longer felt the need to hide behind the hood of his robes or slink in the shadows of darkness like some demonic entity.

But after what McGonagall had just walked in on now, a measure of his old self-consciousness was back, and he wanted nothing more than to turn away from the two Heads of House, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, but he slowly opened his eyes, lifted his chin, and forced himself to look at her.

To his immense surprise, Minerva was regarding him with a serene and yet curious expression, her eyes betraying none of her surprise.

If she was at all shocked by Ollie's rather violent and brash behavior towards his former Head of House, a man that he respected and admired over the years when he had been enrolled at Hogwarts, she hid it quite well, her expression stern and unreadable.

When McGonagall addressed him, she was much too calm for Ollie's liking.

"You will _unhand_ your former Head of House at _once_ , Mr. Brennan. I understand the uncertainty you must feel, but this is _not it_."

Ollie felt his fingers slacken slightly, though he did not let go of Snape's robes, though he heard Severus exhale in a tense release of frustration.

"I—I need you to—to tell me…please tell me…" Ollie begged, biting his bottom lip and having eyes only for Severus as he swiveled his gaze back around to look deep into those black, soulless pits that were Snape's eyes.

He was fed up with the riddles, his limitations testing him. He swallowed down hard past a growing lump in his throat, parting his lips slightly to speak, though he did not get a chance as a faint chill of wind wafting from outside the corridor and into Snape's classroom caressed him tenderly, its icy tendrils sending a chill down Ollie's spine.

Ollie leaned forward so far that his and Severus's faces almost touched. " _Tell me, Snape_ ," he begged, careful to keep his lilting, shaking voice low. He squeezed his eyes shut, already anticipating the very worst.

"Your She-Wolf. Norah Jameson," Snape spat with no small measure of disgust and contempt. "She is here. She's on the roof of the Astronomy Tower, Ollie. She is _alive_. That should satisfy your insatiable curiosity."

Ollie froze, answered by the paling of Professor Snape's pallid face. He blinked owlishly at Professor Snape, feeling certain he must have misheard him, feeling a hollowing on his throat and a will to scream, but his heart was beating so fast in its cage in his chest it made him tremble.

Ollie felt a muscle in his eye twitch, his feet planted on the floor as he listened to the deep, labored breaths.

It took him a moment to realize that those breaths he was hearing, they were his own, and as if in a daze, as if by the Imperius Curse, he felt his hands relinquish their grip on the front of Professor Snape's robes.

"Wh— _when_?" Ollie croaked hoarsely, his gaze flitting from McGonagall to Snape, watching in the vehement struggle as Snape brushed his hands on the front of his robes, looking thoroughly cross and angered.

The former Slytherin student turned his back on both Heads of Houses, hellbent on storming up to the Astronomy Tower and getting Norah out of this crumbling castle of carnage when Severus's quiet, reserved voice shattered the thick, uncomfortable silence between them.

"I spoke of your being alive to Miss Jameson via _our_ way and asked whether she would like to see you. Miss Jameson had refused you, Ollie," he murmured, his black eyes narrowing slightly as he dipped into Ollie's mind, reading him.

The pain in his former student's face made Severus frown. He stared at him, absorbing the unspoken grief in his blue eyes.

Severus furrowed his brows in intense concentration. Of course, Ollie Brennan was bothered….of course, the boy was angry, the younger man was tormented by years of abuse at Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s hand, and then learning that wretched little _succubus_ , Tonks, had fallen in love with the werewolf had almost been enough to break his spirit, then, and now, that the new object of his affections had so coldly spurned him, the boy was a riot of emotions burning inside, just waiting to positively explode.

He had so many answers but none on how or why this blonde She-Wolf, Norah Jameson, was taking the last shreds of Ollie's sanity.

" _Stop—that_!" Ollie growled through gritted teeth, his entire body convulsing, shaking with the effort to restrain himself, to which his insistence received a snort from Professor Snape as he rolled his eyes.

Ollie was sure the sudden crippled emotion was evident on his ashen features much too quickly, seeing how Snape and McGonagall looked at each other.

He ingested Snape's poisonous words like glass being ground by his teeth, and before his own tears could give away his warring emotions, he ducked his head, grinding his teeth in despair and rancor.

"You need not _worry_ , Mr. Brennan," Severus barked harshly. "Your mind is an open _book_ , Oliver, but there aren't many _chapters_ , boy."

The fine hairs on the back of Ollie's neck stood up as he bristled silently at the insult, wondering just how much rudeness he would be forced to endure from his former Head of House and be expected to take it.

Though in the end, Ollie favored silence as the only apt response.

Severus had information on Norah, and he suspected provoking the man's wrath was not about to bring him one step closer to finding her.

Ollie squeezed his eyes shut, and shoved Severus's chest, hard, listening to the sounds of the corpses scraping against the grounds of the castle, to those who were left alive, gathering in the Great Hall to heal and mourn the loss of their dead, loved ones, family, friends…

He felt… _cold_. A horrible, bitter cold as it settled and nestled within his heart, making itself feel right at home, inspired by the anguish and torment of Norah's disappearance and the sheer iron will of that young werewolf's heart. It was undeniable, the hurt that tormented him.

She—she was _here_?! And she—she did not want to see him?! But _why_? Why not?!

"You surely love this girl." Ollie flinched at hearing Professor McGonagall's soft tones, watching as the Transfiguration Professor moved to stand next to the Potions Master and regard him, almost pityingly, and Ollie felt certain that he could take no more of this torment.

"What difference does it make?" His words were sour and bitter, though before Ollie could open his mouth to speak again, a muffled grunt emitted from the back of Severus's throat, causing Ollie to look up at the Potions Professor in alarm with raised dark eyebrows. " _What_ , sir?"

"Shut up and go _see_ her," Severus commanded of his former student. "The girl is on top of the Astronomy Tower, and the only reason she did not wish to see you is that she is gravely injured and she is _dying_ , boy. You are a _savage_ , Mr. Brennan, given what Crouch has done to you, the things he has forced you to do over the years, but you are not an idiot. You are a monster in love, and Merlin spare us all, what a horrid thought, and that is even _worse_. I would see you do something about it before you destroy yourself, Brennan."

Severus pulled a face, ignoring Ollie's growing look of disbelief, though Ollie swore, though Professor Snape would never admit it, he almost— _almost_ —smiled at his former student.

" _Go. See. Her_. Save her. And when you _do_ ," and it was here that Ollie swore he saw those black eyes soften, just a smidge, "do not even _think_ of crying in front of her. Jameson is tough, just like the female _bitch_ I always knew her to be," he growled, to which Ollie and Minerva both shot him a dark look for the degrading term Professor Snape used to describe Norah's lycanthropy. "She does not need to see another depressing _fool_. _Find her. Save her_."

Though Ollie did not know it, Professor Snape as he spoke the words, heard his own voice falter and crack, as did his resolve, as he wished he possessed a Time-Turner, so that he could turn back time and tell his younger self to do whatever it took to save Lily Potter nee Evan's life.

Ollie, much to Severus's chagrin, merely stood frozen, rooted to his spot in front of Severus, still looking up at his old Head of House silently.

He was staring at him again as he had done a few moments ago when Severus had dipped into the younger man's mind.

That look of curiosity.

"Y—you _loved_ her… _Lily_ …" Ollie breathed, low enough so that Professor McGonagall did not hear him, his cobalt blue eyes widening in shock, and now, it was Snape's turn to feel quite flustered in his presence.

Severus's head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard the natural-born Legilimens with no small amount of horror and aghast disgust in his black eyes as he felt them narrow until they were nothing but mere slits.

It was clear, judging by the fear in the younger man's eyes, that Oliver Brennan saw nothing left of Snape but an empty shell, just a monster. And of course, he was right.

" _Get. Out_ ," Severus whispered, his voice dangerously low and quiet, feeling moisture in his eyes as he strode towards the flung-open door of his classroom to make to head upstairs.

Headmaster Dumbledore would need as much assistance in clearing the rest of the castle and Grounds of what remained of Lord Voldemort's followers as possible, and he motioned for Minerva to follow him at once. Ollie remained unstirred, still frozen in place by his accidental revelation of Snape's deepest, darkest secret, blue eyes round with shock.

Snape decided that he could not stand it. He wished for nothing more than for Ollie Brennan to remove his presence from his classroom before the boy saw fit to trash it again in a rage and for Ollie not to look at him.

Not as he was at present, a complete and utter wreck at the thought of another aside from Professor Dumbledore discovering the best of him.

" _Get ou_ t!" Severus roared, looking down at the cobblestoned ground beneath his boots in defeat, and yet causing poor Ollie Brennan to flinch.

The younger man did not need to be told for the third time.

He blinked and shook his head to clear his mind of the stupor, ducking under Severus's arm, fleeing the Potions Classroom as quickly as he could, unable to bloody believe what the hell just happened, but he didn't' give a damn. Norah was _alive_.

And he was coming to _save_ her. Feeling a surge of hope ignite in his chest, sending a spiraling warmth throughout his entire body, Ollie ran, rejuvenated with a new sense of purpose.

Norah was _alive_. There was a bloody new reason to fight and live for, after all…

Ollie felt hot tears marring and blurring his vision as he ran as fast as his long legs could possibly carry him, bolting up the Grand Staircase, quickening his pace to an all-out sprint, taking the stairs two at a time.

The pounding noise of his boots resonated off the walls of the deserted upper levels of Hogwarts, with a clanging echo that matched his heart currently throbbing inside of his chest with the thick grief and fear he felt as he ran, wondering what Norah would say when she saw him.

Bloody hell, Merlin's left…what he would _say_ to her? What _could_ he?

Though before he could ponder this further, a horrible scream tore through Ollie's entire being like a great shard of glass.

The first cries were undoubtedly ones of terror, the kind where your eyes were locked wide and every muscle rigid.

The second one that followed were of pain, garbling and pitiful, fading. Ollie froze, feeling his eyes widen and his pulse quicken, his heart thudding like a rock rattling in a box as he ran. The woman's scream came again, desperate, terrified, and human.

His blood curdled, turning to ice in his veins. He _knew_ that voice. _Her_ voice.

" _Norah_!" he exclaimed, cursing under his breath, feeling as what little blood remained in his face completely drained, and before Ollie was even aware of making a conscious decision, his legs were pounding furiously on the uneven staircase as he headed towards the Astronomy Tower. "Merlin's left….one of these days, I'm going to stop chasing this woman!"

Ollie swore under his breath as his ears strained for more sounds, more clues as to where it had come from.

He had no clue as to what he would do when he got wherever Norah was, if she were even still at the Tower anymore, only that she was hurt, suffering, _dying_ , and in trouble.

And that he had to get there. _Fast_.


	102. Sorrow

**1O2**

Tonks slept for a good part of the evening after she had delivered their son. She woke to feed Teddy when he was hungry and would hold their son close to her, reveling in the child she and Lupin had brought into this world until fatigue and soreness would claim her, and she'd sleep. Although Tonks was exhausted, she was restless and fitful in her sleep.

Remus did not want to imagine what horrible visions plagued her dreams. He could not help but wonder how much of her weakness was the result of her giving birth to their son, but he allowed Dora to sleep.

Lupin had gone downstairs to put a pot of tea on the kettle so his wife would have something hot to drink when she awoke and was not present in their bedroom when Tonks woke from her uneasy slumber. Her heartbeat, now a throbbing mass of corded muscle, pounded relentlessly within the confines of her chest, her body cold, feeling like ice as she fell.

A flicker of crimson, that garish rapid color, and water-filtered echoes, half-choked sobs wracked her entire body as if a dagger had been thrust deep into her chest and straight to her heart. A tiny, muffled sob found its way to her lips, yet her tongue refused its release as she dreamt.

Tonks sent it away with a painful little swallow, crumpling in their bed, twisting, and curling herself further in her and Remus's bed, willing for the scent of thick black, curling smoke to leave her nostrils, the thick coppery smell of blood lingered, and Tonks swore that she could _taste_ it.

Another sob, this one set willfully free from her throat, escaped her lips and Tonks buried her watery, red-rimmed eyes within the smothering silk of her pillowcase, seeking refuge from the image of Norah's death, watching as the gravely injured woman fell to her death.

The dream of the blonde werewolf's death was as vivid as a long-forgotten memory. She dreamed of blistering heat and scalding cold. A heart of fire, and one of ice, both on Hogwarts Grounds. The heart of fire, that was Norah's, had burnt, raged, and smoked for the last six years since the death of her husband and infant son at Dolores Umbridge's hands.

An inferno that almost threatened to suck the very life and magic out of her, and all the while the cold heart that was Ollie's slept and waited. Ollie Brennan waited in the shadows of Master Crouch's estate, wanting and unable to reveal himself to Tonks, and he had been asleep. No, asleep was the wrong word. Rather, he had been imprisoned. In a dank dark prison cell in a dungeon that smelled of mold, blood, bodily fluids. It had become so hard to breathe, so hard to even move in that cell.

He had fled Crouch's estate to come and find Tonks—to see her. She dreamed of Ollie, he was…he was running, the cold of the night air creeping up on him, sucking the very last strength as he followed the sound of enormous black wings.

It felt like the magic of his world was dying, and Tonks squeezed her eyes shut as visions of Norah's face flitted as mere flashes of memory, each one no more than a second or two, in the front of her mind.

And his world now was Jameson, and she was _dying_. Ollie was turning to the cold, the ice that was now his heart, what was left of it, and this cold was threatening to become his new prison.

Ollie had been so strong, but this cold of his broken heart was engulfing him completely, sapping his strength bit by bit. The ice was becoming his cage, though if the blonde She-Wolf could be saved, then the wall of ice that surrounded his heart would start to thaw, to melt.

Tonks dreamt of this ice and fire, dancing around each other to the sound of the harps that Dumbledore had conjured at her and Remus's wedding. And then she dreamt of enormous black wings as a shadow, smashing through the rubble of the now-ruined Hogwarts courtyard, pounding with the force of a storm.

The air cracked with the sound of thunder, and then the beast was flying, she was rising and up in the sky—

Tonks awoke with a heartbroken cry of utter hopelessness, ripped from her lips, her hands finding purchase in a twist of their bedsheets as her shaking arms lifted herself up slightly, bracing her body against the mattress. Tears fell in rapid sequence, drenching her overly large t-shirt.

She shook, rattled, as the vividness of the nightmare flowed through her. A hitched breath, a poor attempt to calm herself down, escaped her.

"Dora?" Lupin's concerned voice came from the doorway, baby Teddy swaddled and fast asleep in his arms. "Are you ill?" he murmured, closing off the gap of space between himself and his wife in two swift strides, setting himself down on the edge of their bed, his brows came together in confusion as he gingerly transferred Teddy from his arms to hers. "What is it?" he demanded, a note of urgency in his quiet voice as he took in the sheen of sweat that had started to perspire on her temples.

"Ollie," she breathed hoarsely, a hand over her racing heart, squeezing her eyes shut and willing her breaths and heartbeats to regulate to something that resembled normalcy. "He—Norah—she…"

But her voice trailed off and she shook her head, a curl of her hair tumbling in front of her face as Tonks ducked her head in utter shame.

Tonks began to grow apprehensive as she sat up, shifting Teddy so their baby's head nestled in the crook of her elbow, giving him support. She grew terribly bothered by a lingering thought: Was Norah _dead_? And Ollie, oh, _Ollie_! If she was, how was her best mate taking her passing? Tonks remained motionless in their bed for a moment, glancing down at Teddy in her arms.

But of course, she could not go tonight. She was much too exhausted and there was Teddy to think of, but she could not stand staying here and not knowing what happened to both of them.

The young witch and new mother pondered the whereabouts of her best friend and the blonde werewolf, thinking if she were still alive, Ollie would be a lucky man indeed. Norah Jameson was a lively thing, spirited blue eyes, luscious lips, and a shapely form that any man in their right mind would be attracted to. But they had not seen her since the night of Umbridge's attack.

Nonetheless, Tonks was plagued by her nightmare.

Were Ollie and Norah safe? Was Norah alive and safe? Is she…dead?

Slowly, Tonks tore her gaze away from her and Remus's sleeping son and lifted her gaze, meeting her husband's concerned light brown eyes with her own, swallowing down hard past the growing lump in her throat.

" _Find_ her, Remus. The—the edge of the Forbidden Forest, that's where I—I saw them," Tonks begged, blinking back briny tears. " _Save_ her. Bring them home, bring them here, let Norah heal here, I don't _care_. I—I _have_ to know Ollie is _safe_. _Please_ ," she pleaded, a tear escaping her lid, and she shuddered as Remus nodded in understanding, rising from where he sat at the edge of their bed, leaning over and wiping away that single tear with a flick of his finger. "Bring them _home_ , Remus. _Please_ …"

If Remus was surprised by his wife's desperate request, he hid it well. Lupin quickly nodded, planting a brief kiss on Tonks's lips and pressing his lips to his newborn son's forehead, and then proceeded to dart across the room, and grabbing his traveling cloak where it rested on a coat rack just behind their bedroom door. "I will," he promised, declaring to the love of his life he'd save them.

And then he turned on the heel of his shoe and Disapparated from their bedroom, leaving Tonks alone in their bed with his newborn son.

* * *

It happened so fast; Ollie didn't even have time to think until the last possible second. Watching Fenrir Greyback threw Norah over the edge of the Astronomy Tower's ledge felt like watching it in slow motion.

Never before had Ollie noticed how much time was like water.

That it could pass so slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. The clock says it is measured and constant, tick-tock, part of an orderly world; the clock _lies_. The past three days had passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown one at a time. In this slow time-bubble, the coldness was colder, and the muted colors of the surroundings near her were brighter.

All the while Ollie's insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to need feeding, nothing to have need of anything at all. As Greyback managed to grab hold of a fistful of Norah's black leather jacket, Ollie, without even having to think, lurched forward and tried to seize her hand before Norah Jameson could fall completely over the side. And he _missed_.

He was a fraction of a second too late to catch her, because just as the tips of his fingers brushed against hers, Norah fell.

" **NO**!" There was a horrible scream from deep within that forced its way from his lips, it was as if his terrified soul had unleashed that demon.

And just for a moment, he wished that Newt Scamander and Dumbledore had not been successful in their attempts to remove the Obsurcus from his soul, because Ollie, he needed it now more than ever. The scream that poured unchecked from his lips, it made the hair stand straight up on the back of his neck as his skin crawled. It was the loudest most piercing scream he had ever heard.

It sounded like a scream of wild panic. A scream of mass hysteria, of disbelief, bordering on terror.

Ollie leaned over the edge of the railing, trying to see what he could, watching in horror as her petite frame descended to the wrecked courtyard below, into the flames, and then he couldn't even see her at all.

At first, his mind couldn't comprehend what the _hell_ just happened.

Ollie watched the fires of the Hogwarts Grounds blaze below as if it could burn up the inner rage at what Greyback had just done as if his frustrations and anger were the fuel that would turn into black confetti.

He could feel the heat from the fire dry his skin, scorching, ordering him to take a few steps back from the rooftop's ledge, but he didn't do it. He watched, eyes fully open, posture square to the flames of the fire.

It was like a vexing of the soul for what Ollie felt was not human, it was twisted and distorted, but it was something _strong_. It burned so bad like fire lacing his veins and creeping up his spine, his skin was a sore looking red, but all Ollie could feel was desire; the desire to _hate_.

He was intoxicated with emotion Ollie had no intention of ever feeling, the acidity of it was residing in his twisting and churching poor stomach waiting to be spat out of his mouth in foul and vulgar words that he knew he would be stared at for saying, except Ollie wasn't going to say them, bloody hell, _no_.

Ollie knew he was going to screech them with every ounce of breath that dwelled in his lungs. What few Death Eaters below remained that had not yet fled for their lives following the Dark Lord's defeat raved their path without giving a chance for those who protected Hogwarts to defend themselves.

The ambush was a glorious slaughter. Ollie clenched his teeth and ground his teeth in anger, turning towards Greyback, his wand hand curling tightly into a fist and spent his fury at Norah's death well vented in a sea of Death Eaters as more had clambered up on the roof to join Fenrir. All of them were masked in Master Crouch's face, every last one. This...was _his_ fault.

Red. Everything went red. Ollie's vision blurred as a flame curled in the pit of his stomach. His brain went on overdrive as it picked every moment that he'd spent crying, the torture he had endured at Crouch's hand.

The memories weighed down on Ollie but instead of breaking even more, what was left of his heart had turned ice cold and slunk into the shadows as his brain took complete control. The flames in his stomach rose up to his chest and crawling through his veins, took over the rest of his body, severing the flesh to bones of these damned Death Eaters.

Amidst the havoc, he warred his way towards the rooftop's exit, sending jinxes left and right, all manner of Unforgiveable Curses, ungracefully, squarely at Greyback's chest, because in Ollie's mind, what Fenrir had done, was unforgivable.

A fitting curse for a fitting act.

His pale skin was flushing with both terror and excitement as Greyback, finally, crumpled dead in a heap at his feet, and Ollie scrunched his nose in disgust and kicked the werewolf's body off the roof.

" _Mr. Brennan_!" A voice behind him spoke up, startling him out of his daze. Off to his immediate right, Ollie _swore_ he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, something black and imposing, but he was too shell-shocked to think of reacting to it, his fury well spent on Greyback. If he were being honest with himself, it was a miracle of Merlin he could even think at all.

His mind wasn't thinking properly, not able to respond. Ollie knew he needed to make a beeline straight for the courtyard, to recover Norah's body and give her and anybody else they knew who had died at the time of this blood-soaked dawn a proper burial.

But he couldn't even get his legs to work. It felt as though someone had pointed their wand square at his chest and ripped his own heart out. Agonized, Ollie slumped against the cold stone wall of the Astronomy Tower, not even feeling the sweet relief of the cold night air as it tousled his thick tuft of black away from his forehead. He couldn't breathe.

Everything was spinning and it felt as though the floor beneath his feet were bloody melting. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, his breathing become shallower, quicker, rendering him feeling breathless.

He could hear someone saying something to him, but whoever they were, they sounded distant and muffled. His stomach flipped, churning.

Ollie heard his name again, but at first, he wasn't even sure if they were calling his name yet at all. What was his name? Who the hell _was_ he?! He didn't know anymore. All he could seem to focus on was Norah falling away from his hand. Tumbling down into the fiery pits below him.

She was well and truly gone for good, only this time…it was _his_ fault.

Ollie hadn't been able to catch her. Norah had looked up at him with her blue eyes wide, brimming with fear and such terror, praying for him to save her, and he hadn't been fast enough. He had let her fall to death.

He…he had killed her, not Greyback. And Norah was dead, because of him. Norah had given Ollie the one thing that he had never asked for.

Her _life_. "No…take it back, _take it back_ , I…if this is _love_ , then I don't _want_ it," he whispered, his voice hoarse. Norah's serene eyes drenched his memory. He never would have imagined another woman aside from Tonks could invoke these old foreign feelings that nestled within his chest, yet, here he sat slumped against the wall, head buried in his hands, broken, a battered wreck, scarred, and beaten, but very much still feeling, and hating himself for it.

These feelings that he felt for the young blonde werewolf were new, but they had a familiar, yet foreign ache to them, almost overwhelming, like whenever he would spend time around Tonks.

Ollie did not _want_ her life, did not ask for it. From that one brief moment, when he had flung open the door to the Astronomy Tower and had found Norah at the edge of the roof, he had almost felt so… _elated_.

That she was still _alive_. That she was here. And then…and then… _this_. No! Merlin's Beard, no! No, no, no, no! He did not want Norah's life! _He_ should have been the one to fall into the fires below, not Jameson! It should have been _him_.

Why couldn't it have been him?! Why Norah?!

"Mr. Brennan, snap out of it!" A woman's stern voice snapped, and suddenly, Professor McGonagall's face was inches before his, kneeling before Ollie, with both her hands resting firmly on his slender shoulders.

McGonagall peered at Ollie over the rim of her spectacles and gave him a good, firm, hard shake. She looked almost as frightened and confused as he felt, and yet, her voice remained confident and strong.

"Follow me. You're going." Her tone was clipped and hardened.

"G—go?" Ollie whispered hoarsely, amazed he could even find his voice after that, his brain only able to pull together fragmented sentences.

He was still in shock. He recognized that, at the very least. " _Where_?"

"To Norah," Professor McGonagall responded quietly, groaning at the stiffness in her joints, courtesy of her arthritis and lumbago at her age as she somewhat shakily rose from her kneeling position and back upright again, and pulling Ollie to his feet with her.

She peered at him again with an unusually stern look that would have made a fully bloomed flower wilt.

"You will see the poor dear, won't you, Mr. Brennan? Yes?"

Ollie blinked. He did not understand. Norah Jameson, she was _dead_.

Professor McGonagall, Merlin bless her soul, put together his confused, shellshocked expression and his feelings because she quickly slid her glasses from falling back up the bridge of her nose and continued speaking, stowing her wand in an interior pocket of her robe, sighing.

"Your good friend, Mr. Weasley, managed to catch her, Mr. Brennan. Just there. Charlie Weasley was airborne on a Hungarian Horntail, the very same beast they flew in for the Triwizard Tournament when Mr. Greyback dropped Miss Jameson off the roof of the Astronomy Tower. Norah is safe. For now, I believe," she grumbled, letting out a tiny shudder.

She gave a jerk of her head towards something hulking, massive, and black in the sky.

That was all it took. The former Slytherin student lurched to his feet, almost tripping over the hem of his long black robes, and bolted for the Astronomy Tower stairwell, not bothering to wait for Minerva, who hollered after him something incoherent. Norah—she—she was _alive_!

 _Safe_! She was here! She hadn't fallen to her death into the fires below. It was those thoughts that propelled him forward, following the sound of flapping wings in the sky, the Hungarian Horntail's scales glistening and glittering even in the moonlight as she stretched her limbs and her wings.

Ollie thought he faintly heard Charlie Weasley shouting something, but due to a horrible, fatigued ringing in his eardrums, he couldn't make any of it out. He felt a sense of rejuvenated hope ignite in his chest as his feet pushed him forward, no longer taking directions from his brain, knowing already where Charlie was leading the dragon.

To the edge of the Forbidden Forest. But with the news that Charlie had been the one to save Norah from plummeting to her grisly death, Ollie swallowed as he felt bitter acidic bile rise in his throat and linger on his tongue. His friends, Charlie, Tonks, and now Remus, too, they made up for every mistake he had ever made. Not trying to get help sooner.

Not telling Tonks that he was alive for all those years, causing her pain and suffering by allowing Dora to think that he was dead, too scared to confront her until Master Crouch commanded him to by means of the Imperius Curse. And now, too scared to tell Norah his true feelings, and now look! She—she was _dying_ , and this was all _his_ fault.

He hadn't saved her! It seemed to him that wherever he tended to fall short, his friends were always there to pick up the slack. His friends, Charlie, and especially Tonks, were everything that he was not and perhaps…perhaps he had been chasing nothing more than a dream. Ollie growled in frustration.

 _No. Don't think like that_ , he scolded himself as he followed the large shadow Charlie's dragon cast as a hulking shadow over the Grounds.

If it took a lifetime of atonement, he was going to figure out what he had done to piss Norah off and cause her to flee from him, and he would find a way to win her back, and it was this thought that gave Ollie hope.

Not very much, admittedly. Just a small flicker, a flickering ember flame against the winds of his despair that fought for control of his heart and mind, but it was more than enough, and as he ran, following Charlie and the Hungarian Horntail, Ollie felt like his mind was plagued with the choice that he had made, that night he had left Norah all alone.

And now, where his heart used to be was a gaping hole in his chest. Whatever condition Norah was in, was bloody well and truly his fault.

Ollie felt a muscle in his jaw tense, his pale face ashen and devious, distraught with sleeplessness and despair and not knowing the state of the young blonde werewolf's condition. The thickening blush of two-day stubble had begun shadowing his jaws, but Brennan ignored all of that.

He could only think of _her_. Ollie's hands as he ran were trembling so badly as he followed Charlie and his precious Hungarian Horntail to the Forbidden Forest's edge, that he could barely hold his wand straight.

Ollie let out a growl of frustration as the dragon landed at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and he faintly watched Charlie dismount the massive beast's back. He drew in a sharp breath of cold night air as he swore a familiar figure limp in his other best friend's arms. Norah.

And then there was something cold on his face, running down his ashen cheeks in continuous tracts. Tears. _I'm crying_ , he thought softly. Such a strange thought. He could never recall crying in his life. His father had not allowed it, growing up, though his father was a monster. Ollie's monster, he had _loved_. He played Quidditch with him in the backyard of their manor as a boy growing up, and when he was younger, his parents had spoiled him with lots of gifts.

His father's eyes were a deep, rich brown, and a smile nearly identical to his own. This was true. The only thing sharp about him was the knife that made the gashes that littered his arms. It was why he favored his long black woolen robes.

To hide his scars. His dad's a bit of a drinker. It's how he got his bruises. At least, the ones that weren't caused by Master Crouch.

And, theoretically, his self-induced scars. But what hurts worse is the insecurity. The internal brokenness that only a person exposed to abuse can experience. It's like this: those mental scars are a tapering factor in the serenity of domestic life. They cause agony that can only be seen on the inside. The pain that no one else sees because… no one else cares.

There were nights when Ollie, growing up, would lay in his bed listening to the sound of fighting. His mother would shout, his father would begin laying into her and the screaming would start. She cried, he seethed, and Ollie remembered pushing his face into the plush toy snake his three-year-old body was wrapped around.

He would think to himself how when Mother left Father for good this time, you'll see, he would leave with her, flee the violence, flee Father. Then one day she _did_ leave... and Ollie remained right where he was with just a toy snake to comfort him.

He had thought that he would never be happy. It was not his plight in life, especially once he had learned Dora was marrying the wolf, Lupin.

At least that's what he had believed. Until he met and became acquainted with Norah. He had been drawn to her aura and her mind.

She was hiding something, and _from_ something, though she had never revealed to Ollie what it was.

He wondered if that it had a hand in her disappearance. Whatever had caused her departure, to flee without a word to Remus and Tonks and him, Ollie knew he had to be able to walk through Hell and back if that was what it was going to take to make Norah see sense. He resolved that's exactly what he would do to win Norah back.

Ollie drew in a sharp breath as he watched Charlie slide off the back of the dragon, and pried an unstirred, unresponsive and limp figure from the Hungarian Horntail's massive claws, talking to the towering, hulking, winged creature in soothing tones, before backing away and allowing the beast to take flight.

Somehow, he could not shake the feeling that this was all his fault. His body felt hot and sweat started trickling down his neck. He could feel the throbbing of his own eyes, the ringing screams still vibrating in his eardrums.

The thumping of his own heart against his chest, so audibly loud that he was sure Charlie Weasley could hear it. His fingers curled into a fist, nails digging in his palms. He couldn't hear his rapid breathing, but he felt the oxygen flooding in and out of his lungs.

Hesitantly, his eyes looked at the lifeless figure before him.

"Is she…?" he whispered, his voice breaking and cracking. He swallowed hard down past the growing lump in his throat. "Charlie? Who is that?" It seemed to take Charlie ages to find his voice, and when he did, his voice sounded muffled and subdued, as though underwater.

"Ollie, listen to me, you need to _leave_. It's not safe for you right now. I need to get you both to St. Mungo's, you don't need to be here for this. I don't want you seeing this, Ol, it would only hurt you," Charlie barked hoarsely, no warmth in his voice, kneeling on the forest floor to tend to the woman, and Ollie blinked, startled, as his other best friend threateningly raised his wand, and the man's features hardened and turned quite cold when Ollie made no move to follow his orders. "You _don't_ need to be here right now, Ol. It would only hurt you. Go. **LEAVE**!"Charlie bellowed, not wanting to fight his friend on this, but would if it came down to that.

But Ollie was cut off as the cloud moved out from in front of the moon and a single ray of light fell on the young blonde's pale face, shrouding it in a swath of pearly white light, and Ollie froze, feeling the blood drain from his face as he recognized the figure beside Charlie.

"No…" _Not her. Not her. Oh, God, oh, Merlin, seven hells, not her!_

"Ol, no, no, _listen to me_!" commanded Charlie gruffly, though he made no attempt to move from his crouched position on the forest floor, where Norah lay on the ground, lifeless and unresponsive. "Your—your friend, the werewolf, is still _alive_ , a—and she—she's going to be fine, she's got a pulse, but she _needs_ to get to St. Mungo's. You _both_ need to get to St. Mungo's."

Ollie heard none of his best friend's words as he deeply inhaled frigid cold air into his own lungs, his cracked and bleeding fingers feeling like they clawed at the ground beneath him. In his intense silence, he somehow screamed with his whole body.

The eyes wide with horror, the mouth rigid and open, his chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging deeply into the palms of his hand, and he practically fell against blood-stained earth in his mad scramble to appear at Norah Jameson's side. " _No_ …"

Tonks had teased Ollie, always said Ollie tended to love those he cared about, the family that actually gave a damn about him, like a hurricane. He was right. And in this instance, Ollie knew she was right.

"What have I _done_?! I…I didn't catch her, I missed..." He screamed it more to himself than to Charlie, and he barely felt Charlie's calloused and strong hand grip onto his shoulder as he used the trunk of an old oak tree as a brace for his back as he gently lowered himself to the floor, cradling Norah's lifeless form in his arms.

"Greyback threw her from the roof. It _wasn't_ your fault, Ol. It wasn't _you_ that did this, Ollie. It was... _Greyback_. It _wasn't_ your fault, Ollie," came Charlie's voice, though it sounded coarser, rougher than before.

But Ollie could hardly register his best friend's words. All he could focus on was Norah.

She looked like Death. Her skin was entirely too pale, absent of color. Ollie blinked back tears as lifted a shaking hand to the grotesque-looking burn mark on her leg. He held his hand to the burn, careful to be gentle, feeling at a loss for how to help her.

Those moments he spent pleading with his friend to look at him, to stay with him, feeling the very fluid of her life drain away over his cold hands, Ollie felt nothing at all. Time itself had become irrelevant; the seconds could have been hours, or hours mere seconds Not to have Norah right there was a torture to his fractured soul.

Ollie didn't break quietly, it was like every atom of his miserable, wretched, murderous being screamed in unison, traumatized that he should exist without his wife. When the wracking sobs passed, he cried in such a desolate way that no-one could bear to listen for long, not even Charlie, who pointedly looked away, feeling as though he were intruding upon something private.

Ollie had gone from gregarious to hanging by a thread, a transformation no-one knew how to reverse, not even Charlie.

A choked sob worked its way up to his throat. This—this was _not_ supposed to happen. Not Norah. Not her. Why she had done it? She should not have provoked Greyback. She should have…stayed away. This was all _his_ fault. Why had she interfered? To watching Norah Jameson, go from vibrant, full of life, and alive, to _this_.

It played repeatedly as if his brain was unwilling to let the images go and its attempts to analyze them, made Ollie see them all over again, when he just wanted Norah back, the way she was, for their lives to go on as they had been. For her to see that he wasn't going to let her abandon them again a second time, but he would not get that chance.

She was not responding to the calling of her name as her name left his lips, urgent, frantic. He knew the more he tried to repress it, the more it would just play again, but he couldn't help it. Streaks of fire burned his cheeks as he cried. Each new wave a hot trail of agony as he gently rocked Norah back and forth in his arms, as if he could force her to wake up that way.

The fire of shame and anger at his failure to protect the woman most important to him burned just underneath his pale skin and a deep emptiness filled his heart as the sentiments brewed over and boiled past the seams he could no longer hold together. There was no hope for a man who cried to his death, drowning himself in the tears of his personal hell.

"Look what he's _done_ to you," he wailed, burying his head in her hair. He was grateful she wasn't awake to hear him cry like this, and that Professor Snape wasn't nearby to see this, but what Norah would say to him if she could see him like this, he thought of it.

She'd always hated it, she had told him, a sign of weakness, and it was rare that he did, and he reviled the act, considering it a sign of weakness during times of immense stress, but this definitely counted as a stressful situation, and he felt that it was highly warranted this time.

 _I'll get you out, Norah. I promise…_ A stray tear slid down Ollie's cheek. He was crying for her. The first time in perhaps his entire life, he was crying for a woman that he loved. Someone that wasn't Tonks.

He cried, and Norah wasn't even awake to mercilessly tease him about it. Ollie gingerly raised a hand, smoothing back a stray strand of short hair behind her ear. Her spirit was gentle, and her very presence was like the sun itself, and without it, his miserable life was nothing.

How could he be expected to continue, when he would never see her smile that beautiful white, infectious smile that lit him up from the inside again? Lifting her limp form just so, burying his face in her hair, allowing the sweet scents of lavender and honeysuckle to fill his nostrils, his jaw rooted shut. Clenching his eyes shut, his teeth rooted in the effort to stay calm. But he just couldn't.

The dam broke, and suddenly, he felt his tears begin to slide down his face. It was more than just crying. It was the kind of desolate sobbing that came from a person drained of all hope.

He was only vaguely aware of Charlie kneeling and wrapping his arms around his middle as he knelt on the ground next to Ollie, knees digging into the mud and grit of the earth, doing what he could to convey some small measure of comfort.

Charlie didn't give a damn that blood from her various cuts and bruises that soaked his shirt or stained his palms. His best friend's gasping screams echoed around the woods, reverberating, worse than anything he'd ever heard before.

The pain that flowed from Ollie Brennan at what he had lost, was as palpable as the frigid nighttime air and soon the only other being at his side was Charlie, struggling to keep his own tears silent, looking down at the lifeless form of his friend's friend in his best friend's arms. Ollie had to believe that she was safe somehow, comfortable.

"I…never wanted this." His voice broke. Ever since they'd begun listening to each other, he could not bring himself to say it, because then, it would be real, and he wasn't even sure if Norah felt it, too.

It was far too intimate a saying for him to just say every day like he saw other couples do, sometimes he wondered if they truly meant it, as he felt for Norah, and he meant every word. But if there was a chance that saying it would bring her back to him… "I love you," he whispered into the shell of her ear, choking back a half-sob.

There. He'd _said_ it, the thing that he never thought he would utter once from his lips in his lifetime, this foreign, unfamiliar feeling that had been churning inside him for weeks now. Hard, wracking sobs shook his frame, yet he no longer gave a damn. He was only barely aware of the sound of Charlie saying something. "She…she…" But he could not make himself say the words.

_Not again..._

He didn't care if Charlie saw. The look of heartbreak in his best friend's eyes was almost too much for Ollie to bear to look at.

Sensing Ollie needed a minute, Charlie murmured something under his breath about alerting Remus and the others, and to expect them.

With a loud _crack_! as Charlie stood and turned on the heel of his boot, he Disapparated, giving Ollie a moment alone with his friend, time to grieve. Ollie nodded, hardly hearing his best friend's words.

He let out a hiss through clenched teeth and rooted jaw as his fingers curled into fists in her short blonde hair. He was not certain he had ever experienced grief this bad before, though now, it snuck up behind him quietly and took him under its arms in an instant.

He felt so _lost_ , so alone. He was lost mostly because he had lost a part of himself that he knew he could not get her back.

Yet he wanted her back so bad as his very life depended on Norah being by his side, but it was gone. _She_ was gone. Vanished.

At first, Ollie thought as he buried his face in her hair, fighting back his tears, that grief was something so depressing and bad that it took him ten feet under the earth, but right now, he learned that it was just the price he had to pay for daring to learn how to love someone.

His glistening, grief-stricken blue eyes flung wide open as he felt the slightest shift of movement within his arms. "What…?" he breathed. And then he heard her voice.

"I love you, too."


	103. From the Ashes

**1O3**

Norah's eyes remained closed, feeling herself bloody dying. The last of a dying breed. The only one in her family to be cursed with lycanthropy. Bleeding out, fading. She felt like she had been dead to the world, for so long since Wes and Jax were so cruelly murdered. _Taken_ from her.

All that remained was an empty shell, and she might as well have been given the Dementor's Kiss for as much as she allowed herself to truly feel and mourn their deaths.

For the first time in her life, she truly felt her age of thirty, like the harsh life of so long spent in the Forbidden Forest alone, had finally taken its toll on her.

The breeze of the Forest, once so warm and inviting, smelling of pinewood, now crept on Norah's pores like maggots and filled her nose with the putrid stench of rotten flesh.

 _Oh, wait, that's me_ , Norah thought darkly, her eyes shut.

The last thing she had seen before Greyback so cruelly thrown her from the ledge of the Astronomy Tower had been her own blood pouring out around her from where he had driven his own claws into her side. The red seemed to seep and weep out of the hole in her ribcage, soaking into the ground around her, and as the warm blood, that sweet, precious lifeforce that emanated out of her and hit the ground, she could swear she felt the blackened edges of death dance around her fading eyes.

Like smoke billowing from fire, though Death did not come for her. No. The angel of Death was not coming for her to take her into his cold embrace tonight. Because…because she had been already dead for so long.

That was, at least until she felt the sticky garish crimson drip against her browbone. It was the first thing that touched her in her semi-conscious state.

Her body twitched and stirred, just a little, and it hurt. Especially her right burnt leg.

It hurt as hell, and a sudden spasmodic, almost knee-jerk reaction as she felt something that felt like the pads of someone's fingertips lightly graze against the blackened, charred skin of her leg, caused her to wake.

Norah gasped suddenly, trying to clutch at her chest, but couldn't. Her lungs felt frozen. It took the young blonde She-Wolf several moments before she figured out that her heart, this damned stubborn muscle within her chest was still, by some miracle of Merlin, beating. But _slowly_. As if uncertain whether or not she was supposed to be alive or not. Her head throbbed and pounded against her skull, feeling like it was spinning, and she struggled to move.

She felt… _cold_. So damned _freezing_. Every breath that struggled to return to her bruised and battered lungs felt sore, labored. She was struggling to breathe, and could not force herself to open her eyes, not wanting to see what awaited her in this life. Norah tried to give a twitch of her foot, though her broken body was crawled with spasms, horrible pain that she had never felt before in her entire miserable life, making her toes in her black leather boots curl and her lips part, though she could not scream.

A strange coil wound tighter, deep within the churning pit of her stomach, cutting her breaths, what little air she could summon to her bruised lungs, short.

Her chest heaved and beads of feverish sweat as she burned up started to form on her brow. Norah was content enough to allow herself to close her eyes and let Death come for her, to whisk her away into that sweet place where it was rumored there was no pain, to see her Wes and Jax again, but then she heard Ollie's voice calling her.

She could hear him speaking to her, faint though it was, sounding like he was underwater. How broken and hopeless his voice sounded.

Never before had she heard the man's voice so sad, desperate, laced to the brim with self-hatred and loathing.

But why? Why did Ollie hurt? Why was her friend in so much pain? He should not be,

Brennan had no bloody reason to sound like this. What had happened was _not_ his fault, and it could never be the kid's fault.

Ollie spoke her name so softly as if everything he had ever cared for in his wretched, miserable life had been ripped apart from him. Something was _wrong_.

As the intonations of the former Slytherin's quiet, reserved voice rose and fell with each expelled surge of grief, his desperate, pleading voice came to her eardrums in tides, ebbs, and flows, like that of the sea.

And Norah's mind, hazy from exhaustion, and barely conscious, teetering in that sweet purgatory between life and death, began to attempt to try to sift through the fog that threatened to consume Norah.

Even though her lids were still closed, the young blonde werewolf could see shapes stirring, flying before the stars.

For a throbbing heartbeat, one made a shadow that eclipsed the waning moon, and the dragon that had saved her life disappeared into the night sky in a flurry of flapping wings, massive and angry.

Her eyelids felt heavy, though they flickered, and Norah felt herself wince.

After a moment, she realized Ollie's voice was no dream, that Brennan was _here_. She had to shake away some of the exhaustion, but bloody how the hell to do it?

Norah suppressed a breath and even that hurt like a _bitch_ , every second her chest heaved with hurt, though it felt like her chest barely rose and fell at all.

Norah could swear she felt her feverish face beginning to crumble, leaving her nose blushing a light rosy pink with stifled, anguished, barely audible sobs.

Every inch of her broken and battered body protested, but there was nothing that could twist back Time itself and spiral Norah back to the moment where she had decided coming to bloody Hogwarts to defend it, and hope to see the kid, was a Merlin-damned good idea because it _wasn't_.

Look what had happened! She was _dying_! She supposed it was a good thing no one she knew in her life owned a Time-Turner, and besides, awful things tended to happen to wizards and witches who meddled with Time to change their fate. No. Perhaps it was better this way….

Slowly, Norah tried to lift her head, but quickly realized how futile it was when she had to bite down on her bottom lip from crying out as one of Ollie's fingers accidentally grazed against the charred and scorched skin of her injury. Sharp pains lanced through her leg and her head and colorful spots flashed in front of her eyes. It felt as though her whole body had been ravaged and every twitch, however feeble, caused some muscle or bone to ache.

Regardless, she needed to lift her head and find out what was the hell was wrong with Ollie.

But she found she couldn't. Her arms ached horribly. No matter how much she clenched her eyes shut and forced her body to attempt to twitch just a finger, that was all, just a finger, _anything,_ to let him know she was alive, they would not obey her command.

Someone could cut them right off and she wouldn't feel a damn thing. She was exhausted. Though for the moment, her numb arms, and the rest of her body, for that matter, were the least of her problems.

 _The kid. Focus on Ollie, what's wrong. Need to…see him. Something's wrong with him. Wrong, wrong, this is wrong, why is he talking to me like this?! Have to…wake up…move, goddamn you, just a finger twitch, something. Need to…let him know…alive_ , her conscience helpfully reminded her.

Though the pain spiraling its way through her body was like an icy wind choking the very breath from her lungs and making a noose around her neck.

Its savage, bitter blasts cut right to her bones and gripped her brain in its freezing claws. Her heart constricted in its wake, as if not sure it should continue to beat.

The pain commanded all of Norah's attention. It did not sit quietly, like that of a simple paper cut or bruise. No.

It cowed her brain into meek submission, demanding a simple solution—to look at Ollie—that her body would simply not provide her. Merlin was _cruel_.

Cruel to deny her even this simple wish.

Without a break in the pain that spiraled through her entire system, Norah found she could not formulate a single thought.

Norah struggled, realizing as her mind slowly began to respond now that she knew she had to find a way to wake herself up physically, listening to her friend's whispered sobs into the shell of her ear.

Adrenaline flooded her system at that thought, pumping, and beating through her veins like it was trying to escape, or maybe that was just the copious amounts of blood that poured out of her system, it was hard for her to tell.

Norah thought her heart would explode and her eyes, though closed, felt like they were somehow wide with fear and anticipation, though it was not necessarily herself she worried for.

She would, in the end, be just fine.

Norah fought the tears that begged to be free, and her hallowed breathing felt like it stretched her throat until it hurt, and it felt as if on fire.

She felt her skin prickle and bile corrupted her throat, and she thought she would vomit. It was _not_ his fault.

 _Not_ his fault. Not Ollie's fault Greyback threw her off the roof.

The fact that he blamed himself was a _lie_ , she could hear the anguish seeping through his tones, and again, her new friend's disheartened cries that were almost screams of anguish ripped through the paper-thin walls of her barely-conscious mind, bringing her back to the current grim reality of her situation that something was wrong with Ollie.

 _You're gonna be fine, Jameson_ , her conscience piped up. _Wolf or not, you're a Gryffindor, goddamn it. If you can take on three adult centaurs with just the sword of Godric Gryffindor, a burnt leg is nothing. And you've always prevailed. You've had worse injuries than this_. _Ollie isn't going to leave you. You need to accept his help, like it or not. With his help, and Tonks and Lupin's if they're still alive, you'll be all right, in the end. You will. Trust that you're going to be fine_.

She chanted it over in her mind like a spell.

 _No matter what_.

But still, she worried for Ollie, knowing he would blame himself for what had happened, when it was _not_ and never would _be_ his fault.

Norah could feel the sweat drench her skin, the throbbing of her own eyes, the ringing screams vibrating in her ears, and the thrumming of her own feeble heart against her chest, miraculously, somehow, still finding a way to beat.

Her fingers curled into a fist, nails digging into the sensitive skin of her palm.

The young witch could not hear her rapid breathing, but she could feel the oxygen flooding in and out of her lungs.

The fear of the unknown, if she would die tonight, almost sent her bloody mind insane.

The fear felt like it tortured her guts, churning her stomach in tense cramps, engulfing her conscience, knocking all other thoughts aside, overwhelming her.

However, most of all, this strange fear she felt was making her calm and that was what scared Norah the very most, more than any other thought now.

The fear sat quietly, eroding the person she was born to be. What started as a horrible contortion of her stomach as it churned, twisting her guts into intense cramps, quickly became a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. Her breathing became still and yet somehow erratic, deep.

She fought it. She fought the horrible feeling as her body writhed to be free or shut down completely, and that she could not let it happen to her.

The paralyzing hurt spread through her body like icy metal. She clenched her fists and struggled to open her eyes and penetrate through the black hazy mist that gathered as dots in her closed eyes and line of sight.

Her throat closed at the threat of letting out an agonized scream that she knew would not help Ollie's panic, her jawline locked and became tightly closed. Fire in the form of water stung at her eyes as tears pricked and gathered at the corner of her vision, threatening their attack.

Norah crunched her teeth over her lip harder than she ever had, and she felt the metallic taste of iron linger on her tongue as she realized salty, warm blood was filling her mouth. Norah was finding this challenge of attempting to pull herself from this groggy stupor demanding, one she was not entirely sure she possessed the strength left within to carry it out.

Everything felt so damned heavy, heavier than anything she had ever experienced before in her life.

What but she wouldn't give to just…sleep.

To lay like this in Ollie's strong arms and rest, for she was tired, in both body and soul, everything _ached_ and hurt like never before.

Though again, a muffled, choking sob, a cry of sorrow that belonged to her friend wracked through her hazy mind, forcing her to return to her present situation of finding some way to let Ollie know that she was alive.

Norah tentatively opened her eyes, though not without great difficulty, and almost wished that she hadn't, as a swell of nausea washed over her entire body so suddenly that she was half-tempted to close her eyes again and wait for it to pass, but she couldn't, and her sight cleared enough to make out his face.

And Ollie was… _crying_.

The dark-haired blue-eyed younger man, that she would, until her dying breath, _never_ admit to _anyone_ , _especially_ not him, that she thought he was cute, otherwise his ego would be damned near intolerable, sobbed into her chest unceasingly, hands clutching around her middle, and his pale face was bent over, a lock of his short raven-black hair had fallen from its place behind his ear. It had fallen into his eyes in such a way that it was preventing her rescuer from seeing that his friend had woken up.

Hard, grief-wracked sobs shook his frame so violently that Norah had no idea _what_ the hell to do, let alone say.

She struggled to move even a fraction of an inch but found her body was so heavy and sore that she quickly abandoned all hope of that idea. Norah could do nothing but lay there in silence, listening as he rocked her slowly in his arms as his tears soaked her collarbone. A tiny lapse let him pull away, blinking lashes heavy with his tears, before he just…collapsed again, her friend's howls of misery worsening. For a moment, he almost sounded like a Wolf, the pitiful whimpers that left him.

The pain must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling him back into the outstretched arms of his grief.

A blast of nausea made her skin shiver and left a horrible ringing on her ear as he whispered in her ear.

"I—I'm so _sorry_! This is…all my fault….my fault…" he sobbed, his cries heart wrenching and unbearable to listen to. "I…I did not _mean_ this. For _any_ of this, Jameson. I…what have I done, _what have I done_ , just _look_ at you…I—I didn't catch you when you fell. I didn't _save_ you."

Her friend's words escaped his lips as a wailing sob, full of self-hatred.

His voice sounded muffled as if Ollie were speaking to her underwater.

Beads of sweat began to form and glitter on her browbone, and gathering enough strength on her throat, she attempted to speak, though when she tried, her tongue felt thick and heavy. When Norah tried through her hurt to say Ollie's name, it felt as though there was a gag on her mouth, and her tongue refused his name's release from her lips.

 _Not your fault. Not your fault. Not. Your. Fault!_ Norah tried to scream it at him, anything to let him know she was alive.

But she couldn't even manage a simple squeak or a finger twitch to alert her friend of her presence. Her vision blurred as she struggled to focus on the features of Ollie's face.

Heat dragged in spasms across her body, wave after wave, white-hot, searing pain, hotter than any branding iron or dragon flame as it licked up the entire right side of her body and ended at her neck. Her vision continued to blur, and it felt like the Forbidden Forest's edge around the two of them was revolving. Norah could not even hear her friend's words anymore, just the awful, thick stillness and the ringing in her own eardrums. Norah just wanted it to _stop_.

Her stomach heaved a pressure that she was so unfamiliar with, and for a moment, she thought she might vomit.

This wave of nausea that wracked her maimed form was entirely different, like nothing she'd ever felt before, but by some miracle, some act of Merlin Himself, she swallowed down the bitter, acidic stomach bile that had crept its way up her esophagus and had settled, lingering upon her tongue.

By some miracle, Norah never screamed once. Not a sound escaped her lips as this horrible agony, this wretched, eternal, burning fire wracked her body, though she wished that it would. Anything to make a sound. _Speak, damn you, Jameson! Scream! Shout! Cuss him out! Something! Anything_. _To let him know I'm alive._

So, consumed by distress and the white-hot pain that seared up her body in waves, that she missed her friend's words.

Though what followed, she was, by some miracle, able to make out.

"I…love you." His words left his lips as a hoarse, weak whisper.

Suddenly, it felt as though a terrible weight had lifted from her shoulders as if an overly large child had just leaped off them after a satisfying piggyback ride. Her brain tingled like a hand that had been sat on for too long. Just being _near_ him lit Norah up from the inside, giving her a serenity she did not even know she had missed in her life, she could never know without him being close, though something within her fought this feeling.

The darkness began to lift. She could no longer tell for sure if she was dead or not, or where it was that Ollie had brought her, though the first thing that told her she was alive as her eyelids slowly fluttered open was Ollie's face hovering on the edge of her awareness, in that sweet place between long sleep.

Surely, nothing, not even dragon fire from the very same Hungarian Horntail that had just helped in saving her life could kill the kid.

Ollie Brennan had to be the most tenacious of wizards Norah had ever met in her lifetime.

The next signal she was still among the living was the intense, searing pain that shot up like white-hot flares through every part of her broken, beaten body. Slowly, reality sank in on her, weighing her down as if there was a boulder on her chest. The destruction and devastation of Hogwarts. She had woken up to find herself a shattered She-Wolf. Her body now a broken shell of what it once was. Her mind was plagued with the choice she had made, to leave her friends without so much as a goodbye or an explanation as to why she had to go then.

In her heart, there was nothing left but a gaping hole at what she had done. It seemed every fiber, every cell of her body screamed for Ollie to help her.

His name continuously echoed in her head. _Ollie_! She was quick to recognize that it was her own heart screaming out for her, but it felt… _wrong_. This, this unimaginable thing she felt churning in her chest for the man these last nine months had to be wrong… _right_?

How could she look at another man after Wes's death like this? Let alone one four years younger than she was. And what would her _husband_ even say to this? This time, the internal voice that taunted her was her own as the question swirled around in her tired, throbbing head. As the silence around her thickened, an abrupt bitterness seeped into her nauseous, rolling stomach as Norah thought of Ollie, and wondered why it was she had not allowed herself to feel for him.

The bitterness in her stomach worsened as the realization quickly set in. _Tonks_. _Tonks_ was the reason Ollie was such a Merlin-damned bloody mess all the time, and a lump in Norah's throat formed as her breaths stuttered and died. But then…he had uttered those words, and she felt so…so carefree.

The moment her friend had uttered those words, it felt as though the immense white-hot pain that wracked through her body in waves no longer mattered.

And then, before she even had a chance to open her eyes further, let alone try to respond to his sweet, cherished confession with a statement of her own, Norah felt something warm and slightly coarse, and feather-light press itself against her forehead.

Instantly, an incredible heat spiraled through her entire system, and her eyes flung wide open of their own accord despite the heaviness behind her lids, and it felt as though her mind had come back to life at his words, filling her body, invigorating her, giving her a new sense of purpose.

She froze, unstirred, and unresponsive in Ollie's arms. _Did he just…?_

The pain in her burnt leg, side, and her broken wrist were barely noticeable. Nothing else mattered except for his words and the feeling of his lips pressed against her forehead, gentle and lingering, his fingertips leaving sparks of flames in their wake as he clutched onto her middle, the heat spreading from her lips to the very edges of her toes.

Somehow, by a miracle of Merlin, though it was hoarse and rough and barely audible, her voice (finally) decided to cooperate and come back to her. Against her better judgment, shoving aside thoughts of her dead husband and son, for now, Norah squeezed her eyes and tried to ignore her brain, willing only to speak the words that her heart told her to speak.

Had she really heard him?!

Was her mind, at the edge of the brink of death, playing another cruel trick on her again? But it couldn't be. Ollie, the man…he'd sounded genuine.

No. This was no trick of the Forest's. Not even she would be this cruel. Bloody hell, no.

This…was all _real_ , every second of it. Norah felt her heart swell at his words, those three wonderful words she never thought she would hear again, not since Wes and her sweet precious boy, her Jax, were taken from her.

Before Norah could open her eyes, let alone struggle to answer his confession, she felt something warm, feather-light, and gentle, then press itself for a second time against her burning up forehead, and one of his fingers brush her wispy blonde bangs off her forehead, and it was that gesture that was enough to elicit a physical response.

With next to no effort, Norah's eyes fluttered open, her vision blurred.

And this time, though her voice was hoarse and shaky, her throat and tongue decided this go-round to cooperate, and she heard her voice speak to him.

"I…love you too, Ollie."

* * *

**Hell of a way to pull through, Jameson! I hope you all liked this chapter and although rather short in comparison to the last couple, I figured there wouldn't be too much dialogue in this chapter while Norah struggled to regain consciousness and give the Wolf some slack.**

**She DID get almost clawed and strangled to death, her leg badly burned in the fires, and fell some hundred-odd feet off the top of the Astronomy Tower.**

**I'd say she's more than a little banged up, and she's definitely going to have one hell of a nasty recovery after this, but hopefully, Ollie, Remus, and Tonks can help our favorite She-Wolf recover. Ouch!**


	104. A Flicker of Hope

**1O4**

" _I…love you too, Ollie_."

Ollie's eyes, which had been closed, immediately flew open at the sound of his friend's sweet, shy, and quiet voice wafting to his ears. It…she was…she was _alive_. It couldn't be. She had been so lifeless, so cold, pale as the shrouded figure of Death itself. This…this had to be a dream. A cruel dream. Another damn trick of the Forest.

Ollie blinked. "S—say again, Norah? Can you…can you _hear_ me? you're alive, oh thank Merlin! Can you hear me?" he demanded.

"Y—yes. I—I can…hear you…" she whispered hoarsely. She squirmed in his grip as he slowly raised his free hand and made to bring to one of her still too ghostly white cheeks. She had lost a lot of blood and needed a Healer's care. Ollie could hardly believe it.

That all Ollie was seeing nothing than his own distraught mind collapsing in on itself. Yet, how on earth could it? Her sky-blue eyes, still half-lidded, as if lacking the strength to open fully, flickered slowly between his outstretched hand and his face. She moved!

"Oh, thank Merlin!" he breathed, burying his face in her hair.

And while her eyes were barely open and covered by some hazy cloud, whether it be exhaustion or pain (likely a combination of the two) they still contained just a brief flicker of light. Some small amount of sassiness and wit remained in those eerily haunting brilliant azure eyes of hers.

"I'm proud of you," she whispered, a wry little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I thought maybe you'd…not made it."

The sound she made was barely audible, and had he not been hanging onto her every movement; he would have never heard her speak such sweet words. Her voice came out as scratchy and hoarse, cracking horribly as she tried to speak further. Ollie's blue eyes widened in shock. This only solidified what his mind was already barely trying to accept. His beloved friend was _alive_. Norah was _not_ dead, after all, she was here in his arms, with him.

A choked half sob, a half gasp of awe tore from his chest, wracking his form in a wave of relief and joy. Renewed tears began to flow down his face. Slowly, as if in a dream, Ollie took his raised hand and gently pressed his palm to her cheek. It was not cold as it had been not a moment ago, some warmth had returned to her skin. Her eyes, at that moment, misted over and began to close, a small shuttering breath escaping her as she did so.

A wave of panic suddenly hit him at her reaction to his touch and he felt ice flood his veins instantly.

"No! Norah. Don't go to sleep! Stay awake for me, Jameson, can you stay awake?" He carefully shifted her in his arms, bringing her upper body towards him, cradling her left hand in his own hand, bringing it up to rest against his cheek.

He carefully settled her against his shoulder and the crook of his arm, allowing her to lean against him for support while also letting her sit somewhat upright. He gently gave her a firm shake. Nothing to cause any unnecessary pain, but enough to rouse her from drowsiness. "Open your eyes! Don't go to sleep! You—you have to stay awake, Norah!"

Instantly, her eyes reopened, yet they still could not manage to open fully. Ollie realized in that horrible moment that although Norah was not yet gone, she was fading. She barely had any strength left, hardly enough to keep her eyes open let alone try and speak to him.

Risking a quick glance, he scanned her for her injuries, remembering that she had been dealt several hard blows. Her left wrist was broken in two places. There was a shallow, long cut on the other side of her neck, just above her collarbone. There was also a slightly deeper gash on her cheek, though not as open as the one upon her neck and several bruises marred her delicate ghostly white skin on her arms.

Yet, none of these could compare to the injury on her leg. The burn from where she'd fallen into the fires. The ripped, burnt flesh. By Merlin's beard, what he had done! If only he had caught her...

Ollie dared not unravel the makeshift bandage that was clearly binding the wound and preventing it from seeping festering blood. Despite this, the crucial life essence had seeped through and stained the already red fabric of the bandage a deep, dark crimson. He knew not how deep the wound went or its width, but what he did know was that removing that bandage was out of the question right now. Doing so would surely result in massive blood loss, and…he couldn't bring himself to think further.

He needed help. Ollie needed someone else's help. If he didn't find a solution fast, she was truly going to…Again, he feared the word that came into his thoughts, but he pushed his fear away. He needed to get a grip on his emotions or else he was going to cause her to panic, and that wasn't going to help her heal. "Norah?" he whispered gently, his voice far too low, and trying to keep the fear out of his tone. "Norah? Hey, Jameson? Can you hear me?"

The young blonde She-Wolf lifted her head ever so slightly so that her half-open, misty blue eyes that had grayed, resembled the last ashes of a deadly wildfire, smoke on the breeze, were gazing up at him. She offered him a tiny nod, yet he could see the sheer amount of effort it took for her to do so.

She nearly had little to no strength left in her at all. Swallowing the lump forming in the back of his throat, Ollie nodded stiffly back and sucked in a deep breath that pained his lungs. "Don't," he pleaded shakily, his voice cracking in the process. He inwardly flinched; his voice sounded far too desperate. "Don't do that. _Please_."

"Don't do what?" she whispered, wincing at the harshness of his tone, how rough and coarse her friend's voice sounded as he spoke to her.

"Don't go to sleep, you stay with me, damn it," he commanded harshly, his voice coarse and gruff. " _Fight it_."

Giving himself a shake to steel his nerves, Ollie raised his head and looked around. He saw no sign of Mr. Scamander or Snape or anybody else that was close to the Forbidden Forest. _Charlie_! Ollie looked wildly to the left and right, cursing himself, remembering Charlie had vanished.

His best friend was absent, but that was more a relief than anything else. He knew that he could not do this on his own. Where was more help? Ollie feared that if he tried to move Norah any more than he already had, he would end up causing more harm than good.

And then, it hit him squarely in the chest, the one who could help.

" _Remus_." The one Ollie could trust above all else to help Norah.

He would have some idea of what to do for her. Anything Ollie was incapable of doing; Remus Lupin had proven that he could. Ollie looked down at Norah (who was still resting limply against his shoulder, still fighting to keep her eyes open and stay awake.) He reached up a finger and gently stroked her cheek, not caring that her blood stained the interior of his palm, brushing a wisp of stray blonde hair back behind her ear.

"Norah?" he asked softly, his voice just a little bit stronger this time.

"Mmm," she mumbled incoherently, keeping her eyes still closed.

"I need you to stay awake, Norah. For me. Nod if you understand."

She blinked, recognition and awareness returning to her eyes, which instantly sought his own. She blinked again, this time much more slowly, and exhaled heavily. "Yes, I hear you," she breathed, her voice still hoarse and weak.

Ollie felt his heart give a painful lurch at the sound. It resembled nothing like her beautiful, gentle tones. However, he took the hand that rested against her cheek and threaded it through her blonde tresses, trying to give her as much comfort as he was able.

At the sudden and unexpected action, Norah opened her eyes once more and this time, they were a bit wider than before. Wide and full of affection. Her expression softened a little bit. A tiny ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. At her gentle expression, he felt his heart hitch again, but this was a different feeling than the ones from before. He began to feel an immense sense of relief, that she was _alive_. That while this was entirely his fault, what had happened to her, there was the small flickering ember flame of hope that welled in his chest that Norah might one day forgive him for not being fast enough.

Yet, as Ollie opened his mouth to speak, Norah's eyes suddenly flew wide open and a deep, pain-ridden cry tore from her lips.

Her body gave a hard shudder, her eyes glazed over as she clenched her eyes tightly shut, shielding them from his view. She cried out and released a small groan and turned her head to the side, eyes clenched tightly shut and teeth ground in the effort to keep in her scream of pain. Whatever amount of pain she was in, it was clearly too taxing and far too much. His eyes widened in shock as her cheek fell against his shoulder and her body tensed as a wave of pain hit.

"Norah? What's wrong?" Ollie immediately forwent any amount of calm. Instead, raw panic hit him faster than ever before, and this time, he did not hesitate. The arm that was supporting her shoulders tightened instantaneously while his other shot underneath her knees, gripping her lower thigh tightly as if to ground himself.

"No! No, no, don't…don't go to sleep!"

She was still conscious, he could tell, though her breathing had quickened, and her eyes moved rapidly from under their lids, which were squeezed tightly as if to somehow bar away whatever pains she felt. Norah was in far too much pain for him to help and he was far too panicked and emotionally compromised to be of any use. He didn't know what to do.

What could he do? There had to be something…

Suddenly, Ollie felt that Norah needed to be set upon something stable. Holding her like he was, was probably causing her wounds to flex and become agitated and inflamed. For all he knew, he had rubbed an injury the wrong way and had caused the bout of pain that Norah was now desperately trying to fight off with all her strength. With the utmost care, he gently lowered her to the forest floor, making sure that he was mindful of her injuries.

Once she was settled, he made to pull away, yet as he did so, one of Norah's hands caught hold of two of his fingers on his right hand, refusing to let go. His hand was far too large for hers, so two fingers were about as much as she could wrap her hand around, yet her grip was stronger than he had anticipated, almost as strong as a man's.

He winced slightly as they tightened further upon his fingers, feeling the amount of pain she must be in for her to inflict such strength.

Ollie lifted his free hand to her brow and wiped away the beads of sweat that were accumulating there. Her face, which had regained a bit of color, was pale again, but thankfully, not as white as she had been before. She kept her eyes clenched tightly shut, in far too much pain to open them and look at him.

Small tears began to flow from the corners of her eyes. His heart gave another painful lurch at the sight of Norah in so much physical and emotional agony. She was suffering so greatly, yet there was nothing within his power to stop this. He couldn't stop his own tears from escaping as a sob of his own escaped past his lips.

Despair began to take hold of him completely. It was hopeless! There was nothing he could do for her, and he hated this! His friend and new love, now that he had gotten fully over Tonks, was fading right before his eyes and he could not seem to be able to keep himself calm enough to aid her. It would have been better if she had passed before now, to not suffer like this. This was agony for her! What had he done to her?!

All of this was all _his_ fault. He bent over her, trying so hard to get his voice to work, to speak words of comfort to her to ease her pain, yet nothing but choked sobs and tears came forth. His voice would not come to him. So, he continued to stroke her hair gently, wanting nothing more than to pick her up and hold her in his arms and never let her go, but there was the simple matter of any broken bones she might have, and he worried that if he tried, it would do more harm than good for Norah.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was caused even more pain and damage than he had already done. Until he got her to St. Mungo's, neither of them would know the true extent of the damage.

Then it dawned on him. Something he had forgotten, and he could hear the forgotten person's thoughts, swearing wildly inside his mind.

 _Remus_ , oh thank Merlin! Ollie thought, breathing a sigh of relief, feeling like he might burst into tears. Help had come for him. Norah was saved! Mustering every bit of strength and control he could manage; he lifted his head towards the edge of the woods wherever Remus had Apparated to and shouted desperately at the top of his lungs. " **REMUS**!" he roared. He needed help, and fast, or Norah wouldn't live.

His shaking hand found its way to the curve of her waist and settled there. Just last night, he'd dreamed of his friend on a cold snowy morning in the woods near the Forbidden Forest. Norah was standing before him, with her hair a lovely shade of white-blonde against the ghostly dead trees, vibrant against the pristine white snow. Ollie could remember calling out to her once, twice, a third time, and then the young werewolf turned slightly at the waist, a honey-sweet dazzlingly white smile etched on her lips.

His friend had such a sweet smile, Ollie was sure no other held such a smile in this world.

The way Norah's lips lifted upward. The way her one dimple crinkled. The way her teeth are perfectly aligned. The warm glow her happiness gives. Her smile was every bit the ray of sunshine he'd always known it to be. There was something about the way Norah smiled; the way butterflies seemed to escape from the pit of her stomach and the way the sun had somehow toppled down from the sky and made a home right there in her pure and gentle heart.

Norah Jameson had the kind of soft smile that made him feel happy to be alive and just that little bit more human. In his dream, she greeted him without language, no need to speak, for her eyes communicated a worthy enough story of their love without her having to utter a single word, and she outstretched her hand for him to take, waiting as he outstretched his own hand to take hers, reaching…

 _But…but oh, Merlin Beard…_ Ollie blinked, forcing his mind to return to his harsh reality and his grip on his friend's fading form tightened even more. He clenched his eyes shut and blinked back briny tears.

_…_ _What have I done?_

* * *

Less than five minutes after Apparating onto Hogwarts soil near the edge of the Forbidden Forest, right where Tonks had told him they would be, Remus practically felt his ears perk up at the sound of Tonks's best friend calling his name so desperately, his normally reserved and quiet tones laced to the brim with fear and trepidation, and the second he'd arrived on Hogwarts Grounds, near the edge of the Forbidden Forest where Tonks told him to go, he felt his posture stiffen and become rigid as he stood up straighter instantly. He could practically feel his face drain of color, the shock clear on his face.

Remus needed no mirror to see it.

" _Ollie_ ," he murmured. Remus felt himself launch into a fully-fledged sprint towards the southwest side of the Forbidden Forest. The plea from Ollie Brennan came a second time, desperate, terrified. The blood drained from Remus's face and before he was even aware of making a conscious decision, his legs pounded furiously on the uneven muddy track, his ears straining for more sounds, more clues where it had come from. Remus had no bloody clue as to what to do when he got there, just that he had to get there, and fast, or else Ollie and Norah were in danger.

Remus finally found them in the forest clearing, just where he'd met the pair of them the first night in the Forbidden Forest when they'd set out to get Umbridge back and was met with a sight that very nearly sent him spiraling into a fully-fledged breakdown, tears, and all, himself.

But… _Norah is alive_ , he thought and breathed an audible sigh of relief. Her breast rose and fell heavily, and every once in a while, her body would give off a twitch, and her eyelids fluttered, and she seemed to be wholly focused and intent on keeping her gaze fixated on poor Lupin.

She would occasionally let out a moan or a gasp of pain, that was the next thing Remus noticed, and it hit him squarely in the chest, as though he'd been hit by a Knockback Jinx that the Wolf was still alive.

Immediately, he bolted forward and knelt at Ollie's side, lowering his body into a crouch at Norah Jameson's free side not currently clutched in a tight embrace by Ollie, and it was only when Remus craned his neck forward for a better look at her pain-racked form did Remus truly get a good look at poor Mr. Brennan's physical state.

 _Merlin's Beard_ … he thought and swore under his breath angrily.

Ollie was pale, paler than he'd ever seen his wife's best friend, and Remus could not help but wonder if poor Ollie was about to pass out or become physically sick with worry. His black hair seemed to create such a contrast against his ashen, clammy skin, and dried tear tracts could be seen on his cheeks.

His hand not currently clutching onto Norah's, whose own hand was wrapped so tightly around his like a lifeline, was trembling like mad and curled into a fist to prevent himself from striking out at something (most likely himself, if Remus knew Ollie Brennan) in anger. It was a bloody miracle that Norah had managed to survive such a vicious mauling. _Merlin save her_ , he thought and ground his teeth in anger at her condition. The wound on her leg appeared to be the one that would prove to be the most problematic at healing, and would have otherwise proven fatal to Muggles, but not her.

Though the simple fact remained that, if they did not get her medical attention, and fast, there was a slim chance she wouldn't survive.

Remus quickly returned his attention towards his wife's friend, whose eyelids had fluttered open and she offered him a weak smile in return, and he attempted to return it, though he could feel his cheeks' reluctance to be molded falsely. They simply were not having any part of it now.

"It's all right. You're _safe_ now. Tonks sent me here. She…had a dream that you two needed help, told me where to find you both. I—I don't quite understand how this is possible, Mr. Brennan, but it doesn't matter now. What does matter is you both are hurt. I'm here to help. We need to get you to St. Mungo's, Norah, Ollie," Remus spoke quietly, more to Norah than Ollie. "Y—you're going to be all right, Norah. I _promise_."

Her eyes remained tightly squeezed shut, and it was very possible that Norah Jameson could no longer hear anything by the amount of physical pain, the agony that she must be suffering at this very moment!

It was true that Norah was still alive, but only just. It was a Merlin-damned bloody miracle that the young blonde werewolf, as resilient and tough as she was, had managed to survive this long, considering her injuries and the severe extent of how badly off Norah was in at this time.

The only one of those that was more or less a mortal wound, was the one on her right side, her ribcage.

 _Claw markings_ , he thought, repressing a growl of frustration and horror as he got a close enough look.

She was clearly fading. Lupin had seen enough wounds caused by Greyback and other wolves in his lifetime to be able to tell the hard truth.

Yet, there was a slim chance perhaps he and Professor Snape could still save her. If they acted fast enough and got her to a place of healing. Lupin was forced out of the dark swirling vortex of his thoughts as Ollie's broken voice reached his eardrums, forcing him to look at him.

"C—can you…save her?" he pleaded, blinking back a fresh wave of tears, causing poor Remus's stomach to churn violently in its pit at the shattered, broken request of Dora's best friend. He was not a Healer.

He could do minimal help, but he could not mend flesh, fix broken bones behind anything of his basic level of skill set. They needed Snape.

Remus bit the wall of his cheek, not wanting to give Dora's friend false hope, but also did not want to lie to the younger man to his face.

"Ollie," he began hesitantly and sorrowfully, lowering his gaze to Norah's violently convulsing form, noticing Ollie's ironclad grip on the blonde werewolf's waist. He could not bear to look Brennan in his blue eyes currently glistening with tears that threatened to escape from his lids. To meet his eyes and see the fear and disappointment within them.

To allow him to see how when Norah needed help the most, there was very little he could do aside from perhaps mend her broken wrist.

"I'm not a Healer. I don't think I have it within my abilities to save her, but Professor Snape can," he murmured, straightening his posture, waving his wand and producing a non-corporeal Patronus, sending the burst of white light towards the now-ruined estate of the Hogwarts Castle.

Ollie nodded mutely, his fingers curling into a protective vice grip, clinging to Norah's waist as though the young blonde She-Wolf were his lifeline upon which he had chosen to hang the last shreds of his sanity on.

For all Remus knew of this situation and what he was feeling, he had. He froze when he heard Dora's best friend speak in an angered tone.

"I— _I_ did this to her. I'm a monster. Master Crouch was right. I'm only good at _taking_ lives, spilling blood, not saving anyone. I—I didn't _save_ you, Norah."

Ollie kept his head bowed, afraid to see Dora's husband's reaction, and if Norah's eyes were still open, the young woman who held his heart and kept it safe. Or at least, he _hoped_. They still had to have that unpleasant conversation, but hopefully, another time, when she was fully recovered.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, not wanting to meet Lupin's gaze, though the older wizard had other ideas in mind, as his strong hand reached out and firmly cupped his chin, forcing him to raise his head and open his eyes and look to its owner, staring Remus Lupin dead in the eyes.

"That is _not_ true, Mr. Brennan," Lupin answered, his tone clipped, his words harsh, but not necessarily unkind. "You are _not_ a monster. You're a man, and it is time you started treating yourself as such. You are capable of much more than death and destruction. _You saved her life_."

"It didn't make any difference!" he exploded bitterly, turning his head away from Remus, not wanting to look into those glistening brown orbs of incredulity and disappointment any longer than he had to. "She—she's _dying_ because I—I didn't catch her, Remus!" Ollie yelled bitterly.

"Didn't make any _difference_?! _Ollie, it made all the difference in the world_ ," Remus frowned, his brows coming together in a quandary. "If it weren't for you, Norah would have no reason to continue to live, Ollie."

"H—hey, _jackasses_ ," interrupted a barely audible and clearly hoarse voice that sounded like it had inhaled too much smoke from the fires that still ravaged and burned, though they were dwindling now, which was a good thing. "N—not v—very n—nice to talk about me wh—when I'm right in front of you. B—but I—I'm not d—dead _yet_ , Ollie…"

Both Remus and Ollie swiveled their heads down to regard the owner of the voice. Norah Jameson's piercing pools of blue were barely open, yet a hint of their glimmering mischievousness could still be seen.

What was supposed to come across as a smile turned into a pained and twisted grimace as a tiny smirk tugged at the corner of her cracked and bleeding lips.

Though some of her hardened exteriors had broken through her haze of pain and agony as Norah Jameson opened her eyes. Tears pooled and pricked at the corner of her eyelids, stinging, and blurring her vision, though Norah either didn't seem to notice or if she did, paid them no mind.

"Y—you didn't think…y—you could…get rid of me _that_ easily, did you, kid?" she whispered hoarsely, smiling at Ollie.

Lupin nodded quickly, tearing his gaze away from the blonde werewolf who had become a dear friend to not just him, but to Dora as well, as a doe Patronus soared through the sky and Snape's voice filled the air beside the three of them, saying in his usual droll baritone that he would meet them at a designated place of Remus's choosing, wherever he believed Miss Jameson would be able to recover and heal adequately.

"Wh—where are we g—going?" Norah asked weakly, squeezing her eyes shut and biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to bleed as Ollie, as gingerly as the man could, lifted her limp form in his arms bridal style, not protesting as he adjusted her in his hold, allowing her head to rest against the crook of his elbow. "Where…are we...go…Ollie?" she whispered.

She was fading, and fast, no longer able to speak in full, coherent sentences, her lids flickering.

Ollie looked towards Remus for confirmation, a panic-stricken look in his brilliant blue eyes, his tears spent for now. Lupin felt a muscle in his jaw twitch, holding out his arm for Ollie to take. Though, as Remus Disapparated via Side-Along Apparition and he reflected over the way the two had looked at each other, he could not help the thoughts that swirled in his exhausted mind.

 _One thing's for certain. Give it a few weeks after she's healed and they will both either be madly in love with each other, or Norah will have killed Ollie_. Lupin felt a faint ghost of a smile tug at his lips at that thought. Remus did not even have to think about where he was taking them. He was taking them where he knew they belonged, where they would be safe, a quiet, secluded place where Norah could be allowed to heal.

He was taking them home.


	105. Interlude

**Part IV**

**Window to the Past**

**Hello, my lovely readers! Welcome to Part 4 of this long fic that became much longer than I intended!**

**Now that Remus and Tonks & co. are (finally) out of the cursed Forbidden Forest and Teddy is in the world, our favorite couple will be dealing with the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts and adjusting to life with baby Teddy before the start of the Hogwarts' term, and Norah will be facing a difficult recovery ahead and developing her new relationship with Ollie.**


	106. A Pulling Feeling

**1O5**

Tonks didn't think she could stand the bloody waiting for much longer. Her mother was inside, Merlin bless her, watching Teddy, while she stood out on the front porch of her and Remus's cottage, biting down on her lip. She painfully twisted and wrung her hands together, feeling a sheen of sweat start to exude on her temples and drip down the sides.

Tonks could not recall a time when she had ever been more terrified, thinking that her time in the Forbidden Forest against a number of creatures, that strange white phantom light that had led her astray, the Acromantula, the centaurs, Barty Crouch Jr., Umbridge. They paled in comparison to what she was currently feeling now. Tonks felt utterly panic-stricken, and not even the feeling of little Ptelea grazing her cheek with the leaves on his head was doing little to comfort her, though, on a good day, it usually worked.

"Something's wrong, Ptelea. They should have been back by now. Something's happened to Ollie," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to focus to see if she could hear Ollie's thoughts. Nothing but silence.

Her concern for her friends was overpowering her desire to go inside and fetch a jacket or sweater to fight against the nighttime chill. The tiny little spritely Bowtruckle resting on Tonks's shoulder let out a tiny, muted chirp, and even Ptelea was worried for Remus and the others.

Ignoring her pet's concerning squeaks and chirps as he hopped up and down on her shoulder, Tonks swallowed down hard and returned her attention to looking out at the woods that bordered the edge of their home's backyard.

_You can feel it. Something's wrong_ , her conscience offered from the dark recesses of her mind, for the first time in a long time, she did not hear Ollie's voice. This was _never_ good when she couldn't read Ollie's mind, it meant her best mate was trying to conceal something from her, and whatever must have happened to Norah was enough to cause him to feel such pain.

Enough to make him decide he could not burden her with it, thereby concealing it from her by shutting Tonks out completely.

Her guilt consumed her at the very thought, and she hated not knowing.

"I should have gone _with_ you, Ol." Hot tears stung and blurred at the limits of her hazy, blurry vision, and she blinked them back, swallowing down hard past the lump in her throat. Of course, even as she spoke the words, the thought sounded foolish.

Tonks had been in no condition to go anywhere near Hogwarts tonight, and neither had Remus. Tonks bit down even harder on her bottom lip and nervously fidgeted with the plain yellow gold wedding band on her left ring finger.

The woods that bordered behind the edge of her and Remus's small cottage exuded a sort of intimidating aura as she scanned the tree line, looking for any sign, a movement, listening for the familiar _crack_! of someone Apparating, praying it would be Remus with Ollie and Norah.

Though as Tonks's sharp, inquisitive eyes watched and waited for any sign of her husband's return with her best mate and Norah, a certain uneasiness filled her chest, and she bit the wall of her cheek in a panic.

She rose a slightly shaking hand to one of her tired eyes and rubbed slowly over the smooth surface of her skin, praying that, depending on the extent of the severity of Norah's wounds and assuming that Remus was bringing the blonde werewolf back here for treatment, it wouldn't wake Teddy, though she supposed all they'd have to do is cast the Muffliato Charm on the door of their spare bedroom on the first floor.

A worried, scattered sigh managed to escape Tonks's cracked lips. Her hand moved to her neck, and rubbed it gingerly, while she watched. And she waited. And waited. And waited. A minute, an hour, an eternity, it did not matter, it was entirely too long, and Norah was _dying_.

Tonks let out a shudder as everything felt like it was laced with the biting feeling of the bitter cold air, though she lacked the strength to wave her wand and conjure a blanket or a spare jacket to snuggle into.

The bitter breeze hung on her porch, clinging to her, chilling her bones. The material of her simple black t-shirt and her jeans felt heavy. Her body was left feeling fatigued and weak, though Tonks had to remind herself she'd only given birth not even a few hours ago, she was not about to remain sleeping in their nice, warm bed without knowing how Ollie was.

Tonks originally was going to not bother to change out of her pajamas, though considering she had more or less commanded Remus to bring Norah and Ollie back here, she figured it wouldn't do for her best mate and the object of his affections to see her in ratty old pink pajamas.

A hooting noise nearby elicited quite the reaction from the frazzled young witch, causing poor Tonks to jump and shove her knuckles into her mouth to keep from screaming. Teddy had _just_ gotten to sleep… She squinted her eyes, straining to see into the night sky, and then she saw it.

It was an owl that belonged in the paintings of a child's book.

The creature's ear-like tufts were reminiscent of a teddy bear, yet it started with yellow eyes befitting a witch's cat. His plumage was a mottled grey-brown, as such he was almost blending into the gathering gloom of nightfall.

Then he let out a series of low hoots, four, possibly five, and before opening out large and rounded wings. In-flight the only sound was the rhythmic beating of the air, and once he soared high it was carried away on the breeze, too quiet to alert any prey. This was a predator capable of taking down mammals larger than itself, but perhaps tonight it would content itself with fresh rodents.

Tonks shuddered as her stomach lurched and she almost gagged at the memory of Norah eating a roasted rat on a spit over the campfire the first night she had met the feisty blonde werewolf in the Forbidden Forest.

Her face contorted into a twisted, pained grimace as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willing the awful visions of the She-Wolf eating the rat to leave her mind, and hopefully, calm down her swooping, nauseous stomach.

She swore she tasted bile as the bitter stuff settled on her tongue.

Not in the mood for this right now, Tonks pulled a face and forced herself to swallow it, re-focusing her gaze out at the sleepy little village before her. The air was chilled as a bitter spring breeze wafted through their village as the sleepy town rested peacefully through the early morn. Not a single voice or sound could be heard aside from the occasional hooting of the owl that had come to deliver to Tonks a letter.

The swaying creaks of the tall dark oak trees that lined the village filled her eardrums as well, their leaves and boughs swaying in the breeze. Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown as the Barn Owl held out its leg, and she swore, having to dip into the pockets of her jeans for a Galleon, the owl's token payment for delivering this piece of mail to her.

Her frown deepening as she, with shaking fingers, unsealed the envelope, effectively breaking the wax seal with her fingernails, Tonks froze as her eyes scanned the contents of the letter that was not for her.

"Oh, Merlin damn me to hell, _why now_? Ugh, this _can't_ be really happening to you, Ollie! Why now?" she cried.

The letter was intended for Ollie, though how its sender knew where to find her best friend, she did not know, and it was _not_ going to be news that her friend was going to like. Tonks let out a muffled little whimper that sounded more like a whine as she debated whether or not to tell Ollie first thing when he and Remus and Norah returned as she begrudgingly pocketed the parchment.

_Later_ , she decided firmly, set in her resolve. _He's too worried about Norah to focus on this. I'll…I'll tell him tomorrow when the time is right_.

The moments out on the porch of their cottage passed by so Merlin-damned bloody slow, that Tonks could hardly bear the waiting.

Everything was still. _She_ was still, and then—

' _Pop_!' A sudden, loud, almost ear-shattering crack! of someone Apparating nearby startled poor Tonks so badly she faltered backward.

"Here! Into the house! Quickly!" shouted a familiar voice, her husband's, rough, coarse, laced with the briefest tinges of uncertainty and fear, and Tonks heard herself breath an immense sigh of relief as Remus and Ollie (who appeared to be carrying a dark bundle of some kind) and none other than Professor Snape came into her line of sight as the trio turned the corner.

Ollie sported a rather nasty looking cut above his left browbone that was slowly trickling blood down his cheek, and he was looking rather emaciated and peaky, but otherwise, unharmed, and Remus, naturally, not having gone to Hogwarts, was naturally just fine.

Tonks's already pale face immediately drained of what little color was left upon her gaze fixating on Norah's unresponsive form in Ollie's arms, and before she could so much as open her mouth and ask what the hell happened, a guttural, choked pain emitted from the back of Jameson's throat, and upon seeing her limp figure, barely alive, in Ollie's arms, was enough to send her mind into a fresh state of urgency and panic, and she was suddenly frantic at seeing Norah's condition.

"Oh, my _Merlin_ ," she moaned. "Into the house!" Her eyes desperately searched Ollie's tear-filled sky-blue orbs for an explanation, and found none, as her friend was too fixated on the young blonde bridal-style in his arms. "What's wrong with—oh, my God, her _leg_!" Tonks cried, scrunching her nose as the scent of burnt flesh filled her nostrils.

The She-Wolf's poor right leg was practically charred, burnt beyond recognition, though hopefully, Snape could save Norah's life.

Her stomach heaved, swooping and churning, and she almost gagged as the disgusting stench of burnt flesh and hair reached her nose, and she shot out an arm and braced herself against the wooden pillar of their cottage's porch.

She dry-heaved and gagged at the horrible smell, the thick scent of burnt, charred flesh and singed bits of Norah's hair filled her nostrils, but nothing came up, thank Merlin. Coughing, a hand over her mouth, Tonks shakily straightened up as her stomach gave one or two good final lurches at the disgusting smell flooding her wildly flaring nostrils.

Ollie pointedly refused to answer her question about Norah and desperately turned towards Remus, who was handling the situation with much more tact and composure than Tonks was at the moment, though just barely.

"Into the house," Remus commanded gruffly, though his voice shook at the utterance of his quiet words. "Take a left, down the hall, third door to the right is our spare bedroom. You—she can stay here, Ollie. We'll prepare a place for you to sleep."

His tone bordered on that of finality, as though Remus was not about to entertain the idea of Norah and Ollie staying anywhere else but here while she recovered from her injuries. Tonks shot Remus a grateful look with her eyes.

After all that Norah and Ollie had done for them, it was the very least they could do. Norah had managed to save Teddy's life.

They owed her one. Ollie gave a curt nod, desperately and silently trying to thank Remus with his eyes for his gratitude at allowing Norah to recover here.

Tonks opened her mouth to speak and let out a muffled squeak as she felt Severus Snape's shoulder accidentally brush against hers as his brisk footsteps followed Ollie up the steps of their porch and in the house.

"Wait! Please! What's wrong with her? What _happened_?" Tonks cried, her eyes wild with panic, and her fear was not assuaged, not even when she felt Lupin's gentle hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Remus, tell me…is she…is Norah going to make it? And Ollie, is he hurt too?" She visibly winced, hearing the faltering crack and dip in her voice.

"She fell from the Astronomy Tower, Tonks, Norah burnt her leg badly, and has a broken wrist, and Greyback, he—he injured her ribcage, pierced her skin with his own claws, Dora."

The look of disgust on Remus's face was unparalleled, and Tonks felt her stomach lurch. He let out a sigh and glanced towards her, shooting her a small half-smile of reassurance, though it did not reach her husband's eyes.

"She—she's going to make it, I _hope_. Severus will tend to her, love, she—she's going to be fine, Dora. I don't think Ollie's hurt. Shaken up, but unharmed, sweetheart," Remus explained, giving her a brief but affectionate kiss on the cheek, torn between his two desires of wanting to offer the truth to his wife, who was very clearly worried for her two friends, and wanting to follow Snape and provide whatever little assistance he could to help Severus.

His words had not completely left his mouth when from inside the house became filled with another heart-wrenching scream that caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to stand up, and what little color was left in her face drained. Remus quickened his pace and bolted up the steps of their porch.

Tonks trailed right behind her husband, half out of her mind with worry, and she cringed as Ollie and Severus's shouts echoed in the hallway, intermingled with that of Teddy's wailing and Andromeda's startled screeches.

"Merlin's left nutsack," Tonks swore violently under her breath, gritting her teeth in anger at the sheer amount of noise that now filled her and Remus's home. She was beginning to wonder if allowing Ollie to bring Norah here and allowing Severus into her home was a mistake, and she let out a growl.

_No way, T_ , she scolded herself. _Don't think like that_. _You owe Norah_. _Severus is Jameson's best shot at making it out of this alive. Deal with it, Dora_.

She gave her head a curt shake to clear it and followed Remus into their home and down the hall, half out of her bloody mind with worry for her. Tonks kept the pace only inches behind, pausing to lay a reassuring hand on her mum's shoulder and to relieve Andromeda of baby Teddy, who was wailing and screeching at the top of his lungs at having been woken up.

"Shh," she whispered soothingly, having to pause in her efforts to follow her husband and rock her infant son in his arms. "It's all right. Mummy's here, Teddy. I'm not going anywhere. You're safe, little one..."

His bright brown eyes found Tonks's gray orbs, brimming with uncertainty, and he laughed, as only a baby can laugh a sweet sound unblemished by the hurts and tribulations of life. His little face glowed from a light within, and his miniature fingers grasped onto his mother's and held tight.

_He knew_! Somehow it felt like he knew Tonks needed comfort in the dead silence of the night, save for Ollie and Severus's shouting match in the hallway of their home, baby Teddy, he knew his mother needed joy in the midst of her pain. Tonks held him to her chest tightly, vowing she would never let this precious bundle go no matter what came, she would protect him. Even to the point of death.

Her mind could not fathom what the hell was happening tonight in her and Remus's home, as she rocked Teddy and whispered soothing words to her son in the vain effort to attempt to get him back to sleep before finally breathing a sigh of relief as she heard Severus and Ollie's shouts growing softer, as Teddy's eyelids slowly flickered closed, and he snuggled into the swaddling.

As she made her way down the hallway, fear clutched at her heart, latching onto the damned corded muscle within her chest with its icy tendrils. A thousand horrible thoughts ran through Tonks's mind at what poor Ollie was going through, each one bloodier and worse than the last, knowing that he'd feel the need to be with Norah, to help her, and it sounded as though Severus was adamantly refusing him in to be with her.

She blinked, hearing Ollie's vehement protest.

Her progress towards the hall to see what she could do to help Remus diffuse the situation between her feuding friend and feuding Order member was stopped by a scream coming from inside their spare bedroom so violent and hair-raising that it caused the hairs on the back of Tonks's neck to stand up and it threatened to shake the walls outside.

Tonks stared straight ahead of her, unable to draw in a new breath of air, and before fear or worry could engulf her mind completely, she froze as Ollie, seething in anger, teeth clenched as they gnashed together, his pale face now ashen and beaded with sweat as his black bangs clung to his forehead, took a half-step forward towards Professor Snape, the only barrier between Snape and Ollie preventing the men coming to blows in the hallway of their own home was Remus himself, determination and resolve on his lined, scarred face as the Wolf within him darted in his flashing light brown eyes as he held a hand out to Ollie.

Tonks blinked and forced her attention to focus on Severus, who was in the middle of speaking to Remus, and she could hardly believe this. For _once_ in her lifetime, when the Potions Master of Hogwarts addressed his soon-to-be colleague back at the castle when the fall term started in September once the repairs to Hogwarts were completed, with a modicum of respect, and, dare she even think this next part…kindness.

"I will need an extra pair of hands, Professor Lupin. The wolf's wounds are quite severe and she will not last the night without proper and quick treatment. Had you come to me _sooner_ , boy, I could have perhaps done more for her," Severus was replying to something Remus had said in his usual droll and surprisingly calm baritone, though his gaze remained fixated on Ollie, whose face had become so pallid, he looked like a corpse.

Tonks felt her heart skip a painful, faltering beat and she could tell by the way Ollie stumbled and rested his back against the wall of the hallway that he had felt the same too. Norah's condition was critical and needed treatment as soon as possible.

Infection of her wound at her ribcage, thanks to Greyback's disgusting, blackened claws, had probably already set in, and then there was the matter of her severely burnt leg.

She took a cautious half-step forward and dared to poke her head in through the slightly ajar door of their spare bedroom to see for herself. The young blonde witch and werewolf was pale and barely conscious. Norah appeared to be keeping her gaze trained at a paint spot on the ceiling wall near the fan's rotating blades as if trying to block out feeling the pain.

Tonks knew from experience she was doing this in order to stay calm.

"Of course, I'll help, Severus. My wife and I owe Miss Jameson our very lives. She saved our baby's life, and ours as well. It's the least I can do. Just tell me what to do," she heard Remus answer immediately, sounding borderline offended, as though Severus thought he would not.

"It will be most welcome, Professor," Severus replied, acknowledging Tonks's husband's words with a curt dip of his head, though both Snape and Lupin's heads swiveled behind them as they turned at the waist upon hearing a faint cough coming from inside, and the She-Wolf's meek voice.

"Ollie?" Tonks heard Norah's voice whisper, much too faint and weak. Tonks let out a squeak of surprise as Ollie, in his haste to appear at Norah's side, practically barreled Tonks over, knocking her shoulder against his.

Tonks, despite her conscience telling her whatever was about to be exchanged between the two of them, ought to be allowed a private moment, could not resist peeking her head in through the doorway and watching.

"What—what is it?" Ollie managed to croak out hoarsely, trying to keep his own voice even, and Tonks's first thought of her best mate was he sounded much like he had the night of Bill and Fleur's wedding when Crouch and his company had crashed the party, his voice subdued, rough.

Tonks knew the man while in Crouch's captivity had not spoken a physical word in well over two years, and he sounded much like he had that night when he had revealed himself to her, as though he had forgotten and was struggling to learn how to speak again after not talking for almost three years. She felt her heartstrings give a painful little lurch.

"I…I'm afraid," Norah whispered in a voice so faint, it was barely a whisper. Tonks drew in a sharp breath and held it, thinking this was perhaps the first time she had ever heard her friend with the hardened heart of stone and tough-as-nails exterior _ever_ admit any kind of feeling.

At least, any feeling that wasn't bitterness or anger towards what had happened to her husband and son.

Tonks felt her eyes widen, and she waited to see what Ollie would say. She briefly felt the sensation of Remus's rough and slightly calloused hand come to rest on her shoulder, murmuring something about needing to come away, to let the two have a moment, for pity's sake, and Tonks, annoyed, swatted Lupin's hand away.

Tonks heard Ollie draw in a breath and give his head a curt shake to clear his mind, needing to remain calm.

_You can do this, Ollie. Be strong for her_ , she thought, biting her bottom lip. Norah needed reassurance everything was going to be fine, and the blonde werewolf needed Ollie to be the strong one now in this regard, though Ollie wasn't sure if he had any left to give.

His faint voice reached Tonks's ringing eardrums, cutting through the throbbing, and pounding pulses. "Y—you're going to be just fine," was what Tonks heard Ollie saying, and she wasn't even aware she'd been holding her breath until she heard herself emanate a tense, relieved breath.

She watched as the raven-haired, blue-eyed former Slytherin reached up a shaking hand and brushed her sweat-drenched blonde bangs off of her forehead, and shakily rose to his feet when he heard Remus and Severus enter the room, with Snape barking orders at Lupin to roll up his sleeves and procure fresh bandages and a basin of hot water. Tonks cringed, still feeling like she was intruding on something private, but still, she could not seem to tear her gaze away.

Tonks squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she heard Ollie start to violently protest the moment Professor Snape had noticed Ollie still in the Lupins' spare bedroom and had not hesitated to seize him by the scruff of his black woolen robes and start to drag him towards the door.

"What the hell are you _doing_ , Snape?" Ollie barked, shirking away from Severus's ironclad grip, or attempting it, and failing, as the Potions Master's hold on the sleeves of his robes was unusually strong. "I—I'm staying! I'm _not_ going to leave her, Snape!" he bellowed, raising his voice.

Tonks blinked owlishly at the scene unfolding before her, deciding that now was as good a time as any to step in, upon sensing the growing danger and the animosity that burned as a smoldering fathomless rage in Ollie's eyes.

"Ol," she began somewhat hesitantly, breaking her silence as she took a cautious half step into her and Remus's spare bedroom for guests, "you cannot stay. Let Remus and Severus heal her _alone_ , Ollie."

She shot her best mate what she hoped was an apologetic look and gingerly placed her hands on his shoulders, steering him toward the door.

"C'mon," she murmured, leaning forward slightly, and whispering it into the shell of his ear. "You don't need to _be_ here for this, Ol. It would only hurt you. Come and meet our son, Ollie. You're a proud uncle to Teddy Remus Lupin, a great wizard in the making," she muttered lowly.

"But I—" Ollie began, violently wanting to protest, however, this time, it was Remus who cut him off and prevented him from speaking further.

"Norah would not want you to see her this way, Ollie," Lupin said airily, the edges of his voice hardened, clipped, the last vestiges of his patience tested as he silently dared the former Slytherin and Obscurus to challenge his and Severus's request, hoping that it would not come to that at all. "And Professor Snape and I do not have time to _argue_ with you. You need to leave. Go with Tonks, she'll get you something to eat and drink, get you cleaned up, and will prepare a place for you to sleep, and meet your nephew," he added, a faint ghost of a smile tugging his lips upward as he gave a curt nod to his wife, a gesture that Tonks returned in agreement.

Remus narrowed his darkening light brown eyes in suspicion and anger, and when Ollie made no move to step over the threshold of the bedroom that led back out into the hallway of the cottage, he growled.

" _Get out. Now,_ " he barked sharply, pointing towards the door.

Ollie shook his head, feeling a wave of cold fear engulf his wretched, miserable body. He could not leave Norah like this. Not in this state. What if something happened to her and he was not here when she needed him?

If she succumbed to her wounds and then she—if she…and he wasn't by her side during? What if this would be the last time he ever saw her? _No_. He could not leave, he _wouldn't_. Not when she needed him.

"No," he growled in a rough, coarse voice that did not sound like his own, and Tonks's angered voice cut through his swirling haze of thoughts. "I'm _not_ leaving, Remus. You cannot force me out."

" _Ollie_."

Tonks's voice had only been sharp with him throughout a handful of times in his life, and strangely enough, the last time she had spoken to him like this had been a few hours ago, shortly before Snape's Patronus had crashed her would-be baby shower and wedding reception.

He blinked owlishly and forced himself to tear his gaze away from the fading young blonde resting on the queen-sized mattress of Tonks and Lupin's spare bedroom as he heard Tonks attempt to reach him.

"There's nothing else you can do for Norah at this point, Ol. I –I know what it's like, trust me I _do_. But the best thing we can do for her now is to go downstairs, stay out of Remus and Severus's way. Let's...let's get you cleaned up, and allow these two to heal her."

Ollie huffed in frustration, throttling his urge to roar like an enraged dragon, though upon slowly lifting his chin and meeting Tonks's gaze, he offered a curt nod.

"Fine," he growled, flinching at how harsh his voice sounded, though before Tonks or Snape or Remus could stop him from doing it, Ollie turned on the heel of his boot and knelt at the edge of the bed.

Norah's eyelids had fluttered closed and Norah barely looked alive.

A stab of fear pricked at his heartstrings and he swore he tasted bile that had settled on his tongue, though he tampered down his rapidly swelling panic and tried to force himself to remain calm, for Norah's sake.

With painstaking, gentle slowness, Ollie leaned over the bed and smoothed back her sweat-soaked blonde bangs off her ashen forehead. He knelt even lower and whispered into the shell of Norah's ear, low enough so that only she could hear him, if she were even still awake at all.

"I'm _not_ letting you leave us, Jameson," he whispered. "Not again. I'll be right here when you wake up, Norah. I _promise_. You'll be just fine."

Hearing Tonks give a light, impatient cough once to clear her throat, Ollie let out a frustrated groan and rose shakily to his feet, turning on the heel of his boot and allowing Tonks to escort him out of the spare room, Lupin's face was the last thing he saw as the werewolf gently closed the door behind him.

As the door shut, Ollie drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs, only half-listening as Tonks proceeded to take his arm and escort him down the hallway and into their simple little living room. Ollie felt a strange cold, a bitter one, settle in his icy, but thawing heart as it threatened to crack and shatter into a million pieces, inspired by the torment of not being allowed to stay in the room with Norah, not knowing if she would survive the nights or if her wounds would claim her.

And the iron in his own heart. It was undeniable, the hurt that burgeoned him. His eardrums throbbed, roaring with sound, and as Tonks gingerly lifted her now sleeping baby from her mother's arms, with Andromeda Tonks shooting Ollie a look of pitying sympathy he did not want, Ollie suddenly found himself staring down at the tiny face of Teddy.

Baby Teddy's tiny fingers curled around his pinky. Ollie felt the cracking of a soft smile emerge despite the worry that wracked his frame. He watched as Teddy Remus Lupin peered through brand new eyes at what had to be such a strange world after spending his life for nine months in his mother's womb. His legs kicked out in a tiny jagged motion, looking for the resistance they were used to, he guessed, finding nothing but the air.

"He's beautiful, T. You did so great," Ollie heard himself say in a cracking, faltering voice. He forced a weak smile, sensing Tonks was eyeing him, though he knew it did not meet his eyes. "Kid's going to be a heartbreaker when he grows up, just like both his parents," he joked, glancing back down at the less than five-hour-old infant in his arms, so small, unable to believe how tiny new humans were.

How vulnerable and awe-inspiring it was. He swallowed down hard as he handed Teddy back to his mother and watched as Tonks rocked him in her arms for a bit before settling Teddy back down in his crib in their bedroom, and motioned for Ollie to follow her to the living room, leaving her and Remus's door open in case Teddy woke and started crying, needing attention.

She fumbled with something on the coffee table in the living room, and the moment Tonks turned around with her wand and a small porcelain bowl of medical supplies in hand, Ollie let out a groan.

"Ol, let me _see_ it," Tonks began cautiously, her tone hardened and warning him as she cautiously approached, waving her wand, and conjuring a spare wooden chair. "You're _injured_. Let me help you, Ollie."

Ollie considered, glancing at his reflection in a nearby mirror hung on the opposite wall, and flinched.

He looked a right bloody, broken mess. The sleeve of his right arm's black woolen robe seeped in dried blood, and as he glanced down at the injury, he was appalled to see a deep wound sliced in the flesh of his upper right arm as he tugged at his robe.

It was heavily oozing out blood and there was a bluish-purple bruise forming around it. Ollie lightly pressed his index finger against the center of the cut and sucked in a sharp breath as the pain spiraled across his body. Colorful spots contoured the sides of his vision and he bit his lip.

"Can't we just leave it like it is? Really, T, I...I'm _fine_ , there's no damn need for this, Dora," he begged desperately, already able to tell by the darkening look in Tonks's flashing gray eyes she'd say no.

"No, I _can't_ , Ollie," she growled, not in the mood to argue with him tonight. "If I leave it like it is, it's going to become _infected_. Let me see."

Ollie let out a tired sounding sigh, and begrudgingly rolled up the sleeve of his robe, and reluctantly showed the gaping wound, seeping crimson blood, trickling down his arm, and shoved it forwards towards Tonks, who let out a tiny gasp of surprise at just how severe his wound was, though she said not a word.

She set to work tending his wounds, and he sat numbly against the wooden chair, back pressed against the backrest, ignoring the stinging swells of pain as Tonks set to work cleaning the blood off his arm, stitching it.

"Thank you," he murmured gruffly after several minutes in silence. "You—you haven't _asked_ , T, about...about what happened tonight," he said, recognizing his voice came out harsher than he meant to, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, sighing.

Tonks pursed her lips into a thin line and took a moment to find her voice as she gingerly dabbed at the cut with antiseptic liquid on a rag.

"Your business is yours, Ollie. You need _help_. What does it matter as to your ' _why_?'" she retorted. "I don't need to know what happened out there tonight. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Ol. I won't make you talk, Ollie. Stitches would be better, but…this will have to do for now until you can get a skilled Healer to look at you," she murmured by way of response, biting her bottom lip hard in intense concentration.

Ollie merely grunted wordlessly in response, though he was quick to recognize his demeanor was coming across as cold and ungrateful, and as he heard himself let out an exasperated sigh, he felt something within himself shift and give way, and he blearily lifted his chin and met Tonks's gaze.

"I—I did not mean to…to snap, T, you know it. I—I just…what happened to her, was my fault, Tonks," he muttered, a pained look in his brilliant blue eyes glimmering with unshed moisture that he knew now to be tears. But Merlin's Beard, he was so bloody exhausted. "I owe you."

Tonks nodded and shot him a look that suggested she forgave him.

"You owe me _nothing_ , Ollie, so don't even _start_ talking like that. You're my best friend, this is what friends _do_ , Brennan. You watch my back and I watch yours, so get the notion of a life debt out of your mind right bloody now, because I won't hear it," Tonks snapped, shaking her head, and allowing a wavy lock of her hair to tumble in her face before swiping it back off her shoulder. "Tonight…I put these on your wounds, Ol. Tomorrow, you help someone up when they fall," she murmured, her voice low and quiet.

Tonks did not bother to elaborate on who she was referring to. They both knew.

Ollie clenched his teeth in anticipation, his shaking fists balling and coming to rest in his lip with great difficulty as he swore, he heard a faint cry of pain—Norah's voice—coming from down the hallway.

Tonks slowly swiveled her head in the direction of the disturbance for a moment, though she quickly gave her head a shake to clear it and turned back around to regard Ollie, not like how pale her friend looked. With a content sigh, she rose to her feet, wincing at the stiffness in her knees from spending at least an hour standing out on the porch waiting for Remus and Ollie to return with Norah.

She turned her back on Ollie, sensing her mate needed a moment to himself.

"Rem and I want you to stay here, Ollie. Norah too. I know you…don't have a place to go." A pause in response was nothing Tonks could have hoped for. She shifted the wooden basin of medical supplies under her arm and sighed.

"We aren't meant to be alone." Her piece said, Ollie heard Tonks let out a sigh in an unrestrained fashion for the third time in one night as her footfalls slowly faded, and she left him alone to ponder what she had said.

The moment he knew himself to be alone, Ollie slumped back against his chair, unmoved and unresponsive, feeling what little strength remained in his body leave him all at once, like sap from a tree. As he sat, staring into the flames of the roaring fire that Tonks had lit in the fireplace, Ollie could not help but wonder how in the seven _hells_ had his life come to _this_.

How, in such a short time after getting over Tonks, the new woman that he cared about was about to be ripped from him, too?

Why was Merlin such a vicious bastard?! What had he ever done to earn such discontent in this world?

Norah did not deserve this. He—he should have caught her fall! She should not have to suffer in such intense pain like this. It was his fault. The werewolf deserved a life of peace and comfort. Love and kindness.

He could try his hardest to give her what Norah needed _if_ she survived the night. He tensely watched the flames roar to life in the hearth, thinking that there was not an ounce of happiness left within him. And there would not be one until Norah was recovered if she made it. For perhaps the third time in his life, he felt powerless, alone, betrayed.

There was no point in living at all if Norah did not survive the night. Tonks had Remus and Teddy now. And he had _nothing_ if she didn't live. Ollie did not know how long he sat in the armchair, facing the fire in the hearth, and staring into the flames as though nothing else around him existed.

It was _his_ fault that he had not managed to catch her when she fell. Because he had not been fast enough, it had been Norah who paid the price and almost gotten killed because of his inability to act quickly.

He drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as Norah's serene blue eyes drenched his wretched memory. Ollie never would have imagined another woman could invoke these forgotten feelings, yet here he sat in Tonks and Remus's house, a broken, scarred, utter mess, but still feeling, nonetheless.

Of course, what he felt for the young blonde witch and werewolf were new, but still, they felt a familiar yet foreign sense to him, sending a spiral of warmth in his chest, like a fond memory.

However, something within Ollie still fought what he felt for Norah, these strange feelings that made him feel light and breathless, though, underneath the surface, something dark within him festered like a rotting wound, this 'wrong' feeling.

Not only did Ollie feel wrong for thinking such thoughts of Norah Jameson, currently fighting for her life just three doors down from him, but a snake-like voice in the back of his mind that sounded entirely too much like Crouch taunted him, jeering at poor Ollie.

It laughed at him.

" _You honestly think the She-Wolf can see past what you really are, boy_?" It mocked him, Crouch's voice sounding like he was laughing at him. " _You are absolutely pathetic. All my efforts to make you a man, wasted! You haven't learned your lesson at all, kid_!"

These intrusive thoughts left Ollie speechless, his blue eyes left wide and unblinking, though he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to drown out Master Crouch's voice, as his breaths hitched in his throat.

" _Oh! And Tonks! What would she say to all of this? Did you really love her at all, considering you've moved on from one woman to the next, and now, the Wolf is dying, boy_!"

Ollie squeezed his exhausted, heavily-lidded eyes shut in an effort to drown out Crouch's voice, his tone laced with judgment and what Ollie could only describe as a minor amusement.

"No!" Ollie erupted, his cracking voice bursting forth from his chest, throat, and lips as though he thought it would be the silencer to the voice in his head. His shallow breaths that caught in his throat worsened as the seconds turned into minutes. He felt his nails dig into the skin of his palms. "Y—you're _wrong_. I—I'm h—happy with her, Master," he growled.

Ollie leaned forward in his chair and buried his head in his hands, pieces of raven-black locks of his hair sticky every which way as they became entangled in his fingers as he tugged on tufts of his short, wild black hair so hard he felt the roots screaming in protest for him to stop it.

The poor chap was practically hysterical at this point, feeling his lungs burning as the biting cold air wafting in from the cracked open window to allow fresh air to flow through the Lupin's living room thrashed in and out of his overworked lungs at a speed Ollie, for the life of him, could not manage to slow down.

The pounding throbbing of his heart, this damned stubborn corded muscle within his chest he wished he could rip from his chest with his own bare hands if Norah did not survive the night numbed his chest, sending him feeling like he was going to pass out or become physically sick.

Ollie was sure slick tears would slip from his eyes at any given moment, and he heard someone let out a low, whining, broken whimper, feeling it as he curled in on himself, eyes shut.

It took him a moment to realize such a pitiful sound came from him. Ollie swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, trying in vain to fight down the salty liquid, still keeping his head buried in his hands.

After a moment of roaring, deafening silence, the snakelike voice of Crouch in the back of his mind finally ceased its tormenting of him, and Ollie did not bother curbing the violent shudder that went down his back.

His head remained firmly pressed into his hands, and his lungs had calmed down slightly, the burning feeling of his panic attack subsiding slowly, almost at a snail's pace.

"I—I l—love h—her…" His voice dropped even lower than he was used to, though he knew Crouch's voice inside his head was bloody right.

He was nothing but a monster. He had almost caused the person he loved, yes, loved, to meet a horrible, grisly fate by falling to her death. And now, she was succumbing to her wounds, surely not to survive.

The low whine from the back of his throat came again, and he curled even further on himself, keeping his eyes tightly squeezed shut, thinking that he hated himself. Ollie thought all of this as he curled up into the armchair, slick tears streaming down his face, thinking he had no strength left anymore, and he was unaware as he felt his lids become heavy and he drifted into a fitful sleep, that Tonks lingered just outside the doorway, her back pressed against the wall, listening to Ollie's cries.


	107. An Unwelcome Visitor

**1O6**

A lone figure shrouded in a black thick woolen cloak stood at a crossroads, having only recently Disapparated into the small village just outside of Wales, and was now uncertain of which direction to take, left or the right, swearing under his breath.

The mysterious figure was tall in stature and just as intimidating, his presence near stiffing to those who happened to look upon him if you were unlucky enough.

At a distance, he seemed no different from the other witches and wizards who lived in this rural village, but if you got a close enough look at him, you would see for yourself this was not exactly the case.

However, as proud, and regal as he carried himself, the man in the black cloak, though he'd never admit it, was lost.

The man swore under his breath, finding it had become his new habit in his life of swearing for no reason at all. Lowering the hood of his cloak slowly, the man ran his lined hand across his rough mop of coarse gray hair, cut short, and rolled his neck to crack it, all the while feeling the pressure of the evening mount within him.

Now and then, his hawklike, sharp dark brown eyes capable of counting the flaps of a hummingbird's wing had adopted the new habit of glancing, trying to determine which house it was, and having no luck at all, eliciting a growl from him. Grumbling to himself, he dipped into the interior pocket of his wand and murmured, "Point me."

The effect was instantaneous, causing a hazy golden burst of light to come forth from the tip of his wand and created a path at his feet, showing the tall man the way.

He cursed himself for not thinking of this before. The man had wandered aimlessly for the better part of a day, searching for the one whom he could not seem to find, that which he had lost, seeks him now. The very person who had directed him to where he needed to go, had not been as clear as he ought to have when he had visited the man last night during the witching hour for directions.

The man was not pleased with being made of a fool of, and Merlin help the man if his contact was proven to have _lied_.

Never mind that punctuality had never exactly been his strong suit, that had always been his. However, that did not mean this black-cloaked figure particularly enjoyed being lost or made to feel as though he could not tell his own bloody way.

The man abhorred weakness, thinking it to be the lowest form of pitiable human nature, especially within himself. "Merlin damn you to the seven hells, Crouch," the man snarled, growling it out of frustration as his footfalls trudged alongside the dirt path, following the golden haze of light that was guiding him towards his immediate right.

The shrouded figure froze, faltering in indecision as the light illuminated the path in front of him that revealed a small cottage, perched on the plain near the edge of the woods, so old and poor that it was surprising to the figure how it was still standing.

And yet it seemed alive and welcoming, a warm ribbon of smoke rising from the old chimney.

The sides were the same grey slabs as the low walls in the dales and the roof was a darker slate. It crouched low into the grassy embankment, as though it were trying to hide and hunch in on itself, like a child in the elements trying to keep warm.

But the misshapen slate roof was much too large to go unnoticed, especially by him. Through the darkness of night, the man could see the coarse, unevenly sized, grey stones that made up the simple abode's walls.

As he got closer, the occasional flash of color—some blues, others green or brown—emerged from the grey stones that to him looked like eyes trying to steal a glimpse of the world. He furrowed his brows angrily.

"Merlin save him," he growled in a tone that suggested he was not at all impressed, and his glimpse of the small home caused him to scrunch his nose in disgust.

_He lives here?! In this…this dunghill_?

The man stifled a growl of frustration and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of short black hair flecked with bits of gray.

The man's strong, refined face told of a lean body beneath his set of black woolen robes, and his expression was serious but not unkind. His black hair flecked with specks of gray here and there gave him a distinguished salt and pepper look to his hair, and against his still youthful skin, it was more than enough to attract interested stares of witches his age.

His eyes a rich dark brown, framed by graceful greying brows, prominent cheekbones, and a well-defined, if not somewhat sharp nose, he was not a man to be trifled with, and unlike his son, his was obscured by a fuzzy, thin beard.

He let out a haggard-sounding sigh as he stood in front of the desolate but welcoming cottage. The figure pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, a look of exasperation on the beginnings of his lined face, though no one was around to see it.

"Merlin above, spare me this torment if you're even listening to me," the man murmured darkly under his breath, taking a moment to card his fingers through his thick tuft of hair, white whisps fluttering to the breeze in the cool spring air. "This girl had better be worth all the trouble Crouch has promised. I shan't stand for wasted effort, and if this proves fruitless, not even Merlin will be able to save him from me," he growled, and without a second thought, he strode up onto the front porch of the simple cottage, wondering how in the seven bloody hells his lonely life had now come to _this_.

He faltered in his decision, his knuckles white-boned with the effort to steady himself, fist raised in mid-knock, though he made no effort to pound it against the door.

He was cold, hungry, and quite fed up with people's antics for the week, a potent combination that was a disaster for the churning fire-seed of anger swooping in the pit of his stomach as he heard it let out a low growl, reminding him he had not eaten at all.

His dark brown eyes were alight with rapidly growing anger, and his mood fouler and blacker than the night sky above his head, which showed no signs of the encroaching dawn any time soon.

The man bit the inside wall of his cheek and bit down hard enough on his tongue that soon he tasted the tang of metallic iron and copper on his tongue, turning his head sharply to the left to spit out a bit of blood.

Disgusted, he pulled a face and turned back around, his fist still raised in mid-knock, though before he could even think to bring his fist down and announce his presence to those within, he was met with someone who was anything but agreeable.

Catching his breath, the hooded figure forced himself to lift his chin and meet their gaze, and the person glowering at him from across the threshold of the entryway that separated the little tumbledown cottage's front porch from the interior of the house was not who he had been hoping for, and he was certain the crestfallen look on his face remained evident on his face, as he quickly molded a false smile onto his tired features.

The young woman that stood before him was quite pale. Even in the dark, he could see her, like a bright shining beacon of light. The white creamy tone of the young woman's skin reminded the hooded figure of whipped milk, and he couldn't help but wonder if he reached out his hand, would his fingertips graze only the air.

As if Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin were nothing but a ghost. The young witch with the shoulder-length wavy tresses, rich maroon color this evening, stepped from the shadows and out onto the front porch, gingerly closing the door behind her, stealing the man's breath and the very heat from his skin.

"Ah, Mrs. Lupin." The man inclined his head slightly and folded his fingers together, taking a cautious half-step forward towards the young witch who had caused him so much trouble throughout these last few years.

Tonks, for her part, merely proceeded to grit her teeth in anger at him and looked at the hooded figure with raised eyebrows, waiting for the man to continue speaking.

"If I recall correctly, Bartemius Crouch relayed to me when I visited him the other day was no trouble to locate. I lost my way. Three times, as a matter of fact."

Jack's voice was rough and coarse, albeit cheerful, though underneath the surface lurked something dark within the Death Eater, and Tonks was not at all fooled by the man's false pleasantries, though, slowly, as if by witch's curse, her face changed and she lit up into a falsely sweet, honeyed smile that immediately reminded him of Umbridge.

"Oh." The young witch consoled him in a voice positively dripping with false sympathy, causing him to shirk away in disgust as he was quick to recognize Tonks did not sound, nor did she look at all apologetic for the fact he had gotten himself lost. "For that I _am_ sorry," she growled, looking at her with what the hooded figure could only perceive as venom in those glistening, bewitching gray orbs of hers. "I seem to forget that I had _not_ invited you onto my _property_ , Jack, much less informed you _he_ was here."

The hooded figure flinched, biting down on his bottom lip as he willed his temper cool. The young witch was evidently aware of what had transpired between himself and his son all those years ago.

And yet, ever mindful of feigned courtesies, he inclined his head as a show of submission towards Mrs. Lupin, though his fingers itched to throttle her with his own bare hands.

"Yes, Mrs. Lupin," he confirmed dryly. "It would seem that you have. Nevertheless, let us assume you have not gone the way of my son and forsaken your manners, and have chosen to let me inside. I must speak with him." The man shot Mrs. Lupin what he hoped was a truly admonishing and withering look, though the young witch took no notice of it, and merely proceeded to fold her arms across her chest, glowering at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes and pursed lips.

Tonks stood on the front porch of her and her husband's cottage and eyed the man in the black traveling cloak as if he were little more than dirt on the bottom of her shoe. "So, after all this time…you came. Why are you _here_?" she snapped, her tone ice.

The man could feel the contempt in the young woman's voice, which he thought rather odd. The number of times this bewitching beauty, this Metamorphmagus had spent in his company, he could not recollect her ever treating him quite so coldly.

Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin stepped into the dim light cast at the tip of his wand as he held it out in front of him to better take a look at the young woman's pale features.

It was then that he noticed just how gaunt and drawn her face truly was, the darkened circles underneath her eyes. Something was troubling her immensely, he could tell, considering how it looked like she had not slept an ounce in a long time.

Yes, she was exhausted, and Tonks was also looking immensely annoyed at the man's intrusion. Her delicately shaped, arched eyebrows knitted together in quandary and became creased with deep lines. There was no doubt in his mind now. She fretted.

And yet even then, he was, even he had to confess it, such a truly sweet sight.

The young married witch looked like summer, a sweet ray of sunshine. Her gray eyes sharp and inquisitive, her pale skin cut from the finest of pearls, her chest a pleasant convex, and her figure eye-catching, despite even learning she had just given birth to a son.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment of that. "I must congratulate you on the birth of your son, Mrs. Lupin. A fine accomplishment indeed," the man murmured. The man found his younger self nursing a strange desire for the married witch, which was, of course, impossible, as he was happily married, as was Nymphadora.

Giving his head a curt little shake to clear it, Jack let out a low frustrated growl.

As he sanguinely lifted his head to meet Tonks's gaze, he was not at all surprised to hear the tense exhale that emanated in front of him, causing Jack to angle his head in curiosity. She was unhappy that he was here, Jack was able to sense by her stiff posture.

Tonks played with the edges of her pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm, still continuing to look at him with that venomous poisonous stare in those gray eyes, labeling him, and for that, he supposed he could not fault her. Why shouldn't she?

He had, after all, not attended his own son's funeral, and now, here he stood, years later, and as he looked upon the young witch's face, which, for so many years, had been the object of _his_ desires, Jack saw a strange revolt in Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin's face.

It was paler than usual, which for her, was saying something. Her lips agape as if devoid of words, also rare, and her gray eyes were new for Jack to take in the sight of.

When she spoke, her tone suggested she was apprehensive and did not fully trust him.

"You did not come here merely to congratulate me. I'll ask again. _Why_ are you _here_?" she growled, still keeping her arms folded firmly across her chest, glaring at him.

"You _know_ why. You received my owl a few hours ago, I take it?" Jack shot back immediately; the last vestiges of his temper tested as it swelled as a fire within his chest.

Tonks's shaking hands balled into fists at her sides. "You should have stayed away," the young witch declared, hatred seething behind her flashing, steely gray eyes.

Jack's desperation got the better of his plans, and he revealed his purpose, the nature of his visit, much sooner than he had anticipated.

"I need to see my son," he growled, though as he met the young witch's gaze, teeming with hatred and animosity, he felt a sudden shift within himself as something gave way, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "I know that I have no right to dream that he would see me, but I must."

Tonks ground her teeth in anger, but it was not enough to quell the familiar hot fire-seed of anger churning in the pits of her stomach, and she could hold her wrath no longer.

_"You_ are the _last_ person Ollie needs to see right now!" she bellowed angrily.

Before Jack Brennan could implore his reluctant host again regarding his 'surprise' visit, a guttural pain-filled scream echoed from within the slightly cracked open door behind her, a woman's screams, and Jack swore that he could hear his son's frantic tone.

It was muffled, and faint, but the worried tone was very much that of Oliver's. He recognized the lilt of his son's tones, and Jack suddenly became intrigued, cocking his head to the side, trying his hardest to ignore the sudden onset of panic that pricked his heartstrings. He could not quite explain where this foreign feeling was coming from.

The boy throughout his entire life had become a disappointment to Jack Brennan. He was a man who would do what he wanted to achieve the necessary results, his desired outcome, and right now, his want was to speak with Oliver, and his best friend's resistance, he had expected it, of course, given the circumstances of the last time Tonks had set eyes on Jack had been when Jack had come to identify his son's body in the Carrows' estate following his 'death', but he had not expected it quite to this extent.

As he heard the guttural scream come a second time, and hearing his son's frantic tones, it hit him square in the chest like a well-aimed Knockback Jinx that Jack felt older than his ways, his black hair graying faster than he could bloody blink his eyes.

His body, though he refused to think this, much less admit it, was aching more and more, and the stress of it all hampered his ability to think rationally as he wanted.

It galled him, the thought of it, and Jack's frustration with Nymphadora Tonks mount within him until he thought the very blood within his veins might spontaneously combust. Anger, even.

This damned bastard of his—nothing Jack had imparted on Oliver throughout the years had stayed. He had told him, Tonks, given her heritage and relations to the Lestrange family, was truly a precious prize to be won.

A strange material of beauty that Jack had no trouble admiring and admitting to, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, and now, he had squandered the opportunity.

Jack scrunched his nose at the thought of his bastard son now consorting and, dare he even think this next part, if what Crouch had told him of the boy's thoughts were true, infatuated with a _bitch_ , a _werewolf_ , and that, he couldn't allow.

Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, though married now and a new mother as she was, was entrancing, and there was something about her that would have surely solidified Oliver's place amongst polite society, and that his vicious bastard son was able to have her grated on him, and now, he was consorting with a _werewolf_ if the rumor was true.

The cry of pain from inside came again and it seemed enough to cause the young witch to blink herself out of her stupor, and Jack watched as Tonks turned on the heel of her shoe and made to head back inside, though was halted as Jack Brennan shot out an arm to catch her arm, preventing the young witch from taking another step inside.

"Let. Go. Let go of my arm, Jack, _now_ , or I'll be forced to jinx you," Tonks snarled in a warmth that held no compassion or kindness for her best friend's father.

"Please," Jack persisted, grinding his teeth as he recognized he was practically groveling, knowing he was a man not used to begging, and here he stood in front of this witch, his son's friend, begging her. "My son." He watched as Tonks faltered in her movements.

He observed as the young witch angrily flicked her maroon tresses back over her shoulder and took in every little detail that she could about Ollie's father in front of her, but the man's impassive features gave away nothing. Just a cold aura.

She bristled, silently seething, thinking that Ollie's father's arrival could not have fallen on the worst of possible timings, considering her best mate was worried sick over Norah's condition, which, from the sounds of the screams coming inside, wasn't good.

Tonks hesitated, her gray eyes narrowed as she took in the sight of Ollie's father, the cold indifference in the man's dark brown eyes, and she almost flinched, angered.

She was not at all pleased with this arrangement, that the man had shown up on _her_ doorstep, never mind that it was her and Remus's home, their property, Jack Brennan was always a man who did as he liked, and damned what anybody else wants.

Finally, Tonks could not bear the thick tension and silence between them.

"What is it that you _want_ , Mr. Brennan?" she demanded, folding her arms across her chest, and pinning Jack Brennan with a glower of her own. "I know you did not come here merely to see me. What is it that you want of your son? Why do you want to speak to Ollie, after all this time? He— _he doesn't even know you didn't go to his own funeral_ ," she whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, lowering her voice so nobody from inside thought to come out and check on her, particularly Ollie himself. No way.

Dealing with his father on top of stressing over whether or not Norah would survive the night was the last Merlin-damned thing Ollie needed in his life right now.

The cruel man smiled and just the way the corners of his mouth twisted upwards in a listless smirk was enough to send a tremor down her spine.

"How perceptive of you," she heard Jack snap in a smooth, languid tone that rivaled that of his son whenever Ollie was in a particular mood. "There are questions surrounding my son."

Tonks bristled, resisting the urge to roll her eyes and stomp her foot in frustration.

"And what makes you think I'll answer _any_ of your questions, Mr. Brennan, after the horrible way you treated your own flesh and blood, your own _son_ growing up? The person you should really be talking to about this is in _there_ ," she growled, unfolding one of her arms and pointing a shaking finger towards the door to her home, left open.

Jack Brennan raised his greying eyebrows so far up onto his forehead they almost disappeared into his hairline. " _You_ will answer them, Tonks. Because, Mrs. Lupin, there are questions surrounding my son that only _you_ seem capable of answering, and since you will _not_ allow me entry into your home so that I may speak with Oliver—"

Tonks immediately withdrew her face from his, taking a fumbling step backward and almost tripping over the welcome mat on their front porch.

She knew that dangerous look in the man's flashing dark brown orbs, having seen it in Crouch's now.

"Don't you _dare_ touch him," she growled, her threat escaping her before she had the chance to swallow it. "If you even _think_ about stepping one _foot_ inside this house as long as Ollie stays here with me, I can promise you, you _will_ regret it," she snarled.

"Your threats mean nothing to me, Mrs. Lupin," Jack replied smoothly, clasping his ringed fingers together and unfazed by his son's best friend's little outburst towards him. "I will be leaving with him with more time, then, though that boy has no true understanding of the word 'love,' my dear. Oliver is ignorant of the word and any meaning that it holds," he murmured darkly under his breath, glowering at Tonks.

"And who is responsible for _that_ , Jack?" Tonks spat back at him, her glower and anger intensifying, as she forcefully shoved her wand in the back pocket of her jeans to prevent her magic from accidentally imploding and destroying their porch in the process. " _You_ are the one who convinced him growing up he's not worthy of a father's love and affections. That he wasn't worthy of a woman's love! That he's a bastard! It's vicious, slanderous _lies_!" she shouted, though she lowered her voice upon someone calling out to her from where the door lay cracked open just a jar.

_Damn_ , Jack thought, and for a moment, he stiffened as he heard her husband's voice rent through the air.

"Dora?" Jack heard an unfamiliar man's voice call out. _This must be her husband_ , he thought, biting down on his bottom lip in anticipation. "I heard a noise, love. Who's out there with you?" he demanded hotly; his tone laced with a biting suspicion.

Tonks, for her part, did not immediately respond to her husband's call, it seemed to take her an age to find her voice.

"N—no one, Remus, I—it's just one of the...the….neighbors," she called out lamely. "They—they heard the screams and wanted to make sure that…we were all right. Don't worry about me, Rem, I'm fine. I'll be inside in a moment, sweetheart," she finished lamely and closed the door behind her.

Tonks was practically shaking where she stood now, radiating anger in heatwaves, and Jack Brennan could feel the intense fiery heat the young witch and Auror gave off.

Ollie's father sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger. "I still wish to see him."

A beat. A pause.

And then, just before Tonks could coldly dismiss him again and insist Mr. Brennan get off of his property or find himself at the mercy of the end of her wand, he spoke up in a much more subdued and coarse voice than he had just before.

"His mother is dying, and soon, Mrs. Lupin. I come at her insistence. _That_ , and _only_ that, is the reason for my impromptu visit, my dear."

Every sound in her pounding eardrums felt like it throbbed. Tonks drew in a sharp breath of frigid night air and held it.

"You disgust me, Jack," Tonks growled, her lips bitter to the bone. "Seeking out your only son after all this time. Surely, you _knew_ that he—that he was _alive_? You're a Legilimens too, just as he is. Could you not sense it?"

She felt him pause. Almost succumbing to defeat and Tonks had her answer, her blood turning to ice in his veins.

"You _knew_ ," she breathed, her almond-shaped gray eyes going wide and round with shock, her lips agape, and her already pale face turned even whiter as she staggered backward, her hand groping for the doorknob. "You _knew_ he was _alive_ all this time, and you did _nothing_ to help get your son _away_ from Crouch, oh, you are a vicious, arrogant son of a b—" she started to shout, but Jack interrupted.

"My dear sweet Tonks." Jack Brennan held up a hand to cut Tonks off in mid-insult, merely proceeding to glare at her, shaking his head and clicked his tongue as if in mock disappointment, as though he had expected better. "You truly are _many_ things, Nymphadora, and politeness, not one of them, my dear. But…tell me. Do you _honestly_ believe the world would see my own son as anything _but_ the bastard I know him to be, dear? The world is a cruel and dark place. The boy was an Obscurus for years. _Marked_. It shows no mercy to no one, and I am…disappointed to hear my son has taken an interest in a _bitch_ , though I suppose I ought not to be too surprised, Mrs. Lupin, yes?" he growled, no semblance of warmth. "Though what woman would take my son as he is, knowing _what_ he is? If what my contact the other night told me is true, my son surely deserves the _dog_ ," Jack sighed, turning away from Tonks for a moment.

After a moment's pause, he turned back around and lifted a finger, resting it on her shoulder.

"I am an understanding man, Nymphadora. And understanding men, I know, are most difficult to please, but it would please me if you would so kindly allow me to see my son. Before his mother passes, she wishes to see the accursed wretch, and it is _only_ my love for my wife and the _goodness_ of my _heart_ that I come for my son."

Tonks spluttered and stammered to think of a retort, feeling a piece of her resolve falter. In a strange, horrible way, she knew Ollie's father had a point.

She had already seen for herself the rest of the wizarding world treated Remus and Ollie, barely able to meet their gazes, once they learned the truth of their conditions, and her best mate's torment, no one should have to endure what Ollie did, and though Newt Scamander and Professor Dumbledore had been successfully able to rid him of the Obscurus, she knew there would be a part of Ollie Brennan that would never be the same again.

Tonks drew in a sharp breath and held it. The way Ollie's own father was staring at her, regarding her in cold, indifferent silence spurred a wave of nausea in her churning stomach, and she swallowed, her head inclined, though her eyes were unmoved and her face impassive.

"You don't _know_ me, Jack. You never _did_. Just as you don't even know your own _son_ , you bastard," Tonks murmured, her voice soft, quiet.

Jack Brennan flinched at her last word. "I'll imagine you did not just say that."

Tonks blinked owlishly at Ollie's father, her lips parted open in shock and anger.

"What?" she challenged hotly, her hands on her hips. "'Bastard?'" she demanded, summoning her inner strength, what little was left of it after the ordeals of tonight, to face those brown eyes that bore a thousand weights. "My apologies, Mr. Brennan. My dad and mum always taught me growing up to address people as to what they are, sir."

Jack's vicious temper swelled, and the heartless words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "And now your father rots in the ground somewhere."

Tonks froze, her blood churning within her veins, and so did his. Tears blurred and stung at the corners of her vision, and wrath burned bright in his dark brown eyes.

"It was the Death Eater Augustus Rookwood who murdered your father, Tonks, _not_ I," growled Jack, narrowing his eyes which almost, Tonks swore, painted hurt. "So, from here, you _stop_ treating me like _I_ am the one who held your father at wandpoint."

Tonks's eyes squeezed shut, and Jack Brennan heard his bastard son's best friend draw in a sharp, shuddering breath, and he was momentarily relieved when the young woman shook her head in protest, blinking back her tears at learning the identity of her father's murderer.

"To allow your son to rot in a prison cell, knowing full well that Crouch was keeping him, physically torturing him daily, keeping him under the watch of Barty Crouch Jr., it's _wrong_. Not bothering to seek your son out until now when his own _mother_ —your _wife_ —is on her death bed, Brennan, it's _despicable_ , and I said it before, and I'll say it again. _You disgust me_. Ollie was the only good thing to come out of your wretched family besides his brother and your wife. And I think you've said enough. I won't let you in. Not tonight, Jack. you need to get _off my porc_ h, Jack."

Jack bristled, his teeth grinding in anger, knowing she needed to hear this. "I kept him away…from _you_ , my dear. You were…a _weakness_ in his life. A complication, once I saw that you did not intend to follow in the footsteps of your Aunt Bellatrix, I could not have you around my son, Tonks. That is why I did not seek Oliver out sooner and free him. I knew that if he knew that you were aware that he was alive, he would want to return to you, and I could not permit that," Jack confessed, his tone low, soft.

Tonks immediately felt as if she had been hit square in the chest with an Unforgiveable Curse, her heart nearly stopped, and she clutched onto the doorknob of the front door to steady herself.

"H— _how_?" she stammered, her brain not working.

"Oh, yes," Jack said slowly, nodding his head in a total and complete understanding. "I was and remain still very much aware of it, even if my son's…affections have shifted to this _werewolf_ ," he spat, scrunching his nose in disgust and almost gagging at the thought of his pureblood son _mating_ with a half-breed _wolf_. "It was really quite obvious, child. Oliver shielded you from me for the past three years, you see. Now, you will find it within yourself to forgive me, the lad is quite shy. Not at all brave, dear. So, the question now I find myself faced with is _why_?"

Jack paused, lacing his fingers together. "Why, after all this time, has Oliver continued to shield you from us, Tonks? It was never in his nature to disobey me and yet, he immediately did not hesitate to the second Crouch Sr.'s son became aware you were tracking him, and I alerted him to this fact."

When his voice elevated, Tonks decided to quit engaging the man. Jack Brennan was a handsome, refined wizard in his mid-fifties with a fiery temper, and she knew it was unwise to provoke his anger even further, but she knew that he was hiding something, and then, when the man jutted his chin out slightly defiantly and met her gaze, Tonks had her answer. She pursed her lips in a thin line and glowered at Jack.

"How frightened are you, Jack? Mr. Brennan," she added, not one to forget her manners, even in the less-than-polite company and in front of a bastard like Ollie's dad. Tonks was almost tempted to cut off her tongue by the way her best friend's father sharply whiplashed upward and regarded his son's best friend, his face rapidly paling.

" _What_?" he demanded, looking at Tonks as though he had not heard her at all.

"Your son. He frightens you. He still does. And you are wrong about Ollie, sir," she answered, lifting her own chin and jutting it out so as to match Jack's glacier stare.

He scoffed at that, which only proceeded to invoke Tonks's anger even further.

"He is only ignorant of this world around him because that is the path you carved for him right from the start when Ollie did not meet your expectations of the 'perfect son,'" Tonks stated coldly, ignoring the stinging sensation in her palms and bottom lip, not realizing that her nails were digging into the skin of her hands, or that her teeth were biting down so hard on her bottom lip that she now tasted blood. She ignored it.

She drew in a breath and continued. "You have never been a positive influence in Ollie's life, Jack. You've taught him nothing but fear and hatred. You're just as bad as Lucius Malfoy is with _his_ own son!"

Then something changed within the wife and new mother, and her jaw locked up and her posture straightened. Angrily, Tonks tossed her hair back over her shoulders.

A new blaze of determination and resolve crept onto her features, color slowly snaking its way back into her ashen and somewhat clammy cheeks. She now knew exactly what it was that Jack Brennan needed to hear, even if he didn't want to hear it.

" _I_ am the one who showed him true acceptance in his life, Mr. Brennan. _I'm_ the one who became his first friend in our third year in Hogwarts. _I'm_ the one who stays by his side, no matter _what_. I've _never_ abandoned him when he needed looking after, Jack. I _never_ looked away from him! I _never_ told Ollie that he was a bastard and never _will_!"

Tonks spat the words as though they were poisoned chocolate that had settled upon her tongue, and she was glowering at him with the fiery venom he was used to.

Her previous fear she felt towards Death Eater Jack Brennan (or ex, she supposed, now that Lord Voldemort was dead), was severed and she would never let Ollie's father lay another hand _against_ his son as long as she still dared to draw in breath to her lungs.

"Her name is Norah," Tonks whisper hissed through gritted teeth, the fingers of her wand hand twitching as she resisted the urge to jinx Ollie's father where he stood. "Not _werewolf_ , not _wolf_ , not _bitch_ , not _dog_ , or whatever you call people like her. The woman's name that your son loves is Norah. Norah Jameson. And you'll start to call her by her _name_ and treat her with a semblance of respect while you stand on _my_ property, Jack," Tonks growled, a flicker of something unreadable darting through her eyes.

Tonks paused to catch her breath, turning her back on Jack Brennan, who was gazing at the young witch and Auror with a mixture of astonishment and onslaught.

"I _will_ permit you to see your son, Mr. Brennan, as long as he stays with us," she snarled reluctantly. "But not tonight. Come back in two days. For now, let him rest," Tonks snapped, wrenching open the door, though she risked chancing one last glance over her shoulder at Jack Brennan.

Ollie's father had turned his back on her and started to walk down the steps of her front porch to Disapparate when she bade him wait for a moment.

"Stop."

Jack did as she asked.

When Tonks spoke to Ollie's father, her voice shook.

"Listen, Jack, and I will only say this once. If you so much as lay a single finger against your son in anger, I will personally kill you myself," she spat. "I don't care if it goes against what I stand for. Test me, and you won't win. If you really, truly wanted to keep love out of your son's life, you should have let him die that day in the Carrows' estate. Something tells me you personally had a hand in saving your son's life, Jack, which suggests to me that there is a part of you, however small, that might actually _love_ your son. I just hope he realizes it before the end."

And with that, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin turned her back on Jack Brennan and slammed the door behind her so hard the door itself rattled in its hinges.

She was smart enough not to look back.

* * *

**A/N: Proud of Tonks for sticking up for her friends! Also, Ollie does* have a brother, or I guess in this case, DID, because I mention it here that he had a brother, but he's not talked about, for obvious reasons which are coming up in a future chapter, but either way, the father-son reunion will likely not be a pleasant one and have dire consequences.**


	108. The Hand of Glory

**A/N: Hi Folks. I promise this story isn't all dark and moody/ broody all the time. In fact, the next couple of chapters are quite light-hearted.**

**I thought it would be fun to do a flashback of sorts of how Tonks and Ollie met in Knockturn Alley when they were only 13 years old, and it wound up being a super long flashback, so rather than have it be one long ridiculous chapter of like 11k words, I split it up into two, one from Tonks's POV and one from Ollie's, both segments told while they're, you guessed it, sleeping lol.**

**I actually had this segment planned out originally in my super-detailed outline with all my notes to take place much earlier in the story near the beginning, but since this story doesn't cover Tonks's Hogwarts years, and I didn't want to detract too* much from Remus and Tonks, as this is very much their story and not Tonks and Ollie's, I thought there wasn't much point in putting it in here, and then I decided that I liked it so much and didn't want to cut it, and now that Ollie is alive and back in her life, I thought it would be a good segment to sneak this in here and have it be a bit of a breather from all the heavy stuff going on with poor Ollie and Tonks worrying over Norah, etc. **

**Hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

**1O7**

Tonks shut the front door quietly and leaned against it, her heart still beating wildly in the confines of her chest, a hand over her racing heart.

She only breathed out a shaking and relieved breath the moment she heard Jack Brennan's footsteps fade from her porch and the all-too-familiar loud crack of Ollie's despised father Disapparating.

What just happened?

His father arriving now of all times, could not have been more poorly timed.

Sliding down to the floor, still using the door as a brace to rest her back on, Tonks shakily knit her fingers together, forcing herself to try to calm down by breathing in and out slow breaths.

Jack Brennan would be back in two days' time.

Of that she was certain. Ollie's father was a man of many things, and a man of his word, you could count on him to be that much, if nothing else, at the very least.

Tonks bit her inner cheek as she felt an uncomfortable churning pit start to swoop and roll in her stomach.

Jack had acted as if what he had asked of her, to be allowed into her and Remus's home, uninvited, to see his son, was simple and nothing out of the ordinary, as though the man merely wanted to catch up with Ollie over tea, ignoring the fact that Jack Brennan had more or less despised his youngest son growing up and done unspeakable things to him as Ollie grew into a young man.

_And Dominic, oh, his brother_! Tonks thought tiredly, squeezing her eyes tight shut.

The young witch kept her eyes shut, leaning her forehead against her wrists as she pulled her knees up close to her chest, trying her hardest to drown out muffled screams, Norah's voice, coming from just down the hallway and to her left.

Tonks let out a sigh.

She sincerely hoped that Ollie was managing to sleep through this, though at the moment, she lacked the strength to get up from her spot on the floor in front of their front door to go and check on her best friend right now.

Besides, after the harsh exchange of words between herself and Ollie's dad, she really needed a moment just to herself.

Tonks attempted to forget the entire ordeal with Jack Brennan but couldn't erase the sight of Ollie's father from her mind.

A man whom she hoped _never_ to see again, and for Ollie never to lay eyes on again, for that matter. Tonks did not think she would be able to forget the wizard's eyes.

A deep, earthy brown—the color of the earth after a torrential downpour of rain. But there was something else in them, something glistening. Something _evil_.

Glistening like an old bronze Knut being examined in the warmth next to powerful flames that were licking the safety glass door of one of those old fireplace hearths.

The man's eyes held mysterious secrets, the same way that a pot held layers of deep soil—cradling it—because it was essential to keep the plant safe from harm.

The roots were held in place the same way Death Eater Jack Brennan's dark brown, liquid eyes held so tightly onto his precious secrets.

Tonks remembered Jack, growing up.

Jack Brennan, an alluring and mysterious man, the very same one that she had just confronted was also, in his own way, arresting and strangely, utterly hypnotic, almost.

Tonks, who had never put much stock into a person's physical appearance, preferring to judge them based on their personality and their actions, could not deny that Ollie's father was not made of the same flesh and blood as most people.

Even in his refined, older age, the man was admittedly something of a looker, and she hated to admit it. His salt and pepper hair, a roman-like jawline and a strong, discerning brow, Ollie's father tended to give off an otherworldly vibe, almost god-like.

Well. _Almost_.

When Tonks had refused to allow Jack inside to see his son, Jack Brennan had looked at her much like a dragon would stalk its prey before burning it alive.

She had been able to find no warmth in his darkened brown eyes that were flashing and angry.

He had stared at her just now with such contempt and disgust, she was sure the air outside on her front porch had instantly become colder, which was really saying something.

A voice from in front of her suddenly jolted her out of her thoughts of Ollie's dad.

"Tonks?" Tonks blinked, startled as she heard Ollie's hoarse, weak voice coming from the entryway that separated their living room and kitchen and its nook from the hall.

She flinched, lifting her gaze and regarded her best friend with a furtive, guilty look on her face. Tonks sincerely hoped Ollie hadn't heard any of what was said outside just now, physically or otherwise by means of his natural Legilimency.

Knowing his father was coming was not something he needed to learn right now.

Not tonight, at least. Tonks winced, biting her bottom lip as she gazed at Ollie.

The poor man was pale, paler than she had ever seen her best friend.

His thick tuft of short, coarse black hair was a stark contrast against his almost translucent skin, and both dried and fresh tear tracts could be seen stained against his cheeks.

Right now, his dark brows were furrowed in a heavy frown as he regarded her with a concerned look.

"Who was at the door? Are you all right? You look…sick, T," he muttered.

Tonks airily brushed away his questions with a curt wave of her hand, hoping her eyes and her nervousness at wanting to deflect his questions didn't show on her face.

"I—it was no one, Ol, I promise. Just…a visitor."

There was a beat, a pause, and Tonks cursed herself for not asking after Norah's condition.

_Damn_.

" _Norah_ , Ollie. Tell me! Ollie, how is Norah? Is there…is there any change in her, Ol?" she murmured, rising to her feet shakily, reaching for Ollie's outstretched hand, noting how badly it was shaking, and the moment her fingers interlaced with his, Tonks let out a muffled squeak of surprise as Ollie pulled her in close, cutting off the gap of space between the pair of friends, and openly sobbed in her arms, his fingers clutching onto the back of her overly large _Weird Sisters_ t-shirt that she used for sleeping in for support.

She blinked.

"No…" he managed to croak out before he lost the semblance of speech. In Ollie's sobbing was the sound of his already fragile heart as it broke, shattering into a million pieces, never to be whole again. "They...won't let me in still to see her, Tonks."

Hearts didn't snap like brittle caramel or burst like an overfilled balloon.

A heart broke in the heaving waves of a new disturbing reality that has arrived uninvited and certainly unwanted.

It was entering a life they couldn't bear and so their hearts break. They would not be the same again, there's just a part of them that had to die so that the rest of them could carry on their duties to the other people they loved.

So, as Tonks held onto Ollie, feeling him shake with grief, the last vestiges of his sanity hanging on the threads that Norah Jameson would survive the night, there was a part of her breaking too.

If Ollie wasn't the same, then neither would Tonks be. That was what happened when you loved someone, right? Their happiness was a part of your own, as his was.

"C'mon, Ol," she murmured. "You look like crap, Ollie. I can tell you haven't been able to sleep. I know you're worried about Norah, Ol, but you need to _rest_. You won't help Norah by stressing yourself to the point of exhaustion. The best thing you can do for her and you is to try to get some sleep. You can _barely_ stand up. You can sleep on the couch. We've got plenty of extra blankets and pillows. It should be comfortable enough. I can help you get there, but I need you to _help_ me, Ollie. Can you walk for me, Ollie? Wotcher, please don't fall, Ol, if you fall, I might not be able to—to pick you back up, I—I don't think I'm strong enough for that," she whispered, draping her arm over her best friend's shoulder, having to almost stand up on her tiptoes in order to do it, given how much bloody taller he was than Tonks.

Gingerly, she guided Ollie towards the sofa, and collapsed onto the sofa with him, not even minding that he needed to take comfort in her arms as he allowed his mind to collapse in itself.

The thin walls of his mind shattered like glass, razor-sharp edges tearing through his flesh, and Ollie whiplashed his head upwards as Tonks helped him sit up.

He opened his mouth to speak, yet the words clung to the inside of his throat, unwilling to be said, and it felt like there was a gag on his mouth. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.

His wretched vision stung and blurred with hot tears, marring his sight.

Ollie held no more room within for false facades of strength. Not anymore.

Not when the woman who he now knew he loved, just two doors away from him, teetered on the brink of death itself, and he was more or less powerless to help stop Norah's pain.

Before Tonks could even fathom what was happening, her best friend clung to fistfuls of her t-shirt for support, sobbing into her chest unceasingly, hands clutching at her back, nestling his head into the crook of Tonks's shoulder.

She held him in silence, rocking him slowly where they sat on the sofa as his tears slowly soaked into her chest.

A tiny lapse let Ollie pull away for a fraction of second, blinking lashes heavy with his tears before he collapsed again.

The pain must have come for him in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurtling poor Ollie back into the outstretched arms of his grief.

Ollie cried, tears of relief, for one out of two friends in his life, the other being Charlie Weasley, was safe, and in terror, out of fear of not knowing whether Norah would survive or if she would succumb to the severe extent of her wounds.

He clung to Tonks like she was his last lifeline, and he knew that she was, waves of fear, sadness, and immense stress, both physical and emotional moving through his body faster than he could keep up with.

Ollie didn't know if he would ever be okay again.

Tonks, for her part, could not remember the last time Ollie had cried like this, not since they were teenagers and they first met in Knockturn Alley when they were only thirteen years old, and then again later that summer when she snuck over to his house.

His brother, Dominic's death had hit the family hard, but especially Ollie.

The loss had been crippling for Ollie, and especially for his father.

It was rumored (though Tonks had never believed these slanderous lies) that Ollie had a hand in murdering Dominic.

Ollie, the strong friend he had always been, nearly crumpled and became destroyed under the weight of grief and despair, not only from the loss of his brother and mourning Dominic, but his father disowned him that day, and had beaten the boy within an inch of his life, and it had taken Tonks all the strength and stubbornness she had inherited from both of her parents in order to pull Ollie out of that vast, dark hole.

She had very nearly lost her beloved friend in the process, though she remembered it like it was yesterday.

These thoughts aside, Tonks gingerly pushed Ollie downward so he was lying on the sofa, and when she made a move to leave, his arm shot out so fast, she barely had time to blink, though Tonks blinked, turning her head slightly to regard her best friend, who had curled in on himself, shuddering, almost convulsing in grief.

" _Stay_. _Please_. I—I don't want to be alone right now, T, I—I don't think I can _breathe_ , Tonks," he croaked hoarsely, his voice cracking and faltering, as was his resolve.

Tonks did not need to be asked a second time.

Exhaling slowly through her nose, she felt something shift within her give way and Tonks nodded, sitting with Ollie, watching as the man slowly drifted into consciousness.

And then back out. The little world of Remus and Tonks's cottage around him was a blur as his vision hazed at the edges.

Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and put one of her hands on Ollie's cheeks, peering deep into his glistening blue eyes.

"Ol, your pupils are _super_ dilated…did you drink or eat something that might have caused this? What do you think is keeping you from breathing properly?" she asked, the edges of her voice hardening slightly.

For a moment, she heard her own mother's voice come out of her own mouth.

"No, no, no food or drink, I—I can't breathe, T," Ollie gasped for air, clawing at fistfuls of her t-shirt. "I— _help_ me, Dora," he begged, biting his bottom lip, his face paling rapidly.

"But you _are_ breathing, Ollie," Tonks assured her best friend calmly, though a stab of fear pricked at her heart, grabbing her friend's hand in her own and pressing it to his chest. "Feel for yourself, Ol," she whispered soothingly, keeping her hand pressed over the top of Ollie's so that he could feel for himself that he was, in fact, breathing normally. "See?" she urged, letting out a tired sigh, breathing a breath of relief as Ollie mutely nodded, though his face had turned an interesting shade of green, and she hoped he wasn't going to start getting sick, but to her immense relief, his eyelids drooped.

He couldn't recall the last time he'd been so damned bloody exhausted in his life.

A tap on his shoulder momentarily brought Ollie back to the outside world, but after a second, in his exhaustion brought on by exertion and mental anguish, he was once again lost. He could feel Tonks trying to look at him, staring dead in the eye.

But he just couldn't keep focus. Confusion and panic blossomed in his chest and heart and he knew that sooner or later, he would need to wake up.

To stare reality in the face and find out from Snape and Remus if Norah was going to pull through.

But for now, he was unable to stop himself from laying down his heavy head and retreating into the wallowing blackness.

Tonks, for her part, sat awkwardly on the couch curled up next to Ollie's unsteadily sleeping form, her hand on his thigh as reassuringly as she could possibly manage without the gesture coming across as suggestive.

She flinched, hoping Remus or Snape wouldn't walk in on this and get the wrong idea, but after all that Ollie had done to help her and her husband, she owed him.

_We owe both of you_ , she thought sadly, squeezing her eyes shut as she swore she heard another guttural moan of pain of the young blonde wolf's, coming from behind the spare bedroom and she and Remus were putting Norah up in to allow the young blonde wolf time to heal.

Their friendship was strange, and admittedly not natural, but it was the best Tonks could think of, thinking that nothing in her life had ever been, for lack of a better word, 'normal.'

Tonks felt a surge in her temper flare hot as dragon fire at the thought of Jack Brennan's unexpected but not all together unannounced arrival on their porch.

She had known from the owl he sent her (well, technically to Ollie, though Tonks had intercepted it!) that Jack would be coming, but he hadn't specified when.

Tonks had not anticipated nor did she _appreciate_ the fact that Jack had made an attempt to see his last-living son tonight of all nights, when his body and mind had already been taxed and pushed to the brink, teetering on the edge from fighting at Hogwarts and worried sick over Norah's condition, not knowing if she would survive.

The hot fire-seed of anger swooped and churned in the pit of her stomach, and Tonks felt her bare toes almost curl in frustration and ire.

No matter _when_ Jack Brennan came back to see Ollie, one thing was certain.

She and Remus were _not_ going to allow the man to set one foot inside their home.

They could converse on the porch or take a walk if it pleased them to do so, and she was most certainly going to have words again with Jack and make sure the man heeded her warning from a moment ago.

Ollie had suffered at his father's expense for far too long, and it was high time she kept true to the promise they had made to one another the morning they met in Knockturn Alley when they were thirteen years old the summer before start of term.

Tonks squeezed her eyes shut as the memory returned to her of the promise the two of them had made that fateful summer their unbreakable bond had been forged…

* * *

This was her third summer shopping for school supplies before the start of term in early September, and each trip to Diagon Alley was always the same for Nymphadora Tonks.

Listen to her mum and dad, and _never_ , _ever_ under _any_ circumstances, go down Knockturn Alley.

It was rumored dodgy people skulked about that alleyway, _seedy_ types.

Types that Andromeda and Ted Tonks did not want their daughter around at all.

Ted and Andromeda frequently told Tonks stories at bedtimes of the types of bad men and women that lurked in the shadows in that ill-fated alleyway for Dark wizards and witches.

Her parents said those that favored the shadows would come for her unless she stayed closed and minded her parents, or she would meet a truly abysmal fate.

Tonks was thirteen years old when she met Ollie Brennan for the first time.

Her mum had dragged her to Diagon Alley to buy the list of supplies on her list this year as a third-year Hufflepuff, and Tonks needed new school robes and had been bribed into coming with the promise of Mr. Florean Fortescue's famous large fudge ripple sundae.

Never one to turn down chocolate ice cream, or chocolate anything really, Tonks had eagerly agreed, and even with the warning lingering from her mum not even two seconds ago, it was impossible to repress the young teenager's curiosity.

Teens will do what they want, after all. Some parents learned this a little more quickly than others, and they were wise not to discourage the tendency too severely, though it was the high-strung, overprotective parents who were slower to learn this lesson of their kids.

Much to the cost of their own sanity. Ted and Andromeda Tonks were one such set of parents.

Tonks, for instance, bloody damned bloody well where she was and not allowed to go in Diagon Alley.

She'd been told countless times by Mum and Dad, and under no circumstances, not for anything in all of Great Britain, was she to step one toe over the threshold that separated Diagon Alley from Knockturn Alley.

Not. One. Toe. But when you were thirteen, the pull and irresistible beck and call of the ghoulish was nearly irresistible.

_You_ know. _You_ were once thirteen, too. To be fair, Nymphadora, for the most part, always did what she was told.

Every morning, she helped her dad with chores around the house, doing it always without complaining, helping her mum cook in the kitchen.

Doing what you were told, however, was one thing, but _refraining_ from doing what you were told _not_ to do?

Quite another matter entirely.

Particularly when fellow soon-to-be third-year Charlie Weasley was teasing her for it.

"You won't do it, Tonks! You're not allowed! You're way too scared! You want to give up? I won't think any less of you for it, but…I _will_ make you give me your sundae at Florean's," the ginger-haired, freckled Gryffindor student mercilessly teased Tonks as the pair of them had managed to give both of their sets of parents the slip, and the friends were standing upon the threshold that separated Knockturn Alley from Diagon Alley, who shot her an infectious grin.

Tonks stomped her foot in frustration and put her hands on her hips, scrunching her nose in disgust, not even aware her ponytail had accidentally changed crimson in color.

"You shut up, Charlie!" Tonks retorted hotly, her face reddening in anger, giving her classmate and friend the most venomous glower, the young witch could manage, though at only thirteen, the look was more adorable than it was intimidating.

Charlie Weasley scoffed and rolled his eyes, folding his burly arms across his chest.

"Oh, yeah, Tonks? Then why is your voice _shaking_? You afraid of what your mum will do if she finds you skulking around Knockturn Alley? What's she going to do if she finds out, huh, Tonks?" he smirked, giving his friend, who was something of a tomboy a quick once-over, surveying her simple black t-shirt and jeans and black sneakers.

Tonks bristled, seething _,_ but said nothing.

_"Sit_ on you? No, wait, wait!" he continued, clutching his side between his giggling fit. "Make you wear a _dress_!" he joked, gasping for breath, and howling with laughter, nearly falling over himself at the thought of his tomboyish young friend wearing a dress intended for young women. _Ladylike_ girls.

Of which, Nymphadora Tonks was most certainly _not_. Tonks had little friends in this world, save for Charlie.

Not many witches her age cared for trying to take a dip in the Black Lake at Hogwarts, even though it was against school rules, just to see if she could catch a glimpse of the Giant Squid that lived there, being outside when it rained, and curling up with a blanket with a good book.

All things Nymphadora loved to do.

Unfortunately, she had no one to share them with. Because of her tomboyish nature, she did not really fit in with young witches her age, and the boys all saw her as a threat to their ambitions, they wouldn't let her hang out with _them_ , either.

Except for Charlie, though he was _so_ not her friend right now, considering how he _teased_ her!

Tonks gritted her teeth in annoyance, feeling her purple-painted fingernails digging into the palms of her hands as she clenched her fists in indignation.

She was not afraid of Knockturn Alley, particularly Borgin and Burkes' shop, no matter what the people in The Three Broomsticks and The Leaky Cauldron said about the place.

The injustice of what Charlie was suggesting—that she was _scared_ when she bloody wasn't—made her ears burn.

"Watch me, Charlie. I'm going to touch it!"

'It' of course, being the famous Cursed Hand in Borgin and Burkes. Known by another name, the Hand of Glory.

A Dark artifact, a shriveled hand rumored to give light only to its holder.

It was rumored that if you attempted to grab onto it or touch it in any way, and you were not the designated holder the Hand chose, it wouldn't let go.

Well. She would show him!

She'd touch it, and _then_ some. Seven hells, she'd touch it _so_ bloody well, the Hand of Glory would be hers for the rest of her natural life!

That would teach Charlie to call her a coward!

Tonks did not bother to stop the triumphant smirk forming at the edges of her lips, though she knew Charlie Weasley couldn't see as she stalked down the cobblestone steps that led into the depths of Knockturn Alley, ignoring Charlie's startled shout of surprise, leaving the second oldest Weasley sibling to gape after Tonks in surprise, though she did not hear him follow her.

_Now we'll see who's the coward, Weasley_ , Tonks thought darkly to herself, swiveling her head this way and that, trying to take in the infamous Knockturn Alley.

It was a rather disquieting place if Tonks was being honest with herself.

The alleyway itself well over a hundred and fifty years old, or so Tom the Bartender in The Leaky Cauldron was fond of telling anyone who would listen to him over a butterbeer.

The cobblestone walls of Knockturn Alley had grown green with a dank mold, and grass sprouted up from cracks in the street.

Understandably so, it was regarded by the adults in Nymphadora's world as an ugly splotch, a blot on the picturesque landscape that was known to their community as Diagon Alley, and just its spooky appearance alone was enough to give Knockturn Alley its haunted reputation.

Her fellow classmates, those precious few who _did_ give a damn about Tonks, wouldn't blame Tonks for being hesitant initially about getting anywhere _near_ this repulsive shopping plaza where only questionable types, people who used to be Slytherin came to do their shopping.

But now it's become a matter of her personal pride now.

The thirteen-year-old daughter of Andromeda and Ted Tonks was no coward, and now that she stood in front of the open entrance to Borgin and Burkes' shop, now was the bloody time to prove it to Charlie and anyone _else_ who called her a coward.

Tonks exhaled a sharp breath, puffing her cheeks out to steel her nerves. As she gingerly approached the open entryway of the nefarious, dingy, dusty looking shop, several crows that had been perched on the awning took off, squawking and rustling their feathers in annoyance.

Tonks kept her gaze fixated on her black sneakers in nervousness, it wasn't until she reached the entryway, she forced herself to look upward.

It's close. Sweet Merlin's left buttock, it was bloody close to her now.

She'd never been this close to a Knockturn Alley shop in all her _life_. What would her mum say if she could see her here? If she wanted to, she could reach out with her finger and—

"Touch it!" Charlie Weasley shouted from directly behind her, eliciting a startled yelp from Tonks, causing the poor young witch to falter backwards and scream loudly.

"Is _this_ going to become a regular thing with you?" she snapped, toying with the ends of her ponytail as she whirled around on the heel of her shoe and glowered at him.

"It is until you touch it," Charlie retorted with a vicious looking smirk on his face, one that Tonks wanted to ball her hand into a fist and wipe that smug grin right off his arrogant face with a well-deserved punch at the nose, the Muggle dueling way.

"I am _not_ going to touch the Hand of Glory!" Tonks growled through gritted teeth, and this time, she really did stomp her foot in a moment of frustrated agitation.

"Oh, but Nymphadora, I thought you weren't _afraid_ ," Charlie whined in a mock little pout, knowing he had her right where he wanted his friend at the use of her full first name, a name which he knew she loathed, judging by the look of daggers she shot.

Tonks raised her eyebrows at Charlie in annoyance and swiveled her gaze back around in front of her, cringing at the fact that there were dead skeletal remains of Merlin only knew what, though one of them looked suspiciously like a dead baby's head in the front window of Borgin and Burkes.

She was sure that's what it was. _Yes_.

A shudder went down her spine. " _You_ go inside and touch it then, if you're so tough!" Tonks spat at Charlie, trying her best not to think about the dismal fact that the shopkeeper, Mr. Borgin, kept a _dead baby's skull_ in his front shop window. "Why do _I_ always have to be the first one to do anything whenever you and I hang out, Charlie?"

"Because the gullible one always goes first!" said Charlie with an impish chuckle that she thought was better suited for one of his twin brothers, Fred, or George.

"It's—it's _your_ turn to do something stupid and take the blame for it, Weasley!" Tonks protested, not looking at Charlie, her gaze fixated on something behind the window.

She was sure, she was _sure_ that she saw a flash of black, and a brilliant shade of blue peeking out at her from behind the shop window, but she couldn't be sure exactly.

Her ears practically perked up as she swore that she heard the sound of someone's voice, a boy her age, coming from inside, though it sounded muffled, distant. Faint.

Charlie snorted, rolling his eyes, and raking his fingers through his fiery tuft of red trademark Weasley hair.

"That doesn't even make any _sense_ , Tonks!" he sighed exasperatedly.

Tonks groaned, painfully twisting her hands together. "If I touch it, will you get off my back about this?" she breathed, her light gray eyes shining as there it was again.

Charlie made the sign of the Hail Mary across his chest. "Cross my heart, hope to die," he swore solemnly, not a trace of joking in his face or his voice for once. "Swear."

Groaning in frustration and toying with the ends of her ponytail, Tonks took a deep breath and turns back to face the front of Borgin and Burke's open front door.

_It's not haunted_ , she told herself firmly. _It's not bloody haunted, Dora. You can do this. Just…go inside, get a good look at the Hand, touch it, and get out of here_!

"Oooh. I can't believe I'm _really_ doing this!" Tonks whispered through gritted teeth, clenching and un-clenching her fists, keeping her voice low enough so that Weasley wouldn't hear her.

If he learned she actually was scared of going in here, she'd _never_ hear the end of it.

"I—I really _am_ a _stupid_ girl," she hissed, steeling her nerves.

Taking a deep breath to try to calm down her racing heart, Tonks took a ginger step forward, and then another, and another, until she had crossed the threshold and was now well past the point of no return.

There was no going back. Too late to turn back.

_I should go back_.

This single thought nagged at the back of her mind like a fly that she could not swat.

But still, now that she was actually inside Borgin and Burkes' shop for the first time, she felt a hint of longing to see what was in here for herself. Who knew?

Maybe she would actually survive touching the Hand of Glory and live to tell it.

However, the thought of facing Mum and Dad and their temper when she found out that she had managed to give them the slip while they haggled over the price of her school robes this year, and the thought of Charlie getting in trouble with _his_ mum, who had an even worse temper than her mother was almost enough to spur her to turn the hell around and march right out the front door, to go back.

Though, before she could, she heard a shuffling sound behind her, footsteps.

At first, she thought maybe it was the grizzled old shop keep, Mr. Borgin or was it Mr. Burke?

She didn't know which one of them ran the shop itself, but Tonks did know that she didn't particularly care to find out.

But then she noticed, the sound was entirely too soft and agile, too soft to belong to an adult's footsteps.

She whirled around on the heel of her sneaker, just in time to see a flash of black woolen robes whip around the corner and out of her line of sight. _Someone's spying on me_! Tonks thought, intrigued, catching a brief glance of the shrouded figure's tall stature, though not that much taller than her.

Way too short to be a fully-grown wizard or witch. It had to be someone her age.

_Maybe they're just too shy to talk to me, then_! _But why_? She thought, furrowing her brows into a frown.

They had nothing to be afraid of with her.

And Nymphadora Tonks, being the inquisitive, somewhat nosy thirteen-year-old that she was, and a bit of a lonely young witch at that, was not about to pass up the opportunity to make a new friend, especially if this figure hiding in the shadows was someone her age, and Tonks, without giving it so much as a second thought, followed.

Tonks almost caught up with the black blur around the next corner, almost knocking over a shelf of tattered leatherbound books in the process, though she didn't.

_Thank Merlin_ , she thought, biting the wall of her cheek. Mum was going to bloody _murder_ her as it was for sneaking off like this, let alone what she would do to her if she knocked over a whole shelf of merchandise and her mum had to pay for it.

Tonks took a moment to breathe and catch her breath, a hand clutched onto her side, doubled over, coughing, and gasping for breath.

Whoever she was chasing, was _fast_.

As Tonks slowly righted her posture and stood up straighter, she found herself staring directly at the withered Hand of Glory itself.

She scrunched her nose in disgust. It truly was an ugly thing. The Hand of Glory was ashen where the dim sunlight streamed in through the dusty front shop window, not ghostly like a white person, just subdued and greyish, and in her mind, quite grotesque.

The once-smooth skin was wrinkled and thin, the fingers of the Hand long and they bulged at the knuckles, and the hand seemed permanently curled over in a claw.

_Don't touch it_ , a new voice, an unfamiliar voice, not her own, piped up at the back of her mind, though Tonks could not place it, and neither could the thirteen-year-old young witch tear her gaze away from it.

_It calls to you. Don't touch it. It's evil_.

Tonks furrowed her brows in a frown. "Wh—who said that? Was it you?" she whispered, glancing to the left and the right, into the shadows, thinking whoever was trying to talk to her was doing so in a very strange way, most unusual, and then it hit her. _Hard_.

_Oh_! She almost clamped a hand over her mouth at the realization. "You're a Legilimens?" she whispered. Tonks had heard her mum tell stories of these people.

People who could read minds, see visions of their past, memories, could hold entire conversations with just their thoughts.

Tonks had always envied the ability.

_Yes_.

Just a one-word answer, and in her mind, the young boy's voice sounded extremely shy, for his voice shook, but it was more than enough to confirm her suspicion.

Tonks almost clapped in delight at the excitement of meeting a Legilimens for herself, thinking that Charlie wasn't going to bloody believe the turn this had taken.

Tonks swallowed nervously past the lump in her throat. "Don't you want to come out where I can see you?" she asked, biting her bottom lip in hesitation.

She began to fear that this magnificent voice which seemed to radiate from all corners of the desolate, dusty, murky shop of the first story of Borgin and Burkes was not a person at all, but merely a figment of her imagination, and suddenly, she needed him to be next to her.

_N—no_. He was stammering now, or at least, the boy's voice was, in her mind.

Tonks's frown deepened, and before she even knew what she was doing, she had one of her fingers in her mouth and bit down on her nail, harder than she intended to, as she accidentally swallowed the fragment as she turned her head back to the Hand of Glory.

Something about it was calling to her. Tonks, in a dazed haze, stared at it.

" _Tonks_ …"

The Hand seemed to be calling to her somehow, leaving her timid and afraid. It seemed like it was whispering to her, beckoning her to fulfill her purpose for her visit with that gnarled, curled, arthritic-looking claw of his, for her to reach out her hand—

Tonks let out a muffled yelp, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the Hand of Glory's fingers suddenly shoot downward and latch firmly onto her arm in a vice grip.

She wasn't even aware she had walked towards the Hand where it rested, perched on a shelf's mantlepiece just above the fireplace for people to travel via Floo Powder.

Nor could she recall screaming, but she must have.

"Hang on!"

The voice, the same boy's voice from inside her head, a soft, sweet, shy, almost musical tone, now radiated from all around her, and then, the voice was behind her, speaking for real this time.

"I—I told you not to—to touch it!" he gasped, panting with the effort to free her. "I...got you!"

Then, she felt a surprisingly strong, smooth hand latch onto her arm, and she heard the boy grunt with the effort to pull Tonks's arm out of the Hand of Glory's cursed grasp, but the mysterious boy from behind her succeeded, freeing her hand.

Tonks felt herself being pulled backwards, stumbling and almost tripping over the hem of what looked like the hem of a long black woolen robe, and she cracked open one eye, looked up, though by the time she did, the boy had disappeared into the shadows again and out of her line of sight.

"Are you hurt?" the boy's voice asked.

Hesitant. Fearful. Kind. Those were the first initial impressions she had of him.

Well, of his _voice_ , really, since she couldn't manage to get a good look at his face.

He had moved backward to step into the shadow, and Tonks had followed him.

"No. Thanks," Tonks whispered, heat creeping onto her cheeks. "I—I'm sorry, I—I didn't mean to…come in here a—and disturb you. I just…"

She looked away, feeling ashamed of herself for allowing herself to take Charlie Weasley's stupid bait.

And _now_ , she had forced this boy to save her life, and surely, he was going to tell Mr. Borgin what she had done, how she had touched the Hand of Glory, and then her mum would surely give her seven shades of holy hell when she found out.

The boy in the shadows dropped his gaze and shuffled his feet nervously, and Tonks realized the kid was trying to avoid eye contact with her, which only puzzled her even more.

"It's all right," he murmured, still keeping to the shadows, his back pressed against the dirty, peeling wallpaper of the shop, starting to walk away. "As long as you're not hurt."

"Wait! Don't go! What's your name?"

Tonks, against her better nature, reached out and caught the young stranger by the arm.

The kid who'd saved her life shirked and flinched at her gentle touch, ripping his arm out of Tonks's grasp with a strong but relative ease.

She took a step backward, hoping she hadn't offended this boy somehow, but was surprised at his aggressive and somewhat violent reaction.

All she wanted was to get a good look at him. Tonks didn't much care for people who hid in the shadows. She huffed in anger.

"Sorry. I…didn't mean... what's your name?" she mumbled, not daring to meet his gaze.

It seemed to take the boy in the shadows several minutes to find his voice, and when he did manage, she saw a brief flash of movement and saw two brilliant pinpricks of an icy-cold, glacier blue stare regarding her in silence.

Tonks shivered, but not from fear, but rather, a sense of unbridled curiosity.

_I need to see more of those blue eyes…_

Tonks locked her jaw, ignoring her victorious smile as she, upon sensing the boy was not going to come out of the shadows anytime soon, gave a gasp of surprise as Tonks backed up against one of the bookshelves and used it as a support brace to lower herself to the dusty hardwood floor of the shop, not minding the grit and dust that stained her blue jeans, choosing to sit cross-legged on the floor, just across the way.

She would sit here all afternoon if that's what it took until he came out of hiding.

When the boy did finally answer her after what felt like an eternity in a thick, uncomfortable silence, his voice was timid, and afraid, but he spoke to her, nonetheless.

_Ollie_.

Tonks smiled, flashing him what she hoped was a brilliantly white smile, kind, and that the boy could see it from where he stood lingering under the cover of darkness.

She did not know what exactly possessed her to do so, but something about the way the boy nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and how hoarse, soft, and timid his voice sounded, suggested he was not exactly used to speaking in front of other people, other kids their age, which Tonks thought odd.

She wanted to try something. Maybe it would help him become less nervous around her.

Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath and exhaled through her nose.

Tonks concentrated, forcing her mind to shut out all the other sounds of the bustling streets of Knockturn and Diagon Alley, the hoots of the owls, the hissing of the cats, and squeaking of rats, the guttural croaks of the toads for sale in the menagerie.

It was a difficult task, but slowly, she heard the sounds of the outside world begin to dissipate.

_Tonks_ , she thought at last, and when her eyelids slowly fluttered open, she was surprised to see movement in the shadows, and the blue pinpricks widened slightly.

Slowly, but surely, the boy stepped from the shadows and into the light, timid and afraid.

The boy was pale, paler than she had ever seen someone her age.

She wondered if he was an albino, but as the boy called Ollie lifted his chin and skittishly dared to meet her eyes, she knew this wasn't the case. Albinos had red or pink eyes typically, and this boy's eyes were blue.

An electric, spine-tingling, brilliant shade of crystal blue, like the ocean's waters.

He held out his hand to help Tonks up.

Feeling somewhat nervous, Tonks was hesitant for a moment before slipping her hand into his as she was pulled to her feet, and she decided she instantly liked the warmth that he gave off.

"Tonks…I—I'm Ollie. Ollie Brennan. N—nice to—to meet you," Ollie whispered slowly, stammering, but seeming to savor the syllables of her surname just the same, saying her name with such a sweetness that Tonks decided she couldn't describe it to Charlie later even if she tried.

His stammer worsened the more nervous the boy became, but finally, he found his voice.

"Are you...are we...friends now?" Ollie asked hesitantly, biting down on his bottom lip.

Tonks nodded, shooting him what she hoped was a kind, white smile. "Yeah. Friends..."

Just the word made her heart swell with hope, someone else besides Charlie to talk to.

But the boy did not seem convinced by her words, for he proceeded to raise his eyebrows at her and shoot her a look of slight distrust, which Tonks couldn't help but feel irked by.

Did this boy really think she'd _lie_?! Not that she wanted to, really.

Lifting her chin to meet his gaze, those piercing glacier blue eyes, Tonks nodded.

"I promise." She gave his hand a squeeze.

What had transpired today between the two of them was their little secret, and Tonks knew by the mischievous twinkle in the thirteen-year-old's eyes as he slowly raised a finger to his lips and nervously carded his fingers through his thick tuft of short messy, black hair that he wasn't going to tell on her to Mr. Borgin or to Mr. Burke as they heard the shopkeeper round the bend with old Lucius Malfoy, in the middle of discussing a sale and too busy to notice the pair of teenagers hanging out in his business.

And it was in that one simple gesture, Tonks knew she could trust Ollie Brennan.

She did not know how long the pair of them remained rooted to their spots in Borgin and Burke's, the two new friends not needing to say a single word to each other.

Because, in their own way, they were already communicating.

From that day forward, Nymphadora Tonks and Oliver Brennan were inseparable.

Tonks eventually announced that she had to go, or else she would be in trouble with her parents, but Ollie insisted on walking her out.

As she allowed the raven-haired boy to take her by the hand and escort her outside of Borgin and Burke's, much to Charlie's teasing the moment he caught sight of Tonks holding his hand, Charlie didn't hesitate to ask her if she had touched the Hand of Glory in the shop.

"So?" Charlie asked urgently, as the trio walked up the stairs that led back into Diagon Alley. "The Hand of Glory. Did you touch it?"

Tonks did not immediately answer her friend. She glanced down at her and Ollie's interlocked hands.

"Yes," she murmured, slowly lifting her chin, addressing Charlie, but never once averting her gaze from Ollie Brennan's glistening blue orbs.

Tonks lowered her voice and glanced down once again at their inter joined hands, her next words meant for her new friend Ollie, and him alone.

"I touched it."


	109. As Friends

**108**

Ollie lay on the couch, drained, his eyes closed though not sleeping, wishing that Remus and Snape would let him in to see Norah, he needed to know one way or another if she was going to survive. He wanted to tell her how he really felt for her.

Ollie could stop hiding his true emotions, and they could just be free, free of the confines that society had set for people like him and the young blonde werewolf.

He did not think he would eventually fall asleep at all, until he was, falling asleep in a position where he looked like one of those contortionists.

He slept well, for perhaps the first time in six years since imprisoned in Master Crouch's estate, dreaming of that fateful day when he was thirteen years old and he met Tonks.

The pain in his eyes stopped and he felt a small ghost of a smile flit across his pale, exhausted features form on his face as he succumbed himself to that memory, a day which had started out like all the others, and ended in only a way that he could describe as a Merlin-blessed miracle.

He had asked Him for a friend that day, and he'd gotten _her_.

* * *

Oliver Brennan, his youngest of two sons, to Jack Brennan had quickly become a disappointment. He was not at all like Dominic, and Death Eater Brennan's pallid eyes stared straight ahead at a spot on the wall behind Mr. Borgin's head as he and Lucius Malfoy discussed the removal of a few precious items from their home in case the Aurors decided to pay them both a home visit with the aging shopkeeper.

A small figure nudged beside him. _Oliver_.

His bastard son gave him a wan look before inkling his head. "F—Father," he murmured lowly. Jack Brennan gazed at his youngest son, the boiling on his blood ensued though not quite as much these days, considering the boy was due to return to Hogwarts here in two more weeks.

There was something within Oliver that Jack knew he needed to mend though he knew he couldn't. When the boy looks at him, he could see the hateful eyes, back when Ollie was little, and his mother had abandoned them.

He had since taken a new wife, Liara, Oliver, and Dominic's stepmother, whom neither boy seemed to care much for, though both were polite enough in her company.

Jack now saw that same little boy now, small, and gaunt, trembling with tears, his scrawny little fingers weaving in between his knuckles, though Ollie was no little boy anymore at age thirteen.

"Hush, boy, the adults are speaking. Be quiet, Oliver," he barked in a tone laced with bitterness as he glanced down his slender, slightly hooked nose at his youngest son, despising the way his bastard son stuttered so horribly.

It was a pain to listen to. Dominic did not stutter, did not look upon him with such fearfulness. _He hates me_ , Jack Brennan thought as he regarded Ollie.

_He will die hating me_.

So, this morning, he decided if nothing else, he could be proud of Oliver for excelling in his studies at Hogwarts and performing well. He would make a truly fine addition to the Dark Lord's ranks when the boy came of age one day.

"Do not interrupt me while I conduct business with Mr. Borgin, son." His voice was firm and hard.

Oliver gave a nod, offering no verbal comment, for which Jack was grateful. Mr. Brennan sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, fighting off the beginnings of a splitting headache.

"Touch _nothing_ while we're here, Oliver. You may look around Mr. Borgin's shop if you like. Besides, the curious wretch that I know you to be, boy, you would run off anyways. Just be sure to stay on the ground floor and away from the staircase. You are **NOT** to set one foot on that staircase and again, do not touch a _thing_. If I find that you have, I should flay you alive with my own two hands until there's nothing left of you, boy. Feed what's left of you to our _dogs_ , Oliver. I'm sure they'd enjoy picking the meat off your bones."

Ollie nodded his head in agreement, watching with a pained stare as Father slowly turned his back on his youngest son. "I won't. Thank you, Father," he murmured. "You—you are good to me, Father. I…" he bit his lip in hesitation, hard enough to crack the skin and cause it to bleed, wondering if he should say it anyway. In the end, he decided to speak his piece and say what was on his mind. "I love you, Father," he muttered under his breath, and he let out a hiss.

At those words, Father paused, halting in his movements while Mr. Borgin murmured something under his breath about Jack meeting him and Lucius in the backroom whenever he was ready.

Ollie mentally swore when Father's icy stare angled down at him, his ringed fingers clasped neatly in front of his middle, ready to fire, and Ollie winced, letting out a low whimper, hoping Father wasn't reading his mind and wouldn't punish him for his thoughts.

"What was that, boy?" Father went on through gritted teeth, sending a chill down Ollie's throat as Jack Brennan carefully schooled his pale features into a look of sternness and curled his hand into a fist over the handle of his wand. "What have I told you about lying?" he barked, an accusatory look on his face. Father had turned his back to Ollie for a moment to mutter to the two men that he would be joining them in a moment, and when at last he turned around to face his son, there was no trace whatsoever of any kind of emotion.

Not in his dark brown eyes nor in his reddening face. Father's eyes were narrowed, rigid, cold, and hard.

At that moment, Ollie knew Father was already far away. Once more, he was the bastard son, the hated son, and the enemy.

These swings from most loved to most hated would be the end of him, his states had no greyscale, only the polar extremes existed.

Ollie drew in a deep breath that he thought was nothing short of a miracle, considering how much it hurt right now. The bruises on his left ribcage still stung and swelled from where Father had kicked him the other night for trying to talk to Tandey, the family's female house-elf.

He let out a whine and whimpered, low enough that he thought Father didn't hear. But he was wrong.

"Answer. Me," Father growled in a low, dangerous tone, eliciting a shudder from his youngest son. "What have I told you about _lying_ , boy? You have made me repeat myself, Oliver. You know I _hate_ saying it a second time."

"Not to do it," Ollie whispered hoarsely, feeling a stab of a fear prick at his heartstrings as he forced his gaze to remain fixated on Father. It would be much worse for him later back at home if he looked away. "What did I…lie about, Father?" he asked, fear of Father chilling his very bones and the blood in his veins to ice. He had no idea why Father was mad.

"You said you loved me," Jack reminded Ollie, his dark brown eyes listless as he glowered down his nose at his thirteen-year-old son. "You have _lied_ to me, Oliver. You are a _bastard_. You don't love, you're not capable of it. You're nothing but a little wretch and you will _never_ know what it means. You do not love me, Oliver. You _need_ me. These two concepts are not the same," he countered with an eerie sense of absolute calmness. "When you're a little older, someday, boy, you will understand. I cannot explain to you what love means because you do not understand it, and it is something that you never will. Love is not a selfish concept, and your dependence on me to provide for you, feed you and clothe you when you are not at school is selfish. Now, you're going to wait out here until Mr. Borgin and Mr. Malfoy and I are finished. Is that _understood_?" he growled, to which he received no immediate response.

Father's words wounded him more than he could have known, and Ollie had never felt more cut to the core by the words that had tumbled unchecked from Father's thin, wormy-looking lips.

He knew Father held a tendency to be harsh at times in order to teach Ollie and Dominic how the world worked outside of their manor, and he knew himself to be the lesser favorite in Father's eyes, but to be told that he could not love, it seemed like Father was wrong—

"But I _do_ love you, Father!" he insisted. "I do, I—"

" _Enough_!" Jack Brennan bellowed, his dark brown orbs flashing with unbridled rage. "You go too far, Oliver!"

Quicker than Ollie thought possible, Jack Brennan stopped down from where he stood in front of his son, and seized a handful of his black woolen robes, and backhanded his son across the cheek.

_"Do. Not. Lie. To. Me_!"

The razor-sharp edges of his glistening emerald-green rings cut cleanly into the soft flesh of Ollie's cheek as they made contact. Ollie whimpered in pain and surprise, his hands immediately flung up in front of his face to shield himself from another of Father's harsh blows, falling to the hardwood floor beneath his feet. Ollie raised a trembling hand to the right side of his face.

He felt sticky wetness, a horrible warmth, and he knew one of Father's rings had cut him and left its mark. Tears marred his vision, pricking and stinging at the corners of his eyes, but he fought down the liquid.

Crying wasn't _allowed_ , and he would not allow _Father_ to see him cry.

Jack Brennan made a noise that sounded like a sniff of disapproval and turned his back on his son. "Remember, Oliver. You're nothing but a monster, boy. It's an important word to be familiar with," he growled, his tones devoid of all warmth and affection.

Ollie glanced up from staring at his shaking hands resting in his lap just in time to see Father follow Mr. Borgin and Mr. Malfoy to the back of his shop, and when he answered, his voice was in much too low a tone for his father to make out his words.

"Trust me, Father," he murmured darkly to himself under his breath. "I'm familiar with it."

* * *

He didn't know how much time had passed. A half-hour, maybe two, but Ollie remained rooted to his spot in the corner of Borgin and Burke's, leaning back against the wall as best as he could, given the multitude of bruises and lacerations on his back, not wanting to injure them even further and exacerbate them, and cried into his knees.

It was always something he did after Father was finished with him, lamenting how stupid and monstrous he was. How he would never live up to Dominic in Father's eyes.

Father showed little to no mercy towards him, explaining why he was being punished so harshly, and that Oliver had to try harder to measure up to his older brother.

As if Ollie weren't already trying his best, but he would never be like Dominic. "It's my fault," the thirteen-year-old whispered to himself, staring at a dust bunny near the edge of his black boot through tear-filled, red-rimmed irises. "I'm just a stupid _kid_. I—I can't do anything right."

He growled through gritted teeth, curling his hand into a fist, and slamming it into the wall behind him, which hurt like hell and made his tears come even harder, more intense, now cradling his sore, injured left hand.

More than anything, Ollie wanted someone to be kind to him for once, but such a concept was foolish, and contact with other people outside of Father's work was scarce since when he was home for the holidays, he was not allowed outside the house.

The only person who ever had kind words for him was Mother, and their house-elf, Tandey, who always made it a habit on Mother's orders to sneak him an extra piece of chocolate when Father wasn't looking, or give him as many sugar cubes in his tea as he wanted, and even then, the house-elf only visited him in his room, as he was not allowed downstairs when guests were present in the Brennan manor.

"Merlin," he whispered hoarsely, wiping the blood off his cheek and now his hand with the overly long sleeve of his black woolen robes and drying his eyes. " _Please_. Can you send me a friend? M—maybe more than one, if you want to, but I'd be content with just one, I—I promise," he begged through gritted teeth and closed eyes.

Ollie looked up at the ceiling of Borgin and Burkes, and then out the front shop window as if expecting a new friend to just…waltz right in the front door of the shop, but none did.

Ollie shakily rose to his feet, having to clutch onto the corner of the bookshelf in order to right himself, wiping at the last of his tears that threatened to escape the corners of his lids with a well-practiced flick of his finger and he sniffed.

Tears were no stranger to him at this point in his life, and he never allowed Father to see him cry. He was forced to do it in private, but he should not have to. Ollie sniffed once or twice as he raked his fingers through his thick tuft of black hair, swiveling his head to the left and right, taking in all the sights of the Dark objects.

He kicked at a stray pebble that a wandering customer had brought in from outside, his pale, tear-stained face full of immense anger and utter disappointment.

_Who am I kidding? No one would want to be my friend_ , he thought, and he heaved a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping in defeat, though a faint noise from outside caused his ears to perk up the moment he made to head towards the back corner.

"Ooh. I can't believe I'm really _doing_ this. I really _am_ a stupid girl!"

A _girl's_ voice, sweet and succulent, wafted through the open front door of Borgin and Burke's and sent his eardrums ringing, causing his senses to become heightened. Intrigued, he crept closer towards the front of the room for a better look.

_A new friend_? Ollie thought, biting the wall of his cheek, though once he got a good look, he panicked.

It was…a _girl_. Ollie felt his cobalt blue eyes widen in shock and awe, giving his head a curt shake to clear it, as he noticed a short, pale girl around his age nervously approaching the front of the shop, toying with the ends of her dark purple ponytail.

_Damnation_ , he thought, cursing under his breath, and praying for Father, also a natural-born Legilimens, that he wouldn't hear him swear like this.

His eyes widened as he got a good look for himself, peeking out at her through the shop window, ducking behind a shelf.

This…this was no _girl_. She was…an _angel_.

A narrow, heart-shaped face, tumbling maroon-colored curls splayed around her head as she loosened her ponytail from its elastic holder, taking a second to redo it before nervously toying with the ends.

The girl's skin was fair, even lighter than his own, and how soft and unblemished it looked.

Ollie winced, drawing in a breath that was more of a hiss as his left hand instinctively wandered to the burn mark over his right arm, where Father had burnt him for accidentally dropping and breaking a plate in the kitchens last week.

He bet _she_ didn't have any kind of bruises or scars on her body. Heavy, dark lashes framed a pair of glistening gray eyes that were like the wings of a pigeon's wing, or the last ashes on a dying fire billowing in the breeze, or the ocean water right before the first rays of dawn strike it, and her elegant, lily-white neck was tilted slightly to the right as the young witch his age cocked her head in a moment of pure intrigue and curiosity.

She really _was_ quite pretty, though the second Ollie swore he saw the girl had gotten a good look at his face as he poked his head around the corner of a bookshelf, he bolted, and he ground his teeth as he heard the young girl his age start to give chase.

"Wait!" she called out after him, and Ollie swore upon hearing how close she actually was. _Hide, hide, need to hide, can't let her see me_ , he thought wildly.

Thinking quickly, looking to the left and right for a good hiding spot, he ducked behind a green curtain that separated the first level of the shop from what he knew to be one of the storerooms in the hopes of avoiding the girl chasing him.

Everything was _not_ fine! Why was _she_ here? She—she didn't look like she belonged in Knockturn Alley! She should not _be_ here!

_Damn, damn, damn, damn_!

Ollie's thoughts were a jumbled mess, swirling around like a hurricane in his head, and he debated whether or not he was having a panic attack or a heart attack.

Both seemed plausible, given his paralyzed state, and he froze as he heard her footsteps draw nearer, and he swore, from his place in the shadows, he saw her look in his general direction as she took a cautious step towards the green woolen old tarp.

She must have seen the fluttering movement of the curtain swaying as he ducked behind it to hide from her and might be struck with curiosity.

_Don't_ , he silently pleaded, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and grinding his teeth, waiting for her to peel back the tarp he hid behind, and once she got a good look at him, she would run away.

_Don't_.

He did not even know if this strange girl his age with the dark purple ponytail was a Legilimens like he was, but the moment he opened his mouth to try to speak to her, all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech, and Ollie cursed himself.

The palms of his shaking hands had gone numb by this point, and he began to wring them together frantically, beads of sweat forming on his brow and trickling down his front temples, and Ollie had no idea what to do, and he cursed himself for his nervousness, and his brilliant blue eyes widened as the girl looked away from Ollie's hiding place, and to his dismay, she started to walk towards the Hand of Glory, resting on a shelf.

_Don't touch it_! He exclaimed, his eyes tightly shut, feeling like his mouth was full of sandpaper as he tried to reach out to her in the way that he was comfortable with, not even knowing if his words were reaching her or not.

_It's evil! It calls to you. It's cursed. Don't touch it, don't touch it_!

Ollie was screaming inside his mind now.

A fat lot of good it did him, though, however, it did provoke a response from the girl with the maroon-colored ponytail, as she whirled around and frowned at him, though Ollie knew she couldn't see him, and it was bloody going to _stay_ that way.

"Wh—who said that? Was it you?" the girl asked nervously, biting down on her bottom lip in an adorable little pout. Ollie let out a sigh. _Oh_! "You're a Legilimens?"

_Yes_. He was surprised at how easy the answer came to him, even though his voice even inside his mind like this shook, and he flinched, grateful she didn't see it.

He jumped a bit at the sudden noise when the young thirteen-year-old witch clapped her hands in excitement, feeling reminded of the noise Father's hand made whenever he backhanded him across the cheek, though he blinked owlishly and shook his head to clear his mind. This girl, however strange she was, didn't know the truth.

His mind felt like it was racing as Ollie noticed the girl had turned back towards the Hand of Glory, and he swore, already knowing what was about to happen, and the little scream she let out confirmed his suspicions that she had touched the Cursed Hand.

_Damn_ , he thought, a stab of panic pricking at his heartstrings, swearing through gritted teeth, and darted out from behind his safe sanctuary of the green woolen curtain before Ollie could think of stopping himself.

At this point, he didn't care if the girl got a good look at his face and ran away. All he knew was the young witch had touched the Hand of Glory, and he could not let Mr. Borgin find her here, or else then they would really both be in a lot of trouble.

And he could not let this girl get in trouble.

"Hang on! I—I told you not to touch it! I—I've got you!" he called out, darting forward, and tugging on the witch's arm. He seethed, silently shooting up a prayer to Merlin and his grandma or anyone else who would listen to him that she didn't get a good look at his face, at the scars from Father, and run away.

Ollie grunted, almost growling with the effort to free her arm as he fought against the Hand of Glory's ironclad grip, though he heard the girl let out a squeak of terror, and finally, after a minute or two of struggling, the Hand relinquished its grip.

He heard the girl with the maroon-colored ponytail cough, turning her head to the side, and he panicked, swiftly retreating back behind the green woolen curtain and into the storage room before the girl could lift her gaze and get a good look at his face.

"Are you hurt?" he asked immediately, stiffening at the sound of her confused thoughts swirling around in his tired head. Ollie tried his hardest to block out the sound of the girl's sweet voice inside his mind, but it was always a struggle for him.

As he slowly opened his eyes and got a good look at her, it looked like she did not belong here, she was much too pretty to dare to set one foot inside a dingy old shop like this.

"No. Thanks," the girl whispered, a light pink blush spreading along her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come in here a—and disturb you." She looked away.

For a moment, Ollie wished she hadn't. From his place in the shadows, he liked to be able to see her eyes. He froze, realizing she had asked him his name from where she stood.

"What's your name?" she whispered, biting down on her bottom lip in fear.

Ollie bit the inside wall of his cheek, not sure at all if he should answer the girl.

This was, admittedly, the first time he had ever held a conversation with a girl his own age, and he could feel his hands at his sides ball into a fist and start to shake like mad.

_Ollie_ , he whispered, and Ollie could tell by the way the young witch's gray eyes lit up that she had been able to hear and understand him when he communicated this way, for which he was relieved.

Her eyes were scanning the area in front of her, his precious hiding spot, and he realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that she must have noticed him duck behind the sanctuary of this green woolen curtain.

He wished she hadn't, for a moment. He didn't want her to look at him, at his face.

His eyes flicked immediately to the left corner, right where she was standing, and Ollie knew he would never be able to sneak over that way without her noticing him.

_Tonks_ , he heard the young witch say, after a moment or two of intense concentration on her part. Legilimency, if you were not naturally born with the gift, was an incredibly complex magical skill to master, but she was already doing quite well.

Ollie jumped, a hand over his racing heart as her voice reached him again.

_You can come out from wherever you're hiding_ , she thought, her sweet tone sounding nonaccusatory, which sent a spiraling warmth throughout his chest. _I promise I won't hurt you. I don't mean you any harm. Don't you want to come where I can see you_? She asked in their newly-discovered impossible telepathy together, and he was surprised to see the young witch was now seated cross-legged on the hardwood floor.

It was clear she had no intention of letting him leave undetected. Inwardly groaning, he shook his head, though he cursed himself, realizing the girl couldn't see it.

_I—I can't_ , he managed, and the boy who was something of a nervous wreck at this point, gave his head a curt shake to clear it, thinking he couldn't remember the last time he'd been this _nervous_ around another human being who wasn't his own father.

_Why not_? Tonks asked Ollie and scooted closer to the curtain a fraction of an inch and outstretched her arm as if making to pull back the curtain and expose him.

_No! Please_! He was begging this young witch now, but he no longer cared what she thought.

Ollie ducked his head and brought his hands up to cover the length of his face, waiting for the inevitable flood of light that would momentarily blind him when the girl would draw back the curtain he'd seen fit to duck behind, and then her scream.

But it didn't come.

"Oh," he heard her voice breathe, sounding crestfallen, and he flung his eyes open and he watched, stunned, as Tonks cocked her head to the side.

He knew she was trying to see him from a new angle, which only caused him to retreat further into the darkness, where he was most comfortable.

His monster, his monster being his dad, never came for him in the dark. Only when it was daytime did Father come.

Ollie breathed in a deep breath to steady himself, knowing that, sooner or later, Father would come out and he would have no choice but to emerge from his spot.

With a hesitant step forward, his foot slowly slipped into the light as he slid out from behind the curtain, and soon the rest of him followed.

The shadow fell away like water over rocks, and he cringed as he heard Tonks draw in a sharp gasp of surprise.

Ollie clenched his teeth in nervous anticipation, waiting for her to scream, to run away like he fully expected her to as he felt his cheeks burn with shame, feeling her wandering gaze as those glistening gray orbs landed on the red welt Father's ring from a half-hour ago had caught him just underneath his eye, and he ducked his head angrily.

Tonks must have realized she was staring and being rather rude, though as Ollie dared to lift his chin and meet the young witch's gaze, to his relief, she was smiling.

"There?" she grinned. "That's better!" she chirped, resting her cheek in her hand, trying to meet Ollie's brilliant blue eyes better, leaning forward from her spot on the floor, but not in a suffocating kind of way.

He flicked his skittish eyes up to meet hers, and the sight before him was way more than relaxing. Her friendly smile and bright gray eyes slowly but surely calmed whatever nervousness he had felt before.

Ollie furrowed his brows in a light little frown, searching Tonks's pale face for any sign of fear or hesitation as he knew she had seen the scars on his neck and the welt on his cheek, but he couldn't find any.

She really _did_ seem like she was happy to see him, and that in it of itself was a foreign thing for the soon-to-be third-year Slytherin student to hear.

"Well I—it is…" He trailed off for a moment, unsure of what to say to a girl his age, and coupled with the fact he'd hardly had this time of interaction before with too many people that weren't his immediate family or Professors at Hogwarts, "n—nice to m—meet you, Tonks. I—I'm Ollie. Ollie B—Brennan," he stammered.

But Merlin's Beard, his heart was _racing_!

The glances he did catch of her in the dimly lit shop were…really something. Her brilliant gray eyes looked like they sparkled, and her white smile, Ollie was sure no other witch their age held such a gentle smile.

As the two stood nervously in the backmost corner of Borgin and Burke's shop, he shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the next. Then a thought hit him.

Why was she here? Surely, she hadn't come just to take a look around the shop.

"I—it is… nice to meet you, Tonks, b—but…" Ollie was unsure whether to ask Tonks or not, as he didn't want to offend the young witch and scare her off for good.

A memory of Father chastising him for asking 'ridiculous' questions and to mind his place and stay silent flashed through his tormented mind. He had trouble shaking the not-so-distant memory away, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Why are you h—here?"

He bit down hard on his bottom lip and waited for Tonks to answer him, cringing as the young witch's expression changed, only slightly, but more than enough.

Tonks straightened her posture and fidgeted with her fingers, nervously weaving her fingers in between white-boned knuckles, almost as if she were suddenly ashamed.

Well, of course, Ollie would ask her that, what _else_ was she thinking he would say? Ollie, against his wishes, dipped into her mind, closing his eyes, reading her mind.

To be honest, she was not exactly sure why she had come. To prove to her friend waiting just outside the shop that she wasn't a coward, sure, but no other answer came, at least, not after she had met Ollie and the boy her age had saved her life then.

Was it to ask him questions? _No_ , Tonks thought. That was the _last_ thing he needed.

She thought for a moment, tapping her chin in contemplation, and taking a maroon curl of her hair in her thumb and forefinger to twist it around nervously.

Maybe…she was here to help him, Tonks wondered, glancing apprehensively at the vicious-looking, angry red welt on the poor boy's cheek, wondering who on Merlin's green earth could do that to a boy, when he seemed so kind, gentle, sweet.

Tonks lifted her chin and jutted it out slightly defiantly, meeting his questioning gaze as he patiently waited for the young witch to answer. "I don't know, honestly."

Her smile returned, causing poor Ollie to feel like he was going to faint. He really needed a moment. The blood pounded to his head and his blush intensified.

The girl's next words in her newly discovered impossible telepathy almost made his heart stop right there on the spot, and if it had, he would have been fine with it.

_Maybe I'm just looking for a friend_.

Ollie blinked owlishly at the young witch as the pair stood in silence in Borgin and Burkes, no further physical words exchanged between the two of them, but he knew that was okay because, in their own way, the two thirteen-year-olds were already communicating in a way that was special to them.

He felt certain he must have misheard her. Ollie knew he looked a little shocked but less so than he had expected to be by the revelation that Tonks wanted to be his friend.

A hesitant, somewhat crooked, awkward little half-smile crossed his face.

After a while of increasingly warm conversation via Ollie's way, Tonks begrudgingly admitted that she had to go, or else her parents would be missing her.

Ollie bristled, wanting to throw a temper tantrum at the thought of this young witch leaving his side.

He nervously glanced at the back door. Father was still back there, but he could slip out of the shop, just for a minute.

_Just to see her safely back to Diagon Alley_ , is what he told himself, determination and resolve clear on his features.

He could not let Tonks wander around on her own in Knockturn Alley.

_I'll walk you back_ , he offered, holding out his hand for Tonks to take.

She initially appeared hesitant at first to take it, but the moment their palms touched, Ollie was hit with a spiraling warmth that flooded his entire system, warming and invigorating him from the roots of his black hair all the way down to the boy's toes.

Ollie decided that as he escorted Tonks and the boy she had been with, Charlie Weasley, out of Knockturn Alley, that he liked the warmth the young witch gave off.

The darkness of Knockturn Alley did not seem so bleak anymore, he noticed, as the trio walked in silence back towards Diagon Alley, but not as strangers anymore.

As friends.

* * *

**And that about wraps up this chapter! How was it? Cute? Too fluffy? The next chapter (finally) checks in on Norah as Remus and Snape work together to treat her wounds. An interesting pairing for sure, lots of snarkiness on Snape's part.**


	110. To Be By Her Side

**109**

Lupin let out a haggard sigh and used his forearm to brush a lock of his bangs that had fallen in front of his eyes out of his line of sight and off his forehead.

He was utterly exhausted and on his last leg of strength for the night.

It had taken both him and Professor Snape the better part of an hour to treat Miss Jameson's various cuts and bruises.

However, the worst injuries had taken up most of their time.

The young blonde werewolf's burnt leg, now mended, though in a cast, and would be for quite some time. A few weeks, at a minimum, and then the wound at her right ribcage, where Greyback's own claws had pierced and dug into Norah's flesh.

The infection had indeed set in, just as Snape had predicted it would, however, with some quick thinking on his part, murmuring an incantation of his own creation that Remus was not admittedly familiar of, the men estimated Norah Jameson's infections would clear in about a week to two weeks, though it could be as long as a month if she weren't careful.

He did not want to lie to Norah when she woke up, _or_ to Ollie, it was going to be a long, arduous, and painful recovery for the young witch.

Norah was _not_ going to be allowed out of bed for roughly two to three weeks at a minimum, and even once she had regained full mobility, Lupin did not think it wise to permit Miss Jameson to travel.

And that was assuming that all went well, and the infection ran its natural course, but if it persisted, the young werewolf's recovery could take much longer.

Remus sighed, carding his fingers through his hair, wincing as the locks of his light brown hair came away sticky in his fingers, and he realized a fraction of a second too late his palms were still stained with the young woman's blood.

Severus spoke up from the corner of the room, in the middle of stowing his wand back in an interior pocket of his robes and rolling his sleeves back down.

"I daresay you may as well find Mr. Brennan, Professor Lupin, wherever he is in this wretched little hovel you dare to call your _house_ ," he grunted, in a voice that sounded admittedly less than enthused at the prospect of seeing Ollie so madly in love with Norah, and the Potions Professor scrunched his nose and pulled a face that Remus could describe as only immense disgust.

Lupin merely grunted in response.

Snape continued, despite Remus's growing indignation towards Snape's insult of his home that he was quite proud of, and did not appreciate Severus degrading his family's home.

"Though if you ask me, I am more than content to spend the rest of the evening free of the boy's sniveling over this _dog_. The only thing I wish for what remains of this evening is to be left in _sweet_ , blessed _silence_ , of which this girl has _ruined_ and now I hear her screams ringing in my eardrums, even now, long after she's unconscious," he spat, a hint of contempt towards the young blonde witch laying on the bed.

Remus nodded, feeling only slightly annoyed by the Potions Professor's unnecessary comments regarding Mr. Brennan's distraught behavior over Miss Jameson.

Though the man offered up no verbal confirmation towards Snape, thinking that to do so would be fruitless, as Severus, to the best of Remus's ability, did not know what it meant to truly care for another human being, to love and cherish that other person, to lay down your entire life and risk everything for them, and he was beginning to doubt if Severus Snape would _ever_ understand.

For that matter, he wasn't even sure if he _himself_ understood Snape's distant and somewhat cold and uncaring ways.

He kept himself at a distance, and yet did not hesitate to come to the aid of a young witch he barely knew.

The man was something of a contradiction and a mystery, though Remus could not manage to pretend to care about the man.

He was too tired to.

Lupin heaved a tired sigh and glanced towards the sleeping figure resting on top of the mattress, wincing as in her sleep, Norah violently convulsed and trembled.

Her beauty, however, on the brink as she was, was never in question, even with her short blonde hair matted and tangled against her ashen and clammy skin and her breaths shuddering, rattling every few seconds.

Her right wrist was heavily bandaged, a cut above her left brow had required medical stitches, though Snape had been able to use his wand and enchant them of their own accord to work with a firmer hand than he could if the Potions Professor were to attempt to do it on his own with his bare hands.

Norah's burnt leg, however, was another matter entirely. Though her leg had been fully restored, it was not, however, going to be without its pains.

She would walk with a rather profound limp, Professor Snape informed Remus, for how long, even he could not say.

A few months, possibly for the rest of her life.

Even worse, though, were the bruises littering her hips and waist, they had discovered, the moment Severus and Remus had lifted what was left of Norah Jameson's shredded and charred black t-shirt, claw-shaped in the form of Fenrir Greyback's hands and mottled together.

There were bruises all around her arms and her waist, and Remus could see Norah had bit her lip hard enough to bleed.

"Her wrist, Professor?" Lupin murmured, and he barely heard himself breathe out a tense exhale as Professor Snape gingerly took said already-bandaged wrist and examined it for what Remus knew to be a third time.

"Not broken anymore. _Obviously_ ," Snape said to Remus's immense relief, and Lupin felt himself exhale shakily. "But very fragile while it heals. You of all people should know, Lupin, given the nature of your lycanthropy. Our magic can only do so much. The rest is up to her body to put itself back together. It should be pained for at least a couple of days and it will need to stay wrapped. She should be careful with it for a few days, so as to not worsen it. I will leave you with more than a few vials of a Sleeping Draught and Calming Draught. I have a feeling the girl is going to need them to aid her recovery. You will inform Mr. Brennan that he may see her now on _one_ condition," he added, hardening his tone and there was a hint of icy steel throughout his usually droll baritone that told Remus he had to listen to him.

"And that is?" Remus asked, already feeling that he knew the answer.

"That he remains _calm_ ," Professor Snape emphasized darkly through gritted teeth. "The _wolf_ cannot heal properly if the boy is unable to maintain control of his emotions, and Merlin help that lust-filled little _cretin_ if he cannot control his urges or I should jinx the boy myself," he growled.

Here, he spat the word as though it were poison that had settled upon his tongue, though the sudden shift in the man's countenance caused Remus to quirk a brow Severus's way in suspicion.

He swore, he couldn't be sure, but he was fairly confident that there were the briefest hints of affection laced throughout the Potions Master's dulcet tones, and he wondered if something had transpired once between Severus Snape and Norah Jameson.

Lupin offered a curt nod, inclining his head slightly to show to Severus he heard his soon-to-be fellow colleague's words, though several questions remained on the tip of his tongue as he glanced at the unconscious woman.

"And what about the rest of her?" Remus asked in agitation, thinking how minimally he had been able to help Severus, who had adamantly requested Lupin stay _out_ of his way while he had worked, bidding him wait near the other side of the room.

A request that, given Professor Snape's already sour mood, Remus had been only too happy to oblige and stand back and watch Severus heal Norah, though he had remained on standby for those few occasions where Severus had required Remus's assistance.

"Bruises, very severe bruising all over her body, as you saw for yourself," Severus announced in an unusually grim and somber voice that, for a moment, Remus thought, sounded like someone else. Someone who actually cared one iota about the werewolf.

"And Greyback's…bite marks and the cuts?" Lupin acknowledged, feeling his lips press into a tight and angry line as a surge of anger coursed through his bloodstream.

Professor Snape sanguinely lifted his head and brushed the palms of his hands on the front of his billowing black robes.

"Her abrasions and cuts are quite shallow," he offered with a little sigh. "And will heal along with the bruises. The bite marks, too, will heal, Lupin, though you'll want to watch her. Or shall I say, the boy can handle it?"

Here, he allowed himself a moment to roll his eyes and snort.

"Something tells me the way that boy fawned over this girl at your wedding in the Forbidden Forest that Brennan will be more than up for the task."

Lupin slowly nodded his head at all of Snape's information, his brain processing the Potions Master's advice.

Anger simmered in the back of his mind at what Greyback had done to the very young witch who had saved not only Teddy's life, but also his and Tonks's as well, several times now, and it caused a coil in his churning gut to twist and churn sickeningly at thinking there was little he could do to repay Norah.

Severus lifted his chin and met Remus's gaze, his darkened eyes regarding Remus with a look that he was not at all sure what to make of, and as such, felt himself stiffen, but neither changed their stance.

"Anything else, Professor?" Remus asked.

His words towards Severus escaped his chest, throat, and lips with no previous hint of his calmness and usual disposition that he prided himself on carrying as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, had fled him for tonight.

His wife had just given birth to their son not even a few hours ago, and he wanted more than anything else to check on Tonks, make sure she and Teddy didn't need anything, and then for the two of them to get some much-needed and much-deprived sleep while they still could.

Though his mind had no inclinations of being calm or pleased with anything whatsoever, even if Snape were to tell him right here and now that Jameson would make a full recovery, which, he could only pray to Merlin for.

Severus heaved an exhausted sigh and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"For now, I think it is safe to say she is out of the woods, so to speak. The boy may visit her, providing he stays _calm_ , and for the moment, Fenrir Greyback's despicable treatment towards Miss Jameson is taking a toll on her body. I believe, however, if you are to suggest to Oliver that he…that he leave her _alone_ for a while, that they not engage in anything too ah, shall we say, _strenuous_ , and if she doesn't _rut_ with that boy like a bitch in heat like the stubborn _dog_ I know her to be, then I think she stands a chance of recovering much faster," he began hesitantly.

A hint of his usual sardonic nature returned to him in a moment of exhausted anger as the man wildly gesticulated with his hands as a light pink blush speckled along his cheeks, feeling somewhat relieved as Lupin quickly nodded upon receiving the message Snape was trying to privately convey.

"And you did not hear this from _me_ , Professor, and if word should get out around the castle following your reappointment as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, then I'll vehemently deny _every single word_ , but…given how your help tonight in treating Miss Jameson's wounds has proven to me that you are an invaluable asset to both the Order and Hogwarts as a Professor, there are things that have remained unsaid between you and I for years, and I…wish to clear the air, if you and I are to work alongside each other once more," Snape allowed himself a moment to pause to collect his thoughts. "While you and I will _never_ see eye to eye on most things, and thank _Merlin_ for that, I do not _hate_ you, Professor, despite what you might have thought of me over the years. As I said before, of your entire group of wretched friends, you were the _best_ of them, and always _will_ be."

Severus fell silent, his baritone voice more calm and subdued than Remus was sure he had ever heard the Potions Master speak in this manner before, which was really saying something.

"Thank you, Professor Snape," Remus murmured, not sure what else to say in this regard, incling his head as a show of respect.

"Remember, Professor Lupin," he added, almost as an afterthought, his listless tone returning to him once more, though Severus did not turn around to look Remus in the eyes. "Try to ensure that Miss Jameson _rests_ as much as possible, and tell the boy, _hands-off_ until she's well enough to move," he added, his voice a low, threatening growl.

He turned his back on Remus, though not before offering a slight inclination of his head and turned on the heel of his boot and Disapparated without so much as another word to Lupin, leaving the poor man stunned.

"I'll have it done, Professor. We're going to look after Norah, Snape. I promise," Remus murmured, moments after the Potions Professor had already Disapparated, though he had a feeling the skilled Legilimens could hear his thoughts.

He let out a tired sigh and carded his fingers through his thick tuft of hair, turning towards Norah resting on the bed.

_Sleep, Norah. Rest_ , he thought, opening the door to go tell Tonks and Ollie that Norah would, in time, make a full recovery.

_We're going to look after you_.

* * *

Ollie woke up to someone shaking his shoulder.

_Hard_.

Though he felt his eyes fling wide open, he could think of why. His heart was pounding and his mind blank.

It was as if a surge of adrenaline had been emptied into his lean chest.

He strained into the utter darkness of the Lupins' living room, his breathing rate beginning to steady.

Colors swirled as he groggily sat up, then his vision slowly but surely cleared, and he heard Tonks let out a groan as she woke up too.

Lupin was standing in front of the sofa, in front of the two friends, a concerned look on his prematurely lined features, and Ollie's first thought of her best friend's husband was that perhaps for the first time since meeting Remus, the man looked his true age of thirty-six, perhaps even older now.

"Rem?" Tonks's voice coming from right beside him sounded hoarse. "N—Norah," she murmured sleepily, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. "How is she? Is there any change?" she whispered, and suddenly, Ollie felt awake, all semblances of drowsiness now gone from his system as he stood.

"Miss Jameson is well enough," Lupin replied, hardening his face, his expression taut and his wife did not fail to notice the slight twitching of his jaw as he reflected back over the long and arduous process of healing the witch. "Her life is in no immediate danger, Dora, though she sports some rather heavy bruising and her leg and the wound at her side where Greyback attacked her is proving to be the most problematic. Professor Snape believes we can handle it. If you are agreeable to it, love, I'd like to offer them the opportunity to stay here if they want. Something tells me we won't need to persuade them too much," he urged, lowering his voice so that only Tonks could hear him.

He knew from Dora that Ollie did not exactly have a place to go, and from what he could tell, especially now given the extent of her injuries, neither did Norah and even if she _did_ , Remus was not about to turn their friends out of his home, not when Norah was in need of looking after in such critical condition.

Not when they needed a home.

Tonks shot him a grateful little nod, and he could tell that his wife had already been thinking of making the offer herself.

Of course, what she _didn't_ know yet was that, when Norah was well enough, he fully intended to ask if Norah and Ollie would be comfortable remaining here in their home when September finally came to London, and he and Tonks were due to move into Hogwarts for the start of the school term once repairs were made following the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, if the castle was even left still standing.

He could think of no two better people to house sit for them while they were at Hogwarts.

Lupin visibly cringed and took a step backward, thinking of what a _mess_ the castle must be in, and first thing in the morning he would set out for Hogwarts to see if there was any way he could lend a helping hand, but for tonight, he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in Dora's arms and bask in the proud fact that he was now a father to their son, Teddy Remus Lupin.

Ollie woke up faster than a cat in ice-water, every sense urging the young man to claw his way to standing, and before he could even fathom what was happening, he rose to his full height of 6'1, a head shorter than Remus, and seized onto fistfuls of the man's shirt and shook it slightly.

"How is she? _Norah_! Has she…has she woken up yet? What of her wounds? Is she…is she… _dead_?"

A heavy hand found its way back to his face, and he was barely aware of Tonks wrapping her arm around his waist and pulling him close.

His bright blue eyes were left unblinking, his breaths hitching in his throat, and he froze.

Ollie swore he heard Master Crouch's voice inside his head, that damned snakelike voice he wanted to stamp out more than anything else in this world.

_This is your fault. You didn't catch the girl, boy. You killed her. You don't deserve her_.

" _No_ ," he whispered, his cracking voice breaking as he uttered the word, so faint, that Remus felt sure he missed it, and he exchanged a worried glance with Tonks, who quickly nodded, sensing the two men needed a moment alone.

"Come to bed soon, Rem. You're looking exhausted," Tonks murmured, barely managing to stifle a yawn of her own with the back of her hand as she reached up on her tiptoes and gave her husband an affectionate kiss on the lips, and cast Ollie one last longing glance over her shoulder before padding barefoot down the hall, out of their living room and towards their bedroom.

Remus waited to speak until he heard Tonks close the door behind her.

Ollie made a sudden movement and an odd little strangled noise at the back of his throat, taking a half step forward and moved in the direction of their spare bedroom where Lupin and Tonks were putting up Norah for the remainder of the summer, though before he could so much as take another step, Lupin's arm shot out and caught Ollie firmly by his forearm and tugged him back roughly.

"Wait. I _know_ you want to see her, Ollie. Trust me. I _do_ ," he began hesitantly, speaking concisely, though slowly, as if unsure how to phrase exactly what was on his mind. "But before I can allow you in her room to see her, I have something that I need to say, and right now, what I need from you, Ollie, is for you to listen to me. I'm going to have to ask you that you remain _calm_ ," Lupin instructed Ollie in the middle of his full stream of panicked and agitated thoughts as they swirled around maddeningly in his exhausted state of mind.

His strong, slightly calloused hands came to grip firmly on either of Ollie's shoulders, keeping him in place, with Remus noticing Ollie swaying slightly.

Remus's voice had hardened, with just a hint of steel that suggested his patience was on the brink, and Ollie fell silent, knowing he had to listen to him.

Lupin fixed Ollie with a somewhat pointed glower before exhaling a tense, but relieved breath through his nose and continuing.

"Miss Jameson is going to make a full recovery, in time. She is asleep. Norah has not woken up yet that I know of, and I think it best for now if we allow her to rest. You should sleep too. The wounds were relatively minor, save for her broken wrist, which, though we've mended it, it's going to cause her to be sore for a few days at least, and of course, the stab wound at her side and her burnt leg are going to be the most difficult for Norah to overcome, but her life is no longer in immediate danger unless the infection in her side worsens, but her burnt leg should heal easily, though Professor Snape did advise she may walk with a limp for a time."

Ollie slowly nodded, though he swore he felt his heart plummet to the pit of his churning stomach.

"I—infection?" he whispered hoarsely, slowly, steadily, with a tone of disbelief lacing into his voice that Remus thought sounded much like it had the night Dora's best friend revealed himself to her at Bill and Fleur's wedding that Crouch and his posse of Death Eaters crashed.

His voice was faint, so much so, that Remus felt sure if he were not already hanging onto Ollie's every word that he might have missed it completely.

Lupin flinched as Ollie Brennan's voice cracked and wavered on the word itself, his fears resurfacing tenfold this time, and Remus knew if he could not manage to talk Ollie down from his panicked state of mind, there was no telling what Dora's best friend would do to himself right now.

He knew by the heart-wrenching, hopeless, anguished look in the man's glistening blue orbs that he blamed himself.

For all he knew, Ollie might be so wracked with guilt that he would manage to find a way to hurt himself if Norah did not fully recover. And _that_ , he could not allow it to happen, given Norah needed Ollie to be strong for her.

It was going to be a grueling road ahead in terms of her recovery, and, having seen the one look several times in his face whenever he looked in a mirror, Remus was quick to recognize the panic-induced swell of terror that pricked at the Legilimens' heart and was brimming, glistening as unshed moisture, fresh tears, in his darkening cerulean blue eyes the more upset the man got.

The last thing Norah needed was Ollie unable to control himself.

_Not now_. Steeling himself, Lupin breathed deep and clenching his jaw, he gave him a sharp shake by his shoulders.

" _Ollie_. Listen to me," he commanded, hardening his voice and he heard for just a moment, the voice of his father consoling his wife's best friend to stay calm. "Norah will be just _fine_. In time, but in good faith, I _cannot_ allow you in that room to see her if you are unable to reign in control of your emotions, Mr. Brennan. Norah is still sleeping, at least, she was when I left the room to come and get you both, but if she wakes up and she senses you panicking over her in her current condition, the only thing you will succeed in doing is causing her copious amounts of stress, which will only further exacerbate her injuries, and I don't think you want that for Norah, Ollie, but regardless, I need you to understand what I'm telling you. You _need_ to remain _calm_ ," Lupin instructed, still continuing to keep his tone quite firm.

Ollie blinked, nodding his head slowly at all of the information as his overworked and exhausted mind attempted to process Remus Lupin's advice.

The man was right. As usual, during the short time that Ollie had come to know Dora's husband.

Norah needed rest, comfort, and care, and if he could not manage to tamper down his panic, he was only going to make things worse for Jameson.

The last thing he wanted right now was to cause Norah any further stress and pain.

_Remus just said her life wasn't in any danger. She—she's going to live. She's going to recover. Jameson's going to be just fine_. _She'll be just fine_.

Ollie repeated these phrased to himself like a mantra in his mind, hoping it would calm him down.

"Please," he begged, his grip on Remus's arm loosening slightly. "H—How long did Professor Snape think her recovery would take, Remus?" he asked, unable to hide the note of desperation in his tone.

"A few months," Remus replied cautiously, not wanting to sugarcoat the truth and skirt around the issue of the werewolf's recovery was going to be an arduous and painful one for the young witch, and that was assuming all went according to plan.

He paused and drew in a breath, all the while never averting his gaze from Ollie Brennan's to try and gauge the younger man's reactions, to see if his response would further incite any more panic in Dora's best friend.

When it did not, at least, not any visible signs of further distress that Remus could see, Lupin felt himself exhale a tense and shaking sigh of relief.

He pinched the front of his temples, fighting back his wave of sudden exhaustion, and continued.

"If the infection at her side and in her leg clears up, then a few months, but if it persists, it could take even longer than that, Ollie."

Ollie grimaced, swallowing down hard past the growing lump in his throat that hollowed and constricted, feeling like it was cutting off air to his passages.

Lupin continued, sensing the rising danger welling within his wife's best friend. He sighed tiredly and gave the younger man's shoulder a light squeeze.

"Severus informed me that other than her current injuries, Miss Jameson is in otherwise extraordinary health, all things considered. He's left us with several vials full of Sleeping and Calming Draughts to help aid in her recovery. She's not to move around much at all these first few weeks, Mr. Brennan."

Ollie nodded, a scattered sigh managing to escape his cracked lips, his hand moving to his neck as the man rolled his neck to crack it, grimacing at the stiffness of his entire body from sleeping uneasily for an hour on their couch.

He lazily circled his head to glance down at his outstretched palm, and Ollie blinked owlishly at his hand in shock.

Somehow, by means of nonverbal magic, he had caused a single, pristine, pure white and gorgeous lily to materialize out of thin air, and the small thing laid calmly in his large hand. In the soft lightning of Remus and Tonks's hallway, the tiny plant's colors looked luscious and bright.

He felt the beginnings of a faint smile tug at his lips.

He would put the flower in a small vase, assuming Tonks had one he could borrow and put it on the night table in Norah's room, so that she would see it when she woke up, though if Ollie were being perfectly honest with himself, he wanted _his_ face to be the first thing Norah saw when she woke up.

"She's _strong_ , Mr. Lupin. Stronger than…stronger than most give her credit for," Ollie whispered in a low, hoarse voice that cracked as he spoke.

Remus smiled for perhaps the tenth time tonight since the birth of his son earlier, though his first time since seeing Ollie following the Battle of Hogwarts.

"That she is," he uttered, sounding thoroughly exhausted, though Ollie could tell that the gentle smile Remus was offering him was genuine and not strained or forced. "Trust me when I tell you that everything will be fine. Norah is going to pull through this, with your help, Mr. Brennan. She'll be just _fine_."

"May I see her?" Ollie asked, at last, unable to quell the note of hope from his voice or tamper down the small ember flame that had started out as a flicker against the winds of despair and hopelessness, from spreading like a sudden, fiery warmth into the pit of his churning, slightly nauseous stomach. "Please..."

Remus paused, though upon sensing the sudden shift in the younger man's attitude, this new countenance, caused the older wizard to let out a sigh and offer a curt nod of his head.

"You may," he said at last, relenting, and he stepped aside and out of Ollie's way to allow him entry into the small bedroom.

Ollie offered Remus a small, somewhat lopsided smile, though before he could move past Tonks's husband and gingerly open the door to Norah's bedroom, he heard Lupin's quiet, reserved voice call out to him a second time.

"Remember what I mentioned, Mr. Brennan," he advised, a note of caution lingering in his tone, as he proceeded to fix Ollie with a pointed stare of his own that would have had, had Remus Lupin the ability, turned a fully-bloomed flower to wilt. "You have to stay _calm_. Norah cannot heal if constantly exposed to stress. If you need anything through the night, don't hesitate to wake Dora or me, and while you stay with us, our house is as good as yours. Feel free to help yourself to whatever you would like, you never have to ask. Dora and I think of you as part of our family now, Mr. Brennan. And Norah too. If you need _anything_ , or if Miss Jameson's condition worsens, please don't hesitate to wake us up and let us know immediately. Besides," he added, almost as an afterthought. "With Teddy, I doubt we'll be sleeping much anyway," he joked, turning away, sensing Ollie wanted his needed moment alone with Norah, started to walk away, before Ollie could offer his gratitude for all they've done for Norah, and headed down the hall to his bedroom without so much as another word to Ollie, leaving him with no choice but for Ollie to not open the door to Norah's room until he heard Remus close the door to his and Tonks's bedroom.

Ollie stifled the tiniest of smiles as before he heard the door close all the way, he heard the light cooing of baby Teddy.

_He's beautiful, Tonks. Kid's going be the best of both his parents as he grows up, Dora, you'll see_ , he thought, wondering if Tonks could hear him or if she was already asleep.

He hesitated a moment, seeing if she would respond in their impossible telepathy, and when Tonks didn't, he took that to mean she was asleep, and he felt guilty for possibly waking her up.

Ollie shook his head to clear it, needing a moment to compose himself before entering Norah's room, not wanting to wake her up.

He glanced down at the simple white lily in his palm, resting it, all the while staring at it with thoughtful blue eyes.

His thoughts wandered to Norah for a moment while he continued his mindless staring at the beautiful flower.

Ollie gently closed his strained eyes, hating how dry and burning they felt, pressing the little flower to his chest.

The memories of the night swirled in his mind, visions of the fire, of Norah falling off the roof of the Astronomy Tower.

He shuddered as a cold tremor went up and down his back twice, and he squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, trying to will himself to forget tonight.

But he knew he would never be able to.

Ollie let out a haggard sigh. He was bloody confused and utterly lost, though something good came out of it.

Norah was _alive_. He continued to hold the plant to his chest, and he glanced over his shoulder as he hovered outside of Norah Jameson's room, as though half expecting Master Crouch or even Greyback to rise from the dead and stalk him and take Norah away from him for a second time in one night, before slowly twisting the doorknob and disappearing into the darkened room.

He drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs, though he forced himself to focus on the only thing that mattered.

_Norah_.

She was sleeping peacefully, or appeared to, at the very least. Her previously broken wrist, now mended, was, as Remus had said, heavily bandaged.

There was a stitched cut just above her right eyebrow that would probably in time, scar.

Her burnt leg now healed, thanks to Severus Snape's efforts, though in a heavy cast.

He stifled a small smile, thinking the German werewolf wasn't going to like that at all when she woke up and would have plenty of foul, poisonous curse words to spit at him and Remus and Tonks once she learned how long exactly her recovery was really going to take, and the fact she wouldn't be allowed out of bed for at least three weeks or longer.

It was going to be up to him and the others to ensure she didn't try to tax her body beyond its limitations while she healed these next few weeks.

Norah's already pale skin had lost its healthy sheen, causing it to look quite peaky, and he knew for a fact the full moon wasn't approaching anytime soon, otherwise, he would have chalked up her unnatural paleness to her condition.

Deep purple bags clung underneath both of her eyes, and a sheen of sweat had started to perspire on her brow.

Her breathing, Ollie was relieved to see, was normal. Her chest slowly rose and fell, the only indication she was alive.

Occasionally her eyelids twitched slightly, and her lips parted to give a light little pain-filled moan. The lilt of her voice caused his heart to clench and tighten in his chest.

If she was dreaming, he hoped selfishly that she was dreaming of _him_.

Of the good life that he planned to give her starting tomorrow the moment she woke up and saw him right next to her bedside, ready to help her through this.

He did not want Norah to suffer any more nightmares, to continue to live her life in the shadows. No more fear. No more pain and regrets.

She had seen and lived through more than enough.

Tentatively, as Ollie gingerly sat on the edge of the bedside, careful not to disturb her wounds, he raised a shaking hand and tucked back several stray wisps of her blonde hair behind her hair, and smoothed her sweat-soaked bangs off her forehead, hoping it would provide a small modicum of comfort.

As he did this, the pads of Ollie's fingertips accidentally grazed against the contour of Norah's ear, and he froze as the young blonde witch mumbled something inaudible in her sleep, though she didn't wake up at his light touch.

The raven-haired former Slytherin immediately stilled his movements, cursing himself, locking his jaw in annoyance for his foolishness.

He shouldn't be in here right now, he should let her sleep in peace and see her first thing in the morning, though a white, jagged scar near her collarbone caught his attention, causing Ollie to abandon any thought of leaving her alone.

Intrigued, he leaned forward slightly and barely succeeding in stifling a gasp as he dared to pinch at the fabric of her t-shirt with his thumb and forefinger.

Delicately, he traced the outline of the vicious-looking scar with the pad of his fingers with a delicate, featherlight touch, careful not to wake her.

Ollie could tell they traveled down and probably extended throughout her torso and seemed to go even deeper.

He could tell Norah's scars were old, by the color, faded white, and he could tell from years of experienced abuse at Father's hand that these had been made when Norah was younger.

_Just a girl_ , he thought, clenching his jaw shut and squeezing his eyes closed, not wanting to look any longer than he had to, feeling as though he had no right to see her in such a way, and yet, unable to tear his gaze from Norah.

_Who did this to you_?

Ollie could not say for certain if Norah, during one of her transformations as a fully-fledged werewolf, had done this to herself in painful spasms and fits, as she, like Remus, no doubt had been separated from the company of other humans upon what she called the Turning (the change of a normal human being to a fully-fledged werewolf once they became bitten), or if someone else did this to her.

Someone _close_ to her, even.

He shuddered at the unpleasant thought that sent a chill of fear down his spine at the thought of anyone harming this bright young witch who had so quickly captured his heart before he'd even known it was gone, lightly running his index finger along the surface of the largest and most prominent of her dozens of scars on her collar.

He felt the misting of fresh, hot, and burning tears begin to sting, pricking at the edges of his vision, which he tried in vain to fight down the salty liquid, having previously been led to believe that his tears earlier had all been spent, but he guessed not.

Tears rapidly fell from his eyes and drenched his black woolen robes. He stared at his finger, still tracing the abrasion of its own accord, no longer taking directions from his mind.

Before Ollie knew it, he knelt and kissed the tender, scarred flesh.

This was technically his first real kiss to a woman, and she wasn't even awake to tease him for it, and he wasn't even sure if it counted, considering he was kissing the area near her neck, her collarbones, her scars, but he thought that it did.

To him, it came from his heart, as broken and put back together as many times as it had been throughout his miserable life, and it was that thought that caused Ollie to decide that in _his_ mind, this counted.

He kissed the scarred surface of Norah's neck, another tear slipped free of his lids and landed in his lap.

Ollie tilted his head to the side, hot tears marring the edges of his vision as Norah moved slightly in her sleep, her head lolled back against the soft while cotton pillowcase beneath her head.

All he saw was red. Hundreds of red, pink, jagged scars littered Norah's pale skin, a shocking contrast against her almost sickly, translucent skin.

He leaned down and nuzzled his nose against hers, basking in the warmth, and cried quietly. Despite his efforts to control himself, his tears grew in frequency and left the bridge of his nose, and fell onto Norah's bruised cheek, dampening her skin.

"I—I'm s—so sorry…I'm…so… _sorry_ ," he managed to gasp out in between continuing to plant small little kisses, leaving a trail, starting at her collarbones, moving to her cheeks, and he finished by pressing his lips to her forehead.

He wanted nothing more than to _truly_ kiss Norah, to feel her lips pressed against his in his first kiss, to feel for himself if her lips were truly as soft as they looked, though he wanted her to be fully awake and cognizant for _that_.

Determination and resolve to do whatever it took to make Norah's recovery as swift and smooth as possible, Ollie vowed _he_ would be the first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning, and he didn't hesitate to scoot as close onto the queen mattress as close as he could, and nestling on her arms in her lap, forcing himself to adopt the position of a bear cub curled on her lap.

He did not want to risk accidentally grazing her injuries during sleep, so as awkward as he was sure that it looked, Ollie knew that she needed the comfort.

Ollie clung to Norah as a frightened boy would to his mother, selfishly keeping her, absorbing the blonde werewolf's heat and radiance for himself.

He drew in a sharp breath as he swore that he felt her fingers twitch and weave themselves in between the mats of his thick raven hair.

Though he had never experienced the physical love of a good woman for himself, just the thought alone plastered a quiet vibration under his skin and caused it to crawl in nervous anticipation and a sense of euphoria, knowing when the time came, he'd cherish the experience, and would cherish _her_.

Ollie didn't know what it was like, though, in this moment, he imagined that if he could be in two places at once, or if he were to one day revisit this memory in a Pensieve, and he could look upon himself resting his head in Norah's lap, that it looked as though their very souls were making love, the pleasure heard in their barely audible breathing and sleep became their shield from the eyes of the world. How the facade they showed the rest of the world, at least for poor Ollie, melted behind this closed bedroom door.

Ollie felt himself suppress a breath as he felt Norah's hand slowly stroke across his thick matted mass of black tangles, and he let out a content little sigh, feeling the tension in his muscles slowly start to leave his broken body.

He stayed at Norah's side all through the night, keeping his head firmly planted on her lap. No matter what happened, he'd be here for her when she woke up.

He promised Norah, and this time, he aimed to keep that promise.

_I promise, Nor_ , he thought in his usual impossible telepathy. _I'll always be here for you_.

_I promise_...


	111. The Cat and the Snake

**A bit of a shorter chapter this time, but still hopefully just as good!**

* * *

**111**

Severus felt his calloused palms push against the splintered old wooden oak doors of the Great Hall (what was left of it) and Severus Snape felt himself enter into a completely different world, one that he was not at all prepared for.

His weary, blackened eyes looked far beyond the length of the massive Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, feeling certain that his eyes must be playing a sport of his mind, that this was a cruel hallucination.

But it was not. Very little remained of the Great Hall, and of the eastern side of Hogwarts. Ash. Only ash and ruins.

Severus walked slowly, his black, narrowed eyes sweeping to the left and right at what was left of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, now reduced to a pile of moist black dust and chunks of stone.

The thick, unmistakable scent of charred wood intermingled with burnt flesh, smoldering stones, and melted iron from where Professor McGonagall had enchanted the Knights' statues to come to life and defend the boundaries wafted into his nose and caused his nostrils to enlarge and flare like a bull's.

But the worst of all was the putrid smell of burnt flesh and the hundreds of deceased bodies laid sprawled out on white cots, though they were not so white anymore. Now stained with the blood of the deceased, they looked garish, cold.

He heaved a sigh of frustration, feeling his pounding head against his temples threat to crack his skull and leave it wide into two separate segments.

"Professor." A woman's curt voice rent the otherwise chaotic air behind him as the gasping wails of the injured and those who had lost friends and family members on this blood-soaked red-dawn filled his ringing eardrums.

Severus turned slowly at the waist, his hands clasped in front of his middle, and lifted his chin slightly to regard none other than Minerva McGonagall.

The moment his black eyes locked gazes with Minerva's piercing eyes of green, he coughed once to clear his throat and quickly averted his gaze. It did not take Severus dipping into the Transfiguration Professor's mind to know that she was about to question his sudden disappearance during the siege.

McGonagall squared her shoulders as Severus slowly approached her, her chin raised and her lips slightly trembled, suggesting to the former Potions Master that she was having trouble maintaining control of her emotions.

"Minerva," he answered, sure to keep his expression one of impassive indifference as he inclined his head, suddenly wishing to be out of the Hall.

"May I…? Just a word, Severus. All I require is a moment of your time, Professor, nothing more than that," Minerva murmured, seeming to sense his thoughts, for the older witch peered at Snape over the rims of her dainty silver spectacles and she began to walk towards the door, ignoring the students and the other fighters who had converged in the Great Hall, though she did pause briefly at the arrival of a head Healer from St. Mungo's who'd gotten her owl.

"Of course," Severus muttered by way of response, keeping his head inclined and his fingers laced together in front of his middle.

He waited patiently by the doors, repressing the urge to snort and roll his eyes as he took sight of their caretaker, the Squib, Argus Filch, taking his broom and sweeping up near a copious pile of rubble from where one of the walls had exploded.

It would take more than a simple broom and a mop to undo the damage and right that which had been destroyed during Voldemort's chaotic siege.

Minerva McGonagall finished providing instructions to the team of Healers to care for the wounded, passing along overseeing of the Great Hall and its wounded to Professor Slughorn while she politely excused herself.

It did not take her long to catch up to where Severus was waiting just outside the hall in a manner of three quick strides, her green robes billowing behind her in her movements. The pair of them walked in silence down the hall and onto into the courtyard, looking ahead at the war-ravaged Hogwarts Grounds.

"You have got a habit for seclusion, Severus, and yet, you are impossible to ignore," she sighed. "The list of the dead is yet unaccounted for, all of them, but we estimate at least over a hundred deaths, Professor," Minerva spoke up at last.

Severus mutely nodded. And even more wounded, he thought, though he did not speak that thought. He merely proceeded to purse his lips into a thin line and regarded his colleague and Transfiguration Professor out of the corner of his eyes, waiting for her to reveal the true nature of her request to speak with him.

It was not very often that Professor McGonagall sought out his company. A dozen or so questions burned on the tip of his tongue, demanding answers, and yet, only one that he desperately sought the answer to from her.

"Any that we know, Professor?" he queried his colleague, and as Severus shifted at the waist to regard Minerva, he could tell by the distant stare the Transfiguration Professor was currently shooting him filled him with a crushing sense of guilt that felt weighted on his shoulders like a stone slab.

He knew that he should not have left in the throes of the battle, though given what he knew of Jameson's life, though he despised the bitch, he could not, in good conscience, allow her to perish.

She had, after all, dealt with Dolores Jane Umbridge and successfully rid the entire wizarding world of another dangerous mind that by rights, should not have been allowed to exist in polite society.

_That_ , and that reason _alone_ was the reason he had accompanied Mr. Brennan and Lupin to the man's home.

Minerva McGonagall peered at him through her silver spectacles, the mask of serene calmness she had perfected throughout her tenure as a distinguished Hogwarts Professor began to crumple, her mouth compressing into such a thin rigid line to repress the half-choked sob that threatened escape.

" _Too_ many, Severus," she began at last when she had managed to regain some semblance of composure. "Percy Weasley, to start, Professor. He—he was struck when the wall," Here, she jerked her thumb back behind her, though she dared not look back, "when it exploded. The Weasley's are, quite naturally, distraught. As I am. Percy was one of my students, Severus. Anton Dolohov was the Death Eater behind the explosion. Lavender Brown, attacked by Fenrir Greyback, though Mr. Brennan did us all a favor by ridding us of that _beast_ ," Minerva spat, spitting her last word as though it were poison that had lingered upon her tongue. "Professor Vector," she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut.

Her body convulsed for a moment, and Severus thought perhaps Minerva would allow her grief to consume her, and he was surprised when she did not. She swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat and continued after a moment spent in silence to quell the shaking of her limbs.

Minerva glanced down at the rubble beneath their feet. Severus sensed the Transfiguration Professor was not quite finished naming the list of known dead. "And…we…I—I found _this_ in the rubble, just outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, what's left of it," she whispered, her voice so faint, it was barely audible.

Minerva dipped her hand into an exterior pocket of her robes, her hands shaking so badly she almost fumbled the little item in the outstretched palm of her hand as she held it out for Severus to take from her.

Severus swallowed, opening his mouth to say something as he examined the still-swiveling magical eye of distinguished Auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody, but it felt as if his throat had been twisted as it hollowed and tightened, and he was left voiceless. His former partner was going to be crushed at this news.

_Why should YOU care what Tonks thinks_?

The demonic voice at the back of his mind pied up from the darkest recesses of his tired, exhausted mind.

_The witch is a wretched little succubus and is only good for driving you up the wall with her incessant, stupid prattling that sounds more like a banshee screeching than a woman talking_ , it taunted him, and he let out a low growl.

"Were you able to recover his body?" Severus asked, feeling his nails dig into the skin of his palms as he folded his arms across his chest, keeping his face impassive, or so he hoped.

If word got out that there was a small part of him, however minuscule, that actually cared for his fellow Order members, his entire reputation would be worthless, and it would be the end of his very life.

As expected, fearing that he already knew what McGonagall's answer would be, he watched as the Transfiguration Professor gave a curt shake of her head no, a crestfallen expression etched on her lined face that, in the dim light flickering from the light torch in its sconce on the wall behind her head, made her look aged by at least ten years.

"I'm afraid not, Severus. Albus has sent a team of volunteers to comb through the castle's wreckage to look for survivors."

He nodded, his gaze remaining fixated at the still swiveling magical eye of Moody's in his hands.

Unable to stomach looking at it another second longer than he was forced to, ignoring the swooping sensation as a coil in his gut twisted, he pocketed the magical eyeball into an exterior pocket of his robes.

For the first time, he felt… _old_. As if his lifetime of hardships had finally taken its toll on him.

"I shall inform the wolf's _mate_ at my earliest opportunity in a few days' time of the passing of her mentor," Snape announced gravely, careful to emphasize his insult towards Remus and his wife as to save his face.

Professor McGonagall silently nodded her agreement, her shoulders slumping in defeat, her face careworn, forlorn, and utterly defeated.

"Our world should not be this way, that the young perish, and the older linger," she murmured, looking away from Snape and out at the grounds instead.

Severus, for his part, found himself immune to empathy that came from a colleague who had once treated him so coldly.

He managed a slight lilt of his head, feeling the corners of his mouth twitching in something that almost resembled a smile, though it faltered immediately as he caught sight of McGonagall once again staring at him in such a way out of the corner of his eyes that he was not sure what to make of.

The nighttime stretched ahead, now charcoal, and hued, cold, now that the fires had been put out by a collective effort of all of the Hogwarts Professors.

The crumbling stones, remnants of the magnificent castle, lay ash-like on the ground, a cloud of cold dust settling now over every charred blade of grass and leaf.

It would remain there until either the wind came with a powerful rustle to carry it away on the breeze or the rain would wash away every little thing clean.

Severus sensed there was more to Professor McGonagall's request to speak with him in private than the aging, severe but fair Transfiguration Professor was letting on, though he decided not to probe into her mind for the answers.

He was rewarded for his determined patience when she spoke up at last.

"Mr. Brennan and Miss Jameson. I know that you left Hogwarts Grounds to tend to the poor dear. How are her wounds? Will she make a full recovery?"

Severus nodded. "In time, yes, though not without its complications. I am confident she will be well looked after in the care of Mr. Brennan and the Lupin's."

He stiffened at the mention of Remus's surname, though if McGonagall noticed, she said nothing, for which Severus was grateful. He let out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"I will inform the pair of them of Alastor's passing in two days. Though I care not for either one of their _feelings_ ," he spat, hissing the word through clenched teeth, "considering the fact that our Order members are brand-new parents, allow them a day or two in peace to recuperate from that ordeal. I'll let Albus know not to announce it or have anyone say _anything_ to them until I let _her_ know first," he growled through gritted teeth and flinched as he saw Minerva smile.

"You cannot deny that deep down, Severus, there is a part, however minuscule, that does care for those within our Order, particularly Remus and Harry—"

" _Don't_."

Severus hissed his command through gritted teeth, cutting Minerva off before she could complete the damning sentence that would surely ruin him. He was sure his lips had turned as pallid as the rest of his skin, shivering despite the humidity and heat from the fire that had ravaged the castle.

"Not. One. More. Word. Professor. Do not _test_ me," Snape swore he felt the very pores of his flesh widen as memories of his and Remus Lupin's time together as fellow classmates during their days as Hogwarts students rose from the chasm of his mind.

He clenched his molars together, grinding his teeth in the effort to remain calm.

"You alongside Dumbledore, and the boy now, too, are the only ones that know the _truth_ of why I have remained a protector to Harry Potter these long years, and I would have it stay that way, do you hear me?" he barked, his voice now dangerously low and quiet. "And as for Potter…"

Scenes struck him like lightning. James tormenting him in the corridor, Lily coming to his defense, Remus, brooding in the background, clearly disapproving of the ridicule Black and Potter put him through, but entirely too much a coward to speak up and end the torment, and now, forced to work alongside the man himself once more, was enough to ensure his blood boiled.

Despite what he had said to Lupin back at the man's cottage before Disapparating here, he could not seem to put the torment he had suffered at James Potter's hand behind him, though Minerva was not at all finished.

"Is it truly so hard for you to imagine, Severus? You have defended and protected the man's son all these years." When Snape did not respond to her query, she let out a sigh and pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. "Surely, but you care for the boy, even now. The Dark Lord is dead, and you have nothing to say in that regard, Professor? Such a long _silence_ , Professor Snape. Would I be shocked to learn that you wished that the Dark Lord had succeeded in _killing_ poor Harry Potter? Is that it?"

There was a small part of his conscience that screamed it.

_Yes. Yes, I wish that_ , is what he wanted to say, though he felt his hands ball into fists at his sides and he immediately stormed down the corridor, away from Minerva before his temper swelled to dangerous levels and in his anger, he knew he would do something that he would come to regret, and he dared not raise his wand against a fellow Hogwarts Professor. He spat his words quietly, in hate.

"I wish not that the boy had been killed, but that the Dark Lord had gone for _you_ instead, Professor, to spare me listening to this ridiculous slander, that he would have removed your cursed, wretched _head_ from your bony shoulders, Minerva," he hissed amid obvious defeat.

He turned away so McGonagall would not see the beginning streak of tears on his sunken-in cheekbones.

Though Severus would _never_ admit it to _anyone_ , least of all to Gryffindor's Head of House, he was not at all looking forward to informing the Lupin's of the loss of one of their own. It was not news his former partner was going to take well.

With a quick turn on the heel of his boot, without waiting for Professor McGonagall to respond, he was striding down the hallway and towards the dungeons, his mind swinging like the uncontrollable pendulum of a clock.

He had an owl to send.


	112. Under the Elm Tree

**A/N: Ugh, hard to believe I only have 8 chapters left of this long-fic, but I have this weird quirk about trying to end a story on an even-chapter note, so as a consequence, the last couple of chapters will be rather long as I wrap up Remadora's and Nollie's joined stories, but hopefully, just as good!**

**This chapter checks up on Nollie (finally) and I had a segment with these two earlier during Lupin and Tonks' wedding that shows what Norah and Ollie got up to and the beginnings of their relationship, since I feel like I kind of sprung this pairing on folks and glossed over it, so for the sake of expanding on it a little, I'm backtracking and choosing to tell their side of Remadora's wedding day through a dream Norah has.**

**I still can't believe my precious baby is coming to an end, it feels like I've been working on this long-fic for several _months_ now, but nor do I feel like it would be appropriate and fair to continue to drag it out and fill it with filler chapters when I still have a story to wrap up and don't feel like dragging this out for too much longer, but as a consequence, the last 8 chapters might be kind of long, so apologize in advance for that, but hope you will still enjoy it!**

* * *

**112**

Ollie had been out of Norah's bedroom for less than five minutes to get a drink of water to quell the aching, burning feeling in his throat as it tightened, and by the time he returned, he was less than twenty feet from Norah's bed, when he heard a low, pitiful, mournful weeping echoing from across the room.

He frowned, his black brows coming together in contemplative thought. He had become quite familiar with this particular sound over the last few hours.

It felt as though Time itself had become suspended, and Ollie moved in slow motion like his ankles were weighted down with chunks of stone in iron-wrought chains that were dragging him down and preventing him from reaching her.

He had no bloody idea what to expect when he reached the werewolf's side, either, or what to do, but Ollie couldn't help the stab of fear that pricked at his heartstrings, wondering if her quiet crying had anything to do with her injuries.

Ollie bolted to her bedside, kneeling on the edge, and tried to give Norah a once-over.

He swore, grinding his teeth and running his tongue along the top wall of his teeth, wishing he had more light to work with to better assess the young blonde witch's condition, though not wanting to light the tip of his wand and risk waking Norah up when he knew that she needed to sleep and to _rest_.

He drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he noticed Norah's eyelids twitching, her pale lids covering her rapidly moving eyes. _A dream_?

As soft moonlight spilled across the simplistic bedroom, Ollie's towering shadow was now the only darkness to mar it, and the sight of the blankets and sheets tossed around in harsh, violent twists, caused his heart to give a lurch.

Her short blonde pixie was disheveled, her blonde bangs covering her forehead and coated in sweat as perspiration dripped down her temples.

Tears poured relentlessly from her tightly closed lids, running their way down her ashen cheeks over already previously dried tear tracts, down the slope of her temple.

The delicate skin of her brow was pulled taut in her fitful sleep, her breaths hitching in uneven intervals, a pained look on her face.

_Doesn't this woman ever sleep_? He asked himself, though immediately felt guilty.

Of course, she wouldn't sleep much, having to live in the Forbidden Forest all her life, always having to be on the lookout for centaurs and spiders.

Ollie's sharp blue eyes traveled down to examine the bandages at her side, relieved to see at the least that he couldn't see any fresh blood that had managed to seep through and stain the gauze, for which he was relieved.

His body became suddenly wracked with guilt that managed to worm its way into Ollie's rapidly beating heart, that damned stubborn corded muscle of throbbing veins within his chest and it dispersed into every fiber of his being.

Ollie felt his eyes prick with the beginnings of fresh tears, feeling a wave of empathy for the young blonde witch and werewolf rock him to his core, so strong now that it physically ached.

_I shouldn't have left your side, Norah_.

But Merlin's Beard, could he not leave her alone unattended for _five minutes_ to fetch a much-needed drink of water for fear she'd hurt herself?

Ollie gave his head a curt shake to clear it, carding his fingers through his thick tuft of raven-black hair.

_No. Don't think like that. You're here now by her side. You're going to help her get through this, and Remus and Tonks will help you_. _You're not alone_.

His newfound optimism returned to him, he knew it to be fiercer than his guilt could consume him and overtake him.

Norah was _alive_.

She was _going_ to survive, and he was going to make damn well _sure_ of it. Ollie had gotten this far with her throughout the night, and he knew that if he were capable of help tending to her physical wounds, he could with her spiritual ones as well.

_What are you dreaming of, Norah_? he mused, curious.

The Legilimens longed to dip into the witch's mind and see for himself, though he gave his head a curt shake to clear it.

There was a time and a place. And now was not the time, nor was it the place. Right now, he needed to focus on helping her heal and to try to rouse her from whatever was happening.

He did not know how long he sat by the edge of Norah's bedside, a minute or two, maybe more that slipped by in his own contemplations.

He didn't know. Ollie stilled his movements as his hand reached up and brushed back a wisp of her blonde pixie cut back behind her ear where he knew it rightfully belonged, though he hoped the movement didn't wake her.

He fought an internal war within the conflicts of his mind, not sure if he should try to rouse Norah out of whatever dream she was having and itching to probe her mind.

He hoped that she was dreaming of _him_.

Ollie longed to wake her and to speak with her, to provide some small measure of comfort she would be fine, though he was reluctant to do so. He'd heard horror stories, people being wakened from dreams, nightmares so abruptly without any kind of warning.

In their panicked state, the poor souls would start to attack the ones attempting to wake them out of their dream state, or they'd start convulsing.

And given the extent and severity of Jameson's wounds, he did not want to risk her further injuring herself and making her recovery that much longer.

Ollie jumped, startled, as Norah's head lolled to the left and turned towards him, and he looked at her crumpled, twisting form with apprehensive eyes.

Tears marred the edges of his vision, though he swallowed hard and forced himself to fight down the salty liquid, giving his head another violent shake.

No matter what, he could not let her suffer like this. He had to try to intervene and wake her up. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and forced the dark thoughts from his mind to the recesses of his mind and grabbed her hand.

He scooted a fraction of an inch closer to the bed. _Just a little bit more…_

Ollie bit down hard on his tongue to quell the startled scream that threatened to escape his lips, hard enough that he soon tasted the metallic tang of copper and iron on his tongue and palate and realized he'd drawn blood.

He cringed, pulling a face as he swallowed it, clasping his hand to his chest as he watched as Norah silently cried, every one of her taxed muscles strained.

Her hands were curled into fists as they clutched onto fistfuls of the blankets and sheets. Ollie stood by Norah's side, beside himself with panic.

He did not know what to do in this regard other than to continue to search for further signs that she may have accidentally injured herself during sleep.

Finally, however, just as quickly as the blonde werewolf's unexpected reaction had come, it was gone, and her body immediately went limp and she collapsed back against the pillow, her head lolling to the left and he heard her let out a wistful, broken, and cracked sigh.

Ollie remained firmly planted to his spot, though he slowly lowered his body to sit back at the edge of the mattress.

He waited with bated breath and gritted teeth for another violent, unpredictable episode. He swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat and glanced down his nose at Norah's sleeping figure, noticing tears forming at the outer edges of her eyes.

Sweat had gathered on her brow as it furrowed in whatever unspoken mental and physical anguish she was currently in the throes of experiencing.

Ollie could hear Norah's pitiful whimpers, painful cries rip through her tightened throat as her tongue tried to refuse their release.

A single tear gave way and slowly dripped down her temple and drenched her t-shirt.

Ollie reached out a trembling hand and took Norah's hand in his.

The young blonde witch slowly turned her head to face Ollie, though she didn't wake, as she was still struggling with whatever held her hostage within the tormented confines of her own mind.

A few more tears fell from her eyes.

Ollie gingerly reached up a finger and allowed the pad of his fingertip to lightly brush the final tear off of her cheek, loathe to see the woman he loved shed tears.

He drew in a sharp breath and leaned in close, his lips lightly brushing the skin of her upper temple, and he winced, not liking how hot she was. It felt as though she were running a fever. He drew in an unsteady breath.

His throat constricted and had started to ache again from the fresh wave of tears of his own that he was forced to fight off. Ollie squeezed his eyes shut.

"You're okay, Norah." He whispered his words, so faint that they were as the wind. "You're okay. You're okay," he repeated the phrase like a mantra, hoping somehow, she could hear him through the throes of her dreamlike, hurt state.

Ollie furrowed his brows in a frown as he noticed Norah trying to open her eyes and her head inclined slowly off the pillow. Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal a brief glimpse of her crystalline blue eyes, as bright as a robin's egg.

Her eyes remained fixated on him and stayed open for a minute, though whether or not Norah was actually seeing him in front of her remained to be seen.

Ollie froze as Norah stirred and it jolted him out of his worried thoughts.

A chill traveled down his spine as he heard her groan, an almost muted sound as it escaped her cracked lips, and his movements stilled the second Ollie noticed Norah grunting with the effort to get up.

_No. Don't do it_ , he pleaded. _Don't get up. Please don't try to move, Norah_.

This was a big mistake.

"No! Norah, stay down, lie back and _rest_ ," he commanded, hardening his voice and he visibly winced, hearing the familiar harsh tone of his father laced throughout his.

Ollie gritted his teeth and gave his head a curt shake to clear it, not wanting to think of people and memories that he'd sooner rather forget.

Norah woke up as if it had become an emergency as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing. Her heart beat fast and there was a buzzing in her brain.

She rose shakily, swinging her legs off the edge of the queen mattress and upright into a sitting position.

_Big_ mistake. The room immediately started spinning. Norah squeezed her eyes tightly shut, fighting back the swell of nausea that wracked over her body and caused her skin to break out in a cold sweat.

Norah could hear a man's voice coming from her immediate left. Ollie. Though just as she slowly swiveled her head to try to find out where he was, where his voice was coming from in relation to where she sat on the edge of the bed, she felt the wave of nausea intensify, causing her poor stomach to churn.

Her throat hollowed and constricted, and she could tell by the bitter, acidic stomach bile that caused a warm sensation to tingle and spread throughout her chest and settle on her throat, that Norah made the _wrong_ choice in moving.

"Norah?" Ollie's voice taut with concern, coming from her left again. "Thank Merlin you're awake. I—I was getting _worried_ about you. You were dreaming."

Her bright blue eyes blinked sleepily for a moment, before settling on Ollie as she slowly turned her head to the left.

Nausea clawed at Norah's throat, and she tried to speak, though her throat was parched, and a muffled whine escaped her lips. Norah tried to force down the bile that crept to her throat, but it was too late for that.

Ollie became still for a millisecond, watching as what little color was left in the young blonde's face drained, and thinking quickly, he waved his wand and conjured an orange plastic basin, more of a bucket, and shoved it under Norah's chin, thanking Merlin he was quick to react as he heard the poor woman retch hard and loudly into the bowl, clinging to that orange bucket like it were a life raft.

Her churning stomach kept on contracting violently, forcing everything up and out. Her face white, dripping bile, sweat, and tears as she choked on it. The pungent stench invaded her nostrils and she heaved and gagged, though, by this point, there was nothing left within the contents of her stomach to force its way out.

But Merlin's Beard, she couldn't remember the last time she felt so bloody _sick_. Her whole body ached, flushing with heat, a fever.

Norah's muscles ached all over as well, and the wound at her ribcage stung, and her newly-mended, previously burnt leg had gone numb, though she suspected Remus and Professor Snape had given her something while she'd been knocked out to dull the pain, she had a feeling she'd feel it later.

Ollie, noticing Norah's discomfort as she shoved the basin away and collapsed back against the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut, quickly retrieved the glass of ice water he had brought for her and Norah felt herself stiffen instinctively as the man moved swiftly towards her, so fast she could have sworn he moved as a Death Eater would, though Ollie merely draped an arm behind her shoulder, trying feebly to prop her up into a sitting position.

Norah heaved a tiny groan as she saw she had no other choice but to summon what little strength was left in her battered and broken, bruised body, and assisted her new lover (she startled at that thought, jumping a little) in elevating her upright to a sitting position just enough to hold the glass to her lips.

As she drank, Norah felt the chill run down her esophagus and her head made an involuntary shake.

A numbness crept into her brain the way it did whenever she tended to drink too fast, and when the glass was drained, she took the ice cube between her molars and bit down hard, feeling it melt into cold pools on her palate and tongue as the water washed away the taste of vomit from her mouth.

Norah shuddered and collapsed back against the bed.

As she eased back onto the pillow, Norah's eyelids flung wide open as she remembered something else.

Ollie had brought her back.

She had heard his voice calling to her, a low, timorous voice, telling her to come back to him.

She swallowed down hard as she felt her throat hollow and constrict, and when she finally did speak, her tongue in her mouth felt thick, like there was a gag on it, and she managed in a hoarse whisper.

"Y—you saved my life, Ollie."

"Shh," he shushed, scooting over a fraction of an inch closer, still keeping his arm draped around her shoulder, though wanting to lay next to Norah on the bed to remain close by in case she woke up again and needed something. "Don't try to speak. You should sleep and get some rest, Norah. We can talk in the morning. You need to try to get your strength back. You're alive, Norah."

Norah's face fell, crestfallen, though she knew Ollie didn't see it, for which she was grateful.

_Then I'm not dead_ , she thought, feeling her lids become heavy and start to drift off again. _That's a fucking shame_.

Sleep was quickly and inexplicably taking hold of her completely, but before it claimed her, she forced herself to speak her mind once more.

Ollie needed to hear what she had to say.

"Thank you, Ollie. For—for everything," she whispered, feeling herself smile for the first time since waking up as she nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder.

Norah shuddered as she felt something soft and featherlight press against the skin of her brow, realizing it was his lips against her forehead, and she nestled underneath the sheets and buried her head into Ollie's chest as she allowed herself to succumb to her dreams.

She dreamed of Ollie, his voice, the night of Remus and Tonks's wedding in the Forbidden Forest, the night that everything between her and the man had changed, though whether or not it was for the better, Norah did not know.

The memory devoured her mind.

* * *

Norah Jameson fidgeted uncomfortably in her dress, a long sleeveless maxi dress, silver and silk in color, that Mrs. Weasley and Tonks had forced her into something that the pair of witches deemed much more 'eloquent' than her usual black leather jacket for her and Remus's wedding commencing shortly.

She stifled a groan of frustration and dug her nails into the skin of her palms, glancing down at her new dress with no small amount of frustration.

To distract herself from the uncomfortable and somewhat precarious position that she found herself in, that she was, perhaps for the second time in her life, wearing a Merlin-damned bloody dress of all things, looked to the trees.

The fact that Remus John Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks were marrying on Halloween had not escaped the She-Wolf's attention, and her slightly pointed ears perked up at the noise of the rustling leaves of the canopy above her head, and she took in the sights of this festive Halloween evening, allowing her wolfish sense of sight, hearing, and smell to allow her to bask in the moment of calm serenity.

The leaves danced from branch to ground, each a colorful flag without strings or pole, free to roam.

Norah could feel the heavenly cool breeze, rich with the aroma of the earth, the keeper of the seeds for the springtime to come eventually to the Forbidden Forest.

There was a calmness, as if all the gold, berry-reds, and browns that fluttered from the boughs of the trees were like a cozy quilt, bringing to Norah that same peace that she could only achieve when night fell.

The young blonde werewolf blinked at the grandiosity that Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore had spread before her with just a wave of their wands, truly enthralled by the simplistic beauty of such complex nonverbal magic.

A single golden leaf pirouetted down an invisible spiral of breeze, spinning through the air as it let itself be carried down.

It shook slightly as if it could have been whisked away any second by the grip of icy wind, but it kept floating down the twirling course.

It blew past Norah's face and landed lightly on the ground, the shiny, vibrant color standing out against the ambers and bronzes beneath it.

It was so delicate, the young blonde wolf wanted to reach down and pick it up and hold it close to her heart, smoothing out any creases, but something told Norah that it belonged there, this corpse of what was once summer.

A pair of lanterns lit the walkway that the bride had walked down, and even more lanterns in the midst of the clearing of the Forbidden Forest sprawled in several directions.

So many that even as she turned her head to the left and right, Norah couldn't even fucking bloody begin to count how many there were.

The lanterns were a myriad of different colors, ranging from gold to pink, to purple.

Even the trees in their gnarled, twisted trunks did not seem so imposing, Norah thought, barely succeeding in stifling her small smile of surprise.

The trees had been adorned by sparkling ivy in intricate colors and designs, courtesy of Professor McGonagall—colors of yellow and garnet to signify the union of the couple, with Remus Lupin being a former Gryffindor, and Nymphadora Tonks a Hufflepuff.

Above their heads, fireflies of gold and copper floated aimlessly and a perfume that smelled like honeysuckle lingered in bliss.

Norah stood in silence, her body instinctively stiffing as she felt the taller, towering form of Ollie Brennan move to stand beside her, effectively putting her in between himself and Professor Snape, who, she was more than amused to see, for she felt sure that his expression mirrored her inward thoughts, was disinterested and looking thoroughly bored out of his mind, as though he would rather be anywhere else but here watching Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin get married in the Forbidden Forest.

As the ceremony officiated by Albus Dumbledore commenced, Norah found her gaze curiously flitting to Ollie.

As she continued to steal odd little glances of the natural Legilimens and Tonks's best friend in his black dress robes out of the corner of her eye, she felt her lips parched dry.

Ollie's tousled jet-black hair was thick and lustrous, the man's eyes a mesmerizing deep ocean blue, flecks of silvery light seemed to dance throughout.

His face, pale and rather peaky looking, was strong and defined, his features looking like they were molded from granite.

The younger man's dark eyebrows sloped downwards in a slightly serious expression as he sensed the blonde werewolf watching him, and Norah felt a fiery heat creep to her cheeks.

She was sure the kid could see it, though she couldn't manage to pull her gaze away. His usually playful smile had drawn into a somber hard line across his face.

Ollie gave her figure a once over in her long silver dress and smiled at her.

"Nice _dress_ , Jameson. You should wear them more often, you know," he smirked playfully, the corners of his lips tugging upwards in a soft, slightly teasing smile. "People might _actually_ start to think you're a _woman_ if you do," he joked, which earned an outraged look of Norah's and a swift punch to his arm, causing him to stagger backward slightly and rub it in a shock of mock, playful hurting.

Despite that, he didn't stop smiling at her.

His voice was deep, with a serious tone, and Norah stiffened as his hand, slightly rough and calloused from Merlin only knew what, slipped down and latched onto hers as the pair were forced to fall silent as the ceremony commenced, neither one of them wanting to invoke Severus's wrath.

Norah found that she didn't remember much of the ceremony at all as she and Ollie stood side-by-side and watched Remus marry Nymphadora, the finer details wiped clean from her mind.

Perhaps it was due to the raven-haired, tall Legilimens standing at her immediate left— _holding_ my _hand_ —she thought.

A small stab of panic wracked with guilt stabbed at her heartstrings, rendering her feeling as though someone had taken an icy dagger and plunged the tip of it deep into her chest.

These old, foreign feelings she'd not felt since Wes had been alive, felt… _wrong_.

What she felt for the kid over the last few weeks of their acquaintanceship was… _wrong_. It just _had_ to be. She had been _married_.

How in Merlin's Beard could she look at another man in this way?

Norah blinked, swallowing down hard past a growing lump in her throat as she watched Remus pull Tonks close, lowering his face to hers, sealing their marriage with a passionate kiss, such a warm embrace, that Norah could not help but be reminded of the night that she had illegally married Wes, before that _bitch_ had fucked her over hard and taken her husband and their son from her, and she blinked back tears.

Brick by brick, the hardened walls of her heart that she had built around the damned, stubborn corded muscle within the confines of Norah's chest collapsed, crumbling, as she watched Tonks and Lupin embrace, her mind flooded with memories of her husband that she did not want to remember, and yet could not bring herself to dare to forget Wes and Jax's memories, as it was the only thing she had left of her former life.

Norah bit down hard on her tongue, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to leave her bright blue eyes.

And that was when she could no longer hold them back. First, one small crystal bead escaped her right eyelid.

Norah could feel its warmth, sliding down her cheek, and rolling off her chin. Then another. And another. Until her eyes practically flooded with them, coming like a Merlin-damned unrelenting rainfall.

Sniffing every ten seconds, they fall and fall, and Norah let it happen.

Suddenly, Ollie's already-ironclad grip on her hand tightened even further, wrapping around hers, and Norah craned her head up to look at the kid.

_Not a kid. An adult. A man and you need to treat him like one, Jameson_ , she scolded herself, blinking owlishly at the young twenty-six-year-old man who, Norah hated to admit, over these last few weeks of helping Tonks and Remus get through the Forbidden Forest, she'd taken a liking to, with the two of them staying up late, chatting over the bonfire while those two had been sound asleep.

She was, at the very least, relieved to see tears of his own in the man's blue eyes, though Norah knew his were tears of happiness that his best friend had just gotten married, and the kid had _noidea_ the nature of her own wretched tears.

Norah knew that no one could quite hold a candle in her life as Ollie could. Not many adult humans could take on a fully grown centaur with no wand and come out of the encounter mostly unscathed.

And the wizard's gentleness was one of the younger man's most admirable qualities, his kindness unbound.

She drew in a sharp breath as Ollie's mouth tugged upwards in a crooked little half-smile, and he shook his head, reaching up a gentle finger and allowing the pad of his thumb to ghost along the delicate skin of her cheek, brushing away that last tear.

Norah gazed deep into Ollie's eyes, taking in the man's pale blue orbs, his coarse jet-black hair that was going to need a trim before too terribly long, and his surprisingly gentle expression as he held the young blonde werewolf's gaze, his own unabashed and unwavering as he refused to look away first.

Ollie sighed. "Come on," he murmured, dragging her hand the second the crowd dispersed towards the long, wooden rectangular tables McGonagall had conjured, now laden so heavily with delicacies, so many that Norah was certain she had never seen before in her life, that the tables almost sagged with the weight of all the food. "Hogwarts' house-elves really outdid themselves, and if Dumbledore would have gone any slower with officiating, we'd all be _dead_ by now. I'm _starving_ ," he said.

Norah snorted and rolled her eyes in response, though as gingerly as she could, she shrugged out of Ollie's grasp and pulled back, biting her bottom lip.

A scattered sigh managed to escape her lips, which she had taken meticulous care to coat with a light pink lip gloss, as her now-free hand moved to the back of her neck that stung at the declaration of even just thinking of Ollie.

Something within her still fought against these feelings that she felt for Brennan. The feelings were light and breathless, but underneath it all, there was something dark stirring within her, this 'wrong' feeling.

It taunted the werewolf.

Norah blinked back the beginnings of salty, briny liquid as she was certain slick tears (and not ones of happiness) would begin to fall from her lids at any given moment, and she wasn't sure she wanted to explain herself to Ollie.

After a moment of deafening silence that caused Jameson to feel as though Time itself had become suspended, and she heard and saw nothing, despite the people moving in droves behind her to help themselves to the food.

_Wes_ , she thought, biting the inside wall of her cheek. _I—I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I—I don't want to betray you like this, but I can't…help it. I like him._

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, hating herself for what she was about to say.

"I—I l—loved you," Norah whispered, her voice dropping lower than she was used to.

This was _wrong_. It _had_ to be wrong. She could not do this. It wouldn't be fair to Wes's memory, and it certainly would not be fair to Ollie. How _could_ she look at another man like this? What would Wes say?

As the silence around her thickened, a horrible abrupt bitterness settled in the churning pit of her stomach that caused bile to creep its way up into her throat.

"Fuck," she swore angrily, whisper hissing the curse words through gritted teeth. "I—I can't fucking _do_ this anymore, I—I shouldn't even _be_ here, kid…"

Though her voice was low, she was sure the kid hadn't heard her, and sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed as she saw Ollie, clad in his simple black dress robes, turned around and regarded the She-Wolf in a confused manner, his brows furrowing together in contemplation and his lips pursed into a thin, questioning line.

"Norah? Aren't you coming to eat? You haven't eaten anything since this morning," Ollie's quiet voice laced through her biting, desolate thoughts, and the young blonde witch and werewolf blinked, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

"I…th—thank you, Ollie, b—but I'm not hungry," she murmured, grinding her teeth in nervous anticipation.

Since when did she ever fucking stutter? Norah cursed herself, ducking her head and turning away and walking away from Ollie, leaving the poor man stunned, hurt, and confused, to stare after the young blonde as he watched her figure retreat deep into the Forbidden Forest.

* * *

Darkness had since set in, and the festivities still continuing to go on strong, and Norah's sense of claustrophobia had not left her, despite disappearing, where she now sought refuge under a gnarled large elm tree.

The need for fresh air and to sit in the silence of the Forest won out and she remained perched on the log, still clad in her long sleeveless silver maxi dress from before, biting down on her bottom lip, one leg folded over the other as her foot restlessly tapped, her wand in her hand, causing a single white lily to burst forth from the tip of her wand and hover in midair, at her eye-level.

_Jax and Wes's favorite flower_ , she thought, blinking back tears. Everything in this new clearing of the Forbidden Forest was laced with the biting cold air.

The bitter air seemed to hang in the clearing, clinging to Norah's exposed arms as her long dress was sleeveless, and the dress's V-neckline plunged lower than she would have normally liked, though Ollie had certainly enjoyed the _view_ , she thought, the same bitterness from earlier creeping into the churning pits of her stomach.

Norah took her free hand not clutching onto her wand and drug it down her face as she tried to rid herself of her anxiousness, though Ollie's handsome face and pale sky-blue orbs that could, in an instant, turn glacier cold when mad, were refusing to part from her thoughts, and she so desperately wanted them to.

She let out a pained gasp and glanced with blurred vision up at the Forest's thick canopy. Like it or not, this place was and always would be… _home_.

Norah allowed her pale features to contort into a pained, twisted grimace as she fingered the delicate petals of the flower in the outstretched palm of her hand, lowering her wand on the log beside her, where it rested near her thigh.

The young blonde wolf inwardly groaned as she heard his voice. _Damn it_ , she thought through gritted teeth, not even having to look up to see who it was.

"Norah?"

Norah slowly swiveled her head to the manly voice, deep and timorous, hoarse, and rough at times still, from his three-year vow of silence while in captivity to protect Tonks, but rich, smooth, and melodious.

The kind of voice she knew a man ought to have and a familiar tuft of black hair caught her eyes.

"A wedding guest away from the wedding ceremonies. Most unusual. You're _missed_ , Jameson. Why did you run from us?" Ollie said crossly, sounding more than pissed off with her little disappearing act, his arms folded across his chest as the towering former Slytherin was rested against the gnarled bark of a twisted old elm tree.

Norah flinched and slowly rose from her spot on the log, nervously wringing her fingers together and brushing the palms of her hands on the skirts of her dress.

Ollie was glaring at her through the darkness, his normally kind, sky-blue eyes darkening, almost cerulean in color the angrier he became with her.

The young blonde sucked in a breath of frigid air that pained her lungs, thinking that, as the younger wizard strode towards her, looking regal tonight in his set of simple black dress robes, she had never appreciated the term 'phantom' to describe the former Obscurus, this Slytherin who knew the techniques of the Death Eaters, their languid speech and how quickly he moved so fast, he was a blur.

It felt in her mind, too ridiculous a term to describe someone very much alive, and yet as Norah stared into Ollie's bright blue eyes burning with anger, the way his dark shadow towered over her against the waning moonlight streaming behind his back, Norah Jameson could think of no other adequate description.

Ollie's brows furrowed in slight mistrust and suspicion. "Are you _deaf_?" he barked hoarsely. "I asked you a _question_. Why did you disappear, Norah?"

Norah felt herself shirk away as Ollie practically snarled at her.

Not out of a sense of fear, but because she was still recovering from his sudden, unexpected appearance and she had not anticipated anyone would find her in her place of solitude on the night of Remus Lupin's marriage to Nymphadora Tonks.

Without giving an immediate answer, Norah painfully wrung her fingers together and glanced down at the skirts of her long silver satin and silk dress blowing in the breeze.

"I—I was just…" she stammered, though Ollie immediately interjected.

And judging by the fathomless, smoldering anger in his eyes, and the clipped, curt tone of his response, he was growing rapidly impatient with her.

"Trying to run away from me, Jameson? From _us_?" Ollie snarled.

Norah froze, her movements as she attempted to back away from the Legilimens and former Obscurus as she looked up at Ollie in utter astonishment.

His bright blue eyes glinted like pinpricks in the dark of the Forest, his voice dull and lifeless in nature, and his posture, though he stood tall, looked almost… _defeated_.

And although Ollie stood shrouded in the shadows, rendering Norah unable to see most of the details of his face, she sensed he was not angry with her, but bitter, though she didn't have time to process why this was the case, for the young blonde werewolf quickly dismissed the inaccurate thought on her part, as she waited with bated breath as Ollie Brennan opened his mouth to speak.

"You left without a _word_. Not to _me_ , not to Tonks or Remus or Snape. I was worried about you," he spat, the bitterness laced throughout his quiet tones.

"I…I'm sorry, Ollie," Norah murmured, only able to offer the man a tiny half-smile of what she hoped came across on her peaky features as genuine reassurance. "I—I just needed some air. I wanted the chance to breathe for a while. It was getting stuffy back there, and I don't do crowds," she finished lamely, biting her bottom lip, and turning her head sharply to her immediate left.

Norah did not speak for what felt like several long moments before her curiosity got the better of her and she slowly turned back around to regard Ollie.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she challenged by way of retort, folding her arms across her chest and wasn't surprised when the only answer she got from the man was a grimaced face as a silent reply. "You should go back there, Ollie. Your presence at your friends' wedding will be missed more than mine will. Go back."

Ollie flinched at the sharpness of the young blonde werewolf's tone as she spoke down to him as though he were a misguided first-year-student and shirked away in both hurt and surprise.

A muscle in his jaw twitched as he hardened his own expression in response to Norah Jameson's aggression and replied in a clipped tone.

" _No_ , Jameson. Not without you. _You're_ just as much a friend to Remus and Dora as _I_ am. They asked after you. Come back with me."

Not giving Norah a chance to respond, he reached out his hand and grasped onto hers, giving it a slight but reassuring squeeze, before bringing her hand to his lips and gently pressing them to her knuckles for a chaste kiss.

Norah halted, surprised at the startling intimacy of the gesture, unable to provide an adequate enough answer to Ollie that would assuage him and offer any kind of consolation as to why she had left.

Ollie had, in many ways now, silently spoken of his new, developing feelings for her through the little glances he stole at her when she thought he wasn't looking, the nature of their conversations by the campfire pit when neither one could sleep, plagued by nightmares and old haunts.

"Ollie, I…" Norah _tried_ to speak, to finally tell him the truth of what happened to her husband and son, though when she attempted to say more than two words to the man, who stood waiting patiently for her explanation, she couldn't.

It felt as though she were being suffocated like there was a gag on her mouth preventing her from speaking.

This continued for a few more seconds.

The look of heartbreak in the man's burning blue eyes was too much.

"I don't _need_ your pity, Ollie, b—but there's…something that I have to tell you, and you need to shut the fuck up for _once_ and _listen_. I—I should have told you all of this _sooner_ , but I…I just couldn't do it, Ollie, she managed to croak out, at last, noticing his silence.

Ollie froze, looking startled by her outburst, furrowing his brows in a frown. "I wasn't offering any, not unless you give me a reason to, Norah."

Ollie felt his brows furrow in concern as he could not help but notice how skittish the young blonde werewolf suddenly looked, as she bit the bottom corner of her lip in order to alleviate some of the twistings and churning she felt in the pit of her stomach, and she had a habit of nervously reaching up a hand and tucking a lock of her golden-blonde pixie cut, stray wisps of her hair, back behind the contour of her ear where they rightfully belonged.

"What's wrong, Norah?"

Norah shook her head in protest. "N—nothing's wrong, Ollie," she snapped, wincing at the curtness of her tone, looking away and out at the Forest, her nervousness swelling to an almost insurmountable level within her chest. "It's…about me, actually, a—and my past. Wes. My Jax," she murmured lowly.

Ollie stilled his movements, his hand squeezing onto Norah's as he had reached out and caught hers in midair the moment she made to move her hand away from her ear and squeezed onto it tightly.

Never before had another wizard's name sounded like such a Merlin-damned _curse_.

And what was even _worse_ was the way the man's name sounded on her lips. Oh, he knew her husband was dead.

Though he did not know the details, the way that Norah had cried his name just now with such _anguish_ caused an inexplicable boiling of the blood within his veins to curdle and churn hotter than any dragon fire could ever flame.

He curled his hands even tighter around Norah's, not even hearing the young blonde's sharp, pained little gasp as he did not realize his own strength.

Ollie was quick to decide he did not like the look of shock and concern on the blonde werewolf's face, and nor did he especially like the way her features paled as she took in his angered expression. He could feel his eyes darken in ire.

Though he felt the worst of his jealousy tamper down the minute he blinked and took in how pale and pallid Norah Jameson's features had become.

And she was shaking. Badly.

"Norah," he began hesitantly, trying in some way, shape, or form, to give her comfort, though he didn't know what to say or do that would make her feel better. The She-Wolf looked so vulnerable, broken.

Like him, in a way, he supposed. The two of them had bought lost so much, over and over again, and yet, here they both stood, their hearts had been broken and put back together so many times, it was a wonder they still felt at all.

His heart tightened to the point where it almost became unbearable. He did not like the fact that her deceased husband after all this time could still cause such a reaction out of her, and he had been hoping to get her alone tonight and ask if the two of them could officially date if Norah was even _interested_ in him.

Ollie did not want to see Norah so upset and worried over what he would think. He forced himself to breathe in and out a few shaking breaths.

Norah continuously bit at her lip, fidgeting with her fingers as she took a seat back on the log that she had perched herself on top of, her skittish bright blue eyes looking at anywhere but at him.

Whatever had happened to Norah's husband and son, it hadn't been good and still continued to eat away at her.

Yet, the urge to discover what had happened so that he could understand won out, in the end. Ollie needed to know the truth.

"Will you tell me the truth?"

This time, Norah did look at him, sanguinely lifting her head, jutting out her chin slightly, forcing herself, albeit reluctantly to meet Ollie's piercing gaze.

There was such a look of melancholia, heartbreak, and anguish, that he did not think he could bear it.

Norah nodded, exhaling a shuddering little breath, though she did not relinquish Ollie's grip on her hand, for which he was grateful.

Norah nodded and launched into her tale of how she met her husband, how she had saved Wes's life during their sixth year of Hogwarts from a group of Ravenclaws and Slytherins tormenting the young man once they learned he was a werewolf, humiliating the man by parading him around the halls in a collar and leash, pelting him with bits of raw meat they'd stolen from the kitchens. They married soon after that once they graduated, though Umbridge eventually found out.

The two of them failed to register for the Werewolf Legislation Act that the bitch had passed, and somehow, Dolores found out about it and had visited the Jameson home under the guise of pretending to care about their welfare.

When it was in actuality, it could not have been further from the truth. Her little house-call that night had intended to punish Norah for failing to come forward.

Dolores had Auror Albert Runcorn torture and kill her Wes first, and then she had taken her then-three-year-old son Jack outside, Norah dragged outside by the pair of Aurors that had accompanied her, and the bitch had made Norah _watch_ as Dolores spoke to her son in her falsely honeyed sweet tones, just enough to quiet the distraught little boy and stop his screaming, before she had become irritated by the lack of the child's cooperation as he squirmed within her grasp, attempting to reach Norah, and in a fit of anger, had taken the boy's head in her own two hands and bashed the boy's skull against the trunk of an oak tree.

The back of his skull shattered on contact, her son's blood, his life force, staining the ground beneath his feet, and Umbridge had spat on her son's corpse.

He had died instantly, and Dolores Jane Umbridge and the pair of Aurors had vanished almost immediately after that, leaving Norah alone with the bodies of her husband and three-year-old son, so cruelly taken from her before their lives as a family unit had even officially started.

And with that, Norah finished her tale.

Tears welled from her eyes and slid down her pale cheeks as she turned her head to the side once and coughed.

"I—I'm sorry," she wailed, clenching her hands in her lap, and bowing her head low, whispering the words through gritted teeth and keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I—I told Remus and Tonks the truth earlier. A week ago. I—I should have told you sooner, but I…just couldn't."

"She…" Ollie's voice broke as it cracked and trailed off as he sat next to Norah on the log, rooted to his spot and unable to move, his bright blue eyes glistening with tears of his own as he stared at Norah, though not really seeing the young blonde woman before him.

The shock of her story was entirely too much.

He did not want to believe Norah's words as the truth, yet, he knew just by looking into the witch's glistening blue eyes brimming bright with tears, not even having to use his skills as a Legilimens to probe her mind to know she had told him the truth just now.

Now he understood why she had left the wedding. Seeing Remus and Tonks so in love reminded her of her husband, of things she would rather soon forget.

He understood it now.

"She _killed_ them."

Norah watched Ollie's darkened blue eyes widen, and the young She-Wolf slowly pursed her lips as she took in the sight of her friend who she suspected was beginning to harbor those same feelings for her that she was for him, and she did not know what to do.

Her face remained apathetic, her tears now long spent, though she sniffed once or twice to quell the lump swelling and forming in her throat.

Ollie stared at the young blonde, wanting to say something to comfort her after hearing the tragic demise of her husband and son, but suddenly, his jaw had locked itself as tears fell in rapid sequence as they spilled down his cheeks.

He wracked his brain, searching for words, trying hard to open his mouth, chewing on his tongue as he took a cautious half-step towards Norah.

Before he could think about stopping himself, he wrapped an arm around Norah's shoulders and pulled the witch close, gently rubbing her arm, his hands lingering on her waist as he rested his chin on top of her short blonde hair.

Despite the heaviness and churning feeling in the pit of her stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of her body pressed against Ollie's, Norah thought.

She sunk into the warmth of the tall man's side, appreciative of the simple gesture.

His touch made the Forbidden Forest warmer somehow, her future within it seeming a little less bleak.

Norah shoved aside thoughts of Wes for now, not wanting to ruin the moment with Ollie by becoming consumed with thoughts of Wes.

Norah let a shudder journey up and down her back as she felt the man's fingers coil in her blonde pixie, absently playing with a few of the golden strands.

He let the strands go, Ollie's palm slowly drifting downward and gliding across her right cheek.

Norah flushed, her cheeks turning pink, high with color as she lowered her lashes as her blue eyes followed the trail Ollie's hand made of her.

Ollie took a hesitant step backward. If this was ever the moment where he had _truly_ wanted to kiss her, to test her feelings for him to see if Norah Jameson felt the same that he did for her over these last few weeks, it was now.

Though his courage failed him, in the end. He deflated and stepped back, though her hand quickly shot out and rested above Ollie's heart, and he froze.

Ollie knew he never wanted Norah to feel his heart's pounding pulses.

He had never wanted the werewolf to know that she had the ability to cause his knees to go weak and his breaths to catch in his throat, just by looking at her beauty. Norah said nothing, merely looked at the younger man in amazement.

However, before Ollie could offer some words of solace as his embrace tightened, wrapping the young blonde werewolf in a warm swaddle of his chest and arms.

Norah knew she did not want to leave. It felt as though this moment in Ollie Brennan's arms, all her pain went away—mental, physical, depressive.

All of it, just…gone. There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. She let her body sag; her muscles become loose. He gave her the respect of an equal but cradled her like a cherished child.

In that embrace she felt her worries lose their keen sting and her optimism raise its head from the dirt.

Perhaps the hope had been there all along, but without love, it was trapped, like crystals in a stone. She felt him brush her hair back with his fingers.

If only she could stay in his arms forever, safe from the world's harmful people. One could only hope, but then she remembered what she was.

A _wolf_. A _monster_. A horrible, wretched _beast_ that would only put Ollie's life in danger if she were to stay with him.

Norah let out a sigh and pulled away reluctantly, turning her back on Ollie, trying to ignore the pained look in his eyes.

" _Don't_ ," Norah whispered in a faint voice as she started to walk out of the Forbidden Forest's clearing and followed the sound of faint laughter and music to head back to the wedding party. "I don't need to hear it, Ollie. Please. _Don't_."

"At least you should know." Ollie's voice was faint, causing Norah to turn around and look at him, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat.

Reluctantly, she tore her gaze from Ollie's, knowing if she continued to stare deep into the man's ocean-blue eyes, she would lose herself, and then she would drown.

She did not need his words in that husky voice of his that chilled her and made her feel like everything was going to be fine in her fucked up life.

Ollie Brennan was the new friend in her life that she had not asked for, was everything in a potential partner that Norah knew she did not want to end up with, but right then, just the statement uttered from his lips were enough to cancel her ideologies, to challenge everything that she ever believed in, and steal her heart.

Norah stepped back, halting only once to look over her shoulder, realizing the mistake she had made in her self-isolation, her wanted seclusion by coming here, as her wolfish hearing picked up at the sound of Tonks calling for Norah and Ollie, beginning to walk back towards the wedding party with a single thought that she dared not voice aloud, because she knew Ollie could already hear it.

_I already do_. "Ollie," she called back, surprised at how hardened her voice was.

She felt Ollie tilt his head though she dared not let herself look back.

Though Norah's wolfish hearing picked up on the signal that he was listening as she heard the man let out a frustrated groan as his footsteps came nearer, signaling to the young blonde werewolf that he was following her back.

She took in a deep breath, steeling her nerves, hardly daring to believe what she was about to say, though she knew that Ollie needed to hear her words.

"You _know_ that I would love you, Ollie," Norah sighed, her conscience feeling weighed down, as if there were two blocks of stone on her shoulders as she continued speaking to Ollie in a low murmur, not wanting to meet his eyes. "If only I _could_. But you can do so much _better_ than a werewolf like me, Ollie. And you _should_."

Ollie gave himself a moment to let Norah's words sink into his mind as he silently followed her back.

He turned his head to where she was leading him, feeling his very footsteps vibrate with sound as his boots stepped on twigs and fallen leaves of the forest floor as the pair of them rejoined the festivities and tried to play off like nothing happened when Lupin and Tonks approached them both.

Ollie's mind felt like it was reeling, and he wasn't even aware that his legs were no longer taking directions from his mind, or his hands, for that matter, as he, filled with a newfound sense of determination to enjoy at least one night in the wolf's company, dragged a reluctant Norah almost kicking him to the dance floor that Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore had conjured for the newlyweds.

His throat ached as perhaps against her better judgment, Norah allowed Ollie to dance with her, pulling her close, cutting off the gap of space as they swayed gently to the rhythm, her head leaning against his chest, her chin resting on top of her hair, ignoring the pointed looks Lupin and Tonks shot them.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to ignore the thoughts of disgust and pity he held for himself, knowing that he would never truly experience the love of a good woman if Norah was so pointedly rejecting him, but he had to try.

He wanted to try to prove to the werewolf that she was bloody wrong, that if Lupin and Tonks could marry, then there was no viable reason why the two of them couldn't date.

Though as they danced, Ollie felt like he had no choice. No other choice available to him but to accept that love was as strong as death.

Slowly falling for Norah Jameson was the easy part. It was admitting to himself that it had happened that was the hard part for Ollie Brennan to accept.

Falling in love with her was like entering a house and finally realizing he was home. When Norah smiled at him, Ollie felt invisible hands wrapping around him, making him feel safe.

When her eyes were locked on his, it was like he could see galaxies instead of just pupils. Having the werewolf in his life made him feel like everything's possible in this world like Ollie could conquer anything.

He did not regret meeting Norah Jameson this late into his adult life, and Ollie knew she might not be his first love, as there would be a part of him that would always love Tonks, but what Ollie really wished in life is for Norah Jameson to be his last.


	113. Of Moments Alone and Trepidations

**113**

After so many days of wretched gray skies and dreary drizzle, the weather, Merlin decided, had decided to send the sleepy little rural village in Wales the sun. Norah stretched out her arms as well as she could into the early spring morning, she always knew it would be a fine day when she couldn't feel the temperature of the air.

Outside had the sweet fragrance of freshly cut grass and the birds chattered in the trees. The sky was blue with just a few stratus clouds making their unhurried way toward the ocean. The sun was already a friendly ball of yellow above, promising more heat as the day progressed. All in all, Norah couldn't have asked for better weather.

_Or better company_ , Ollie's teasing, a lilting voice inside her mind chimed up, earning a smirk from the light blonde wolf in return, though she knew he couldn't see it. She let out a tiny sigh, still feeling a minor twinge of uneasiness every time he made a move to hold her hand or wrap his arms around her waist and rest his chin on her right shoulder like he was doing to her right now, though Norah would be the first to admit that his embrace felt like heaven. Warm. Right. True.

Norah knew it would be difficult to allow herself to move past Wes and Jax, but she just didn't know _how_ bloody difficult. Frankly, the young blonde witch and werewolf had no idea how she was going to pull this off.

She had mentioned to Tonks earlier in private, she thought it would be good for the five of them to take a visit to Hogwarts, now that the castle, even after two days, had been repaired. Dumbledore, along with the Hogwarts staff, those who had not been injured or killed during the Battle of Hogwarts, had not hesitated in making the necessary repairs and it would give Remus and Tonks the opportunity to slowly start moving some of their belongings into the castle to prepare to live there in a few more months come the start of term.

Remus and Tonks agreed without any hesitation on their parts. Though getting Ollie to agree to come with her on the other hand, was another matter entirely. Tonks had confessed to her this morning over breakfast when it was just the two women while Ollie was helping Remus on the other side of the house repair a leaky drainpipe, that Ollie was in no means eager to join the rest of society, considering his status as a former Obscurus, and what inevitably happened anytime someone saw the former Slytherin and man that came from a well-known family of Death Eaters.

The whispers and horrified stares behind the man's back. Norah could not say she blamed the man in that regard for his initial reluctance. Treatment that she was, considering what she was, all too used to by this point in her life at the ripe age of thirty, almost thirty-one in October.

She knew all too well what the fear, scorn, and ridicule were like, so how in Merlin's green earth could she possibly manage to convince the Legilimens and former Obscurus that he had nothing to fear by leaving the safety of the Lupins' cottage, let alone convince him to set foot in Hogwarts again, a place where if she had understood Tonks correctly this morning, that he was ridiculed, his only friends to come out of that school were herself and Charlie Weasley?

Norah furrowed her brows, tapping her chin in contemplative thought, feeling her frown as it deepened as she remembered who they're actually doing this for, and why, and more importantly, why she wanted Ollie to come with, and she knew how important it was to Remus and Tonks that the two of them work this out.

And she decided no matter what, not to take no from him for an answer, though she knew instantly the question was out of her mouth, what his answer would be, and Merlin de damned if she couldn't guess it.

" _No_ , Norah," Ollie said instantly, vehemently protesting this idea.

Norah heaved a haggard sigh, pinching at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. If they were going to try to make this 'thing' work with them, this new relationship, Ollie was going to have to trust her.

Though she could not stop the crushing sense of guilt that wracked her brain and pricked at her heartstrings, causing the muscle within her chest to skip a beat as she took notice of the fathomless anger in his eyes.

He was still furious with her for abandoning them the night she had viciously mauled Umbridge and turned her into a werewolf, just as she was.

They had not yet had that conversation, though she knew it was not going to be a conversation she was going to particularly enjoy. Norah blinked and shook her head to clear her mind, wanting to put thoughts of that moment out of her mind, for now, focusing on trying to convince him.

_Here we fucking go again_ , she thought darkly, biting the wall of her cheek, not even caring if Ollie heard her thoughts at this point.

"But you _have_ to come tomorrow," Norah protested, biting down on her bottom lip, and resisting the urge to stomp her injured leg in frustration. "Your _friends_ ," she snapped, pointing a shaking finger back towards the back porch of Remus and Tonks' simple home, "are moving into Hogwarts tomorrow, Ollie. I promised them I would help them move their stuff and they want you there. Besides, I'm in no condition to do any heavy lifting, even with my wand. And I don't want you here by yourself. You can't spend it _alone_. You would really _miss_ the opportunity to walk through the doors of Hogwarts again, this time as a free man?" Norah growled angrily.

Ollie let out a noise from the back of his throat that sounded like a groan of exasperation as he raked his fingers through his hair. "I told you before, Norah," he muttered kindly but firm, a hint of steel in his tone. "I don't mind staying. I enjoy it here. I like the peace and quiet. You and I are more than happy to house sit for them while Dora and Remus are back at the school. Well, then my watch starts tomorrow. I don't need to _leave_ this place to enjoy myself," Ollie responded, a muscle in his right eye twitching.

This time, Norah really _did_ let out a slight wolfish growl of frustration from the back of her throat, knowing he'd try to get out of this by saying something like this.

She huffed in frustration, feeling grateful at least, that she'd thought to probe Tonks for more information on Ollie.

"That's not the fucking _point_ , Ollie," Norah snapped, refusing to give in to the man's point. "They're your _friends_ , Brennan. You can't just leave them! This is one of the third biggest moments of their lives! We should be happy for them, that they're heading back to Hogwarts tomorrow, kid! You're a part of their _family_ , Ol. Tonks told me they want us there, Ollie. _Both_ of us. We _have_ to go!"

She bit down on her bottom lip and glanced at Ollie out of the corner of her eye as she turned away slightly, noticing how the corners of the man's lips quirked upwards in a faint smile.

"That was nice of her to say. And I appreciate the two of them thinking about me. But I think you're forgetting something. We have to be _realistic_ about this, Norah. My entire family, save for the women, were Death Eaters. They _know_ my face. I know what will happen the second I step back into Hogwarts, Norah."

Norah inwardly screamed in frustration, resisting the urge to pull on tufts of her hair.

"But you _aren't_ a Death Eater, Brennan! Whatever is going on in your mind, it _won't_ happen! They're not going to laugh or mock you. If they _do_ ," she growled, the shadow of the She-Wolf crossing across her pale features. "They'll have _me_ to deal with, Ollie. That _won't_ happen this time, Ollie! The Dark Lord is _dead_ , most of his followers have already been brought to trial for inquest! The teachers there, the professors! Dumbledore and McGonagall and Snape know who you are."

Sensing Ollie was not convinced, Norah lowered her voice an octave and cautiously approached, an arm held out in front of her to balance her equilibrium as she walked with a rather painful limp and would for a while.

She breathed out a sigh of relief as she felt Ollie's hand grip firmly around her forearm, ready to catch her if she stumbled yet again today. Norah let out a low grunt as he gently pulled her forward, catching the worst of her stumbling fall so that her hands splayed against his chest.

" _I_ know who you are, Ollie. You're not…not _like_ those others," Norah whispered hoarsely. "Whatever you _think_ is going to happen, _won't_. No one is going to hurt you, Ollie. I'm not going to let it, and neither are Remus or Tonks. The staff won't let anything happen to you. _Trust_ me."

"Norah…"

" _No_ , Ollie!" Norah exploded, the last vestiges of her patience finally tested, and she did not know whether it was her annoyance with her new boyfriend of only two days since she had woken from her grueling recovery or not, but she was choosing to blatantly disregard Severus Snape's orders by staying bedridden at least for two weeks and going.

She was _not_ about to miss seeing Remus and Tonks off to Hogwarts. Not for _anything_. Another pack of wild centaurs and Acromantula wasn't going to keep her away, and she would do whatever it took to get him to see sense, that Oliver James Brennan had better prove to her right here and now underneath the shade of the willow tree that he wasn't _stupid_ or she'd—

Though her dark swirling vortex of thoughts was interrupted as Ollie gazed down at Norah's hand for a moment, before hesitantly reaching up to cover it with his own, bringing her bruised, purpled knuckles to his lips for a tender and chaste kiss, sending an electrical tingle down her spine.

"You shouldn't feel obligated to protect me from the rest of the world, Norah. You don't owe me anything. _I'm_ the one who owes _you_." The pad of his thumb brushed lightly against her wrist, and Norah glanced down at it, finding it increasingly difficult to focus on what he was saying.

"Then come with us to Hogwarts tomorrow, and I'll call us even," Norah grinned softly with an impish little smile, flashing her sharp canines.

Ollie snorted, though the man returned her smile with one of his own but shook his head. "Nice _try_ , Norah. But you and I are _staying_. You heard what Tonks and Remus told you a few days ago. You aren't even supposed to be up and walking around so soon after what you went through, Nor. I can't believe they even agreed to let you go with them."

He furrowed his brows into a frown, thinking the two of them still had to have what he knew would be an unpleasant conversation about her little disappearing act that night Norah had attacked Dolores Umbridge.

And yet, he could not bring himself to bring it up to Norah. Not yet. It was too soon, she was still healing, barely two days since Ollie had brought her back from the Battle of Hogwarts on the brink of death itself.

He gave his head a curt shake to clear it and shook his head no.

Norah suppressed a low wolfish growl forming deep in her chest, and this time, the werewolf really _did_ seize on tufts of her short thick blonde pixie and tugged on her hair so hard the roots screamed in protest.

Who knew Tonks's best mate could be so fucking bloody _stubborn_? Norah heaved a heavy sigh and slumped her shoulders in defeat. _All right, kid_ , she thought. _YOU are the one who made me do this_. "I'm _not_ leaving you alone on your birthday, Brennan, so get it out of your mind right now."

The shock alone on the raven-haired blue-eyed Slytherin's face was worth it, his blue-green eyes wide in surprise and dawning horror. "How…" he stammered, earning a triumphant smirk from Norah as she folded her arms across her chest and smiled at Ollie. "How'd you know?"

Norah smiled at Ollie, hoping to ease the burden he carried on himself, and this time, instead of one of mischievousness, her smile was gentle. "Tonks told me," she chirped jovially, snorting at the look of ire growing in the man's brilliantly flashing bright blue eyes. "Please come."

Ollie had been about to open his mouth and violently protest her plea, firm in his resolve that the two of them, particularly her, were in no condition to go anywhere near Hogwarts in the morning, to hell with the fact that the castle had already been repaired, but the look in Norah's eyes warned him against it.

In fact, he was positive in the weeks of knowing the young blonde thirty-year-old werewolf he'd never seen such an expression etched on her pale face. A mix of sadness, hopefulness, and…something.

Something else that he could not quite name, an unreadable emotion that both enthralled and frightened him. The intensity of her icy gaze made him suddenly feel self-conscious. Ollie couldn't seem to tear his gaze away.

"All right," he heard himself saying in a voice that sounded resigned. "I'll go, then," he growled begrudgingly. "If only to see that _smirk_ wiped off your face, Jameson," he joked, though when he lifted his chin to look at her, he was not prepared to drown in the She-Wolf's icy bright blue eyes.

Norah smiled and leaned in, so she was pressed against his hard but lean chest, hugging onto him as tightly as she dared, careful to be mindful of the wound at her ribcage and of course, her leg that still twinged a little.

"Thank you. You're making the right call by going, Ollie," she said, and her blue eyes drifted down and settled on the man's arm, or more specifically, the top of his hand, covered in angry little red scars, courtesy of his father.

Ollie felt his heart skip a beat as he moved to shrug the long sleeve of his black woolen sweater over his hand, but it was too late already. She had seen it. Norah did not immediately react. Did she know?

"How long?" Norah asked quietly, no semblance of joking or crudeness in her tone. Ollie pointed ignored the question and ducked his head in shame, not wanting to meet the blonde werewolf's piercing gaze.

She did not press Ollie for an answer, which surprised him a little. When she lifted her chin slightly and her gaze locked with Ollie's, he was surprised to see her bright pools of blue shimmering with unshed tears.

"You know," Norah whispered hoarsely. "Your heart's intentions show you where you're going and your physical scars, and mine," she murmured lifting up her wrists and showing him an equally red scar from where she had scratched and bitten herself during one of her transformations, "show us both where you've been," Norah murmured.

Ollie stilled, turning, perhaps for the first time, and really looked at her. At Norah Jameson's willowy frame. Her light makeup. Her cute little button nose. In her, he saw nothing but beauty and a lifetime of hurt. He nodded, feeling like his tongue was suddenly dry in his mouth, and there was a gag on his tongue preventing him from speaking further.

"Ollie?" Norah said his name gently, her slightly hoarse, husky voice barely above a whisper. Just the sound of his name on her tongue caused his heart to race erratically in his chest and throw itself against its cage.

Swallowing down hard, Ollie looked down only to accidentally brush his nose against hers. He knew Norah still struggled to come to terms with her feelings, both for him and to allow herself to enter into a new relationship since her husband's death, but he couldn't resist. He leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching.

Dear Merlin's Beard, he couldn't fight the thoughts going through him. Her very smell was flooding his senses. She smelled of pinewood, of eucalyptus, and wild lilac flowers.

He swore he saw his disbelieving, incredulous reflection in those bright pools of blue that were Norah Jameson's eyes, for only a moment before she closed them and wordlessly, without warning, pressed her lips against his in his first real kiss to a woman, completely caught off guard.

Ollie froze, his eyes wide and unblinking. He completely expected Norah to pull back, to recoil away from him and explain she had slipped, her equilibrium was still off as a result of her leg still in its wretched cast.

But that moment for him never came. The young blonde witch kissed him, tearing down the walls of denial he had formed around everything having to do with his insecurities stemming from his abuse, and of Norah's feelings for him, worried she didn't reciprocate what he felt.

The touch of her lips pressed against his sent a spiraling warmth through his body, instantly warming him and thawed out his initial shock.

Ollie almost didn't want to close his eyes, afraid this was another trick, that Norah would disappear again and vanish on them if he did. But something told the Legilimens to follow her example, so he closed his eyes.

The backyard of the Lupins' cottage and the area of space underneath the willow tree instantly faded to black with just her touch keeping him anchored in this newfound darkness, though the second he closed his eyes, it didn't let him see darkness, but colors of fondness.

He had no idea what the bloody hell he was doing, and Ollie was afraid it showed. He tried to kiss Norah back, but with inexperience, he knew not what to do next and it definitely showed. But Norah didn't seem to notice this little fact or care about it.

Sparks flew in every direction, and the world was slowly disappearing around the two of them, along with all of their worries, their troubles, and their problems. She made him feel like none of that mattered. It was a small yet warm kiss.

Ollie honestly never knew a kiss so innocent could be so intimate and electrifyingly numbing.

Her lips were moving in perfect sync, his hands feeling her waist; moving by instinct, he pulled her closer, the kiss deeper, more passionate. He felt her hands on the back of his neck play with the ends of his hair.

A smile grew on his face as it started to tickle, finally, they pulled apart. A terrible, horrible, yet wonderful ache blossomed in his chest and spread through his entire body, and he stifled the urge to groan in frustration, resisting the call of the wolf's aura that she gave off, thinking that though he wanted nothing more than to succumb to Norah, to bask in the heat that she gave off, they couldn't, as she was still healing and it was much too soon for this step in their new relationship, though he felt both hands wrap around her waist. His hold on her hips tightened, and he almost growled restraining himself, burying his head in her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Norah apologized, panting slightly from their kiss. "Did I…did I hurt you?" she whispered, biting down on her bottom lip in fear.

Ollie blinked owlishly at her, momentarily distracted and disoriented, and then he realized where they were. They were underneath an overly large willow tree in the backyard of Remus and Tonks's cottage in Wales.

And Norah was standing in front of him, her already pale face drained of color and looking rather pallid as she proceeded to stare at him with a concerned look that no other woman other than Tonks and his mother had ever given him, and for a moment, he relished in it. The fact that this celestial-like creature cared about him, even…loved him, as damaged as he was.

"No," he stammered, realizing she was waiting for his answer.

Norah fell silent for a moment, having to crane her neck upwards to stare into his burning blue eyes. Norah stared. She used to believe his glacier eyes were ice-cold, that they knew no warmth and never shared loved. That's what she used to believe, the first night in the Forbidden Forest she had met Ollie and had blown up at him for the reckless way he had attempted to defend Tonks from that herd of wild, rogue centaurs. Now she knew, the hottest fires always burned blue.

And this time, Norah couldn't look away from Ollie's gaze even if she wanted to. "Would…" she hesitated, biting on her bottom lip, and raising her brows at him, but only for a moment. "Would you let me do it again, Ollie?"

Ollie froze. Do what again? Kiss him? Prove to him for a second time that he wasn't dreaming? Whatever she wanted of him, he nodded.

"Yes."

Norah could have asked him to come up with a cure for her lycanthropy, and he would have said yes, even if it took his entire life. As soon as the last syllable left his lips, Norah smiled.

A tiny grin crept onto her features as she all but threw herself at him, as best she could, her lips crashing against his in a passionate kiss, her lips meeting his with fervor, and Ollie found himself interlocked in her sweet embrace.

The tender touch they shared made the yard around them disappear. There wasn't anything else in the world except the burning flame of their love, her ice met his fire. A beautiful dream and a chaotic nightmare, but he would not change anything about this moment for the world, as something about this feeling made Ollie feel like everything was going to be all right.

* * *

Death Eater Jack Brennan's cold blue eyes narrowed into mere slits, venting in unimaginable, fathomless torment intermingled with that of rage while he peered through the trees in the woods that bordered the edge of the Lupin's family cottage. His calloused fingers tightened further around the handle of his wand, currently tucked away inside his robe's sleeve.

He did not know how long he had been spying on his son and the blonde She-Wolf as the pair of them sat out on the back porch swing like this, and then had moved under the willow tree. An hour, maybe two, he didn't know, nor did Jack particularly care.

Meditating on this new development like death. Jack did not know what to make of it.

Thinking how his last surviving son after all these years finally a chance was had at redemption and was now throwing it away for _her_. A filthy, half-blood, disgusting _werewolf_ , of all wretched creatures!

The former Death Eater considered himself an opportunist, in the end. No matter the end result, he would find a way to reap the benefits.

Though at the moment, he struggled to think about what benefits came of this new development. He let out a sigh of discontent as his fingernails raked down the bark of the tree, and Jack flinched, not even giving a damn if his fingers bled.

His youngest son Ollie was always seen as the black sheep within the Brennan family, but danger among the Dark Lord's ranks was always attractive and the inspired Death Eater knew Crouch had forced his youngest son to use this natural ability to his advantage.

_So much promise_. _So much wasted potential. I should have flayed this weakness out of him when I had the chance,_ he thought, grinding his teeth in annoyance as he shook his head to clear it as he looked at the despicable image before him. Jack had been afraid of this the moment he had received word Ollie had escaped.

Since Ollie knew that Tonks was still alive, and now this accursed whelp of a blonde werewolf was in his youngest son's life, Jack, when he had probed into the boy's thoughts, had sensed a shift in his son's behavior and his mannerisms. Jack stifled a low growl forming in his throat, seeing every Merlin-damned bloody detail of this whether he wanted to or not.

Jack had always possessed a keen sense of sight, seeing almost every little detail, no matter how discreet. His eyes were those capable of counting the flaps of a hummingbird's wings, though the abhorrent sight before him caused Ollie's father to wish he never possessed such a gift.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, he wished his eyes were playing some kind of _trick_ on him, making a sport of his mind, but even know, as he spied on the pair of them from behind the elm tree, he knew it wasn't.

Right here and now, no matter how hard he wished the blonde _bitch_ would just keel over and die of a heart attack or a relapse of her wounds and leave his last-remaining son in peace, to make it all vanish, he couldn't.

Everything was bloody _real_. What Jack's eyes saw was definitely _real_.

Jack ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth, furiously grinding his molars together, his lips parched dry at the sight of his youngest son, close off the gap of space from where the pair stood underneath the shade of an old willow tree blowing in the light April breeze and lowered his face to the She-Wolf's until their lips met.

He watched in revulsion as the blonde witch moved her arms to envelope her new lover's neck, returning the embrace. Jack Brennan swore he could feel the bewitching radiance of the wolf's white smile and the liveliness of her spirit and her heartbeats.

Jack could hardly believe his eyes. His son had almost become unrecognizable, and he knew it had nothing to do with his son's new appearance. The last time he had seen his son, Crouch had shaved off all the boy's hair in a final act of humiliation. His raven black hair had since grown back, and now short, though it was, stuck up in wild tufts of disarray, looking like it had a mind of its own as it was windswept.

For Oliver to behave in such a despicable way towards a half-blooded werewolf, looking so solemn and bowing his head towards this _bitch_. A _werewolf_! A filthy _dog_! For that was all surely that Oliver could have known of this woman. He knew they hadn't spent that much time together. No more than a few weeks at best and Jack could only look for so long before he began to feel sick.

Crouch had been wrong and seeing the sight before him hurt as hell.

His own son had become attached to the She-Wolf. If he were being honest with himself, Jack had never seen Oliver quite so happy as he was now, his cobalt blue eyes shining as bright as the sky above their heads.

The Death Eater watched, his gaze unabashed as his son cradled the accursed blonde wretch's head in her hands and he kissed her on the forehead and then moved his lips in to meet hers in a passionate embrace.

The werewolf was a threat to his son's ambition, unhinging Oliver by just a single bat of her heavily lidded lashes and a playful, flirtatious way of biting down on her bottom lip and wriggling her delicate eyebrows at him.

No matter how far the distance between the two young lovers and himself from his spot behind the old gnarled elm tree where he meditated like death over what to do over this new development, Jack Brennan could read their very lips and read the words pouring out of both their mouths. Jack stifled his growl of frustration, swallowing down the bitter acidic stomach bile that had crept up into his throat and had settled on his tongue, creating a warm feeling in his throat and chest.

He grimaced a little. He gritted his teeth, gnashing them together, snarling silently as he forced himself to turn his head away from them the second that he saw how Oliver had pulled the bitch close and pressed his lips to hers again for a second kiss. _Hells_ , he thought viciously through gritted teeth.

_I'll—I'll kill that rutting bitch and any little wolf cubs my son might sire with this little blonde witch_.

Jack Brennan felt his eyes fling wide open, becoming wide and round with shock as he heard the whispered words of his son saying something to the fair-haired bitch, words of love and affirmation, things he never thought he would hear his son say, much less to a person not even _human_.

Against his better judgment, he looked. And immediately wished he hadn't. He was forced to watch and behold how Oliver held the blonde wolf against the trunk of the willow tree they sought refuge under for shade, and almost dug his teeth into the flesh of the girl's neck.

The Death Eater silently seethed, his nails bleeding now as they continuously scraped against the bark of the elm tree he hid behind, spying, as the girl responded to his son's surprisingly tender and featherlight touches by slanting her head to the right and deepening their kiss, her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling his son down slightly to her short level, letting herself be consumed in his bastard son's insatiable lust for her just at the tip of his tongue.

Oliver's father gnashed his teeth together in anger, turning his head sharply away just as a cool wind crept against his heated skin, flushed red and high with a light pink blush from hot anger and ire.

Jack Brennan growled in frustration and forced his numbed feet to turn on the heel of his boots and skirted around the edge of the woods to make his way back around to the front of the small cottage to announce himself. The Death Eater knew his only surviving son better than anyone, and he knew all of Oliver's transgressions, perhaps even more than Tonks and this blonde girl.

If he kept a close eye enough on this bitch, this blonde werewolf, and made her more aware of the atrocities his son had committed, perhaps that would encourage the She-Wolf not only to leave his son alone in peace but also to sever all connections with Oliver and forget she ever knew the man.

Turning away at last from the disgusting display, Jack felt the tension in his shoulders steadily melt away and begin to leave him, glad at least, that things had escalated since his unexpected visit here two nights ago.

His mind felt like it was reeling as he strode towards the front of the house once he had reached the edge of the woods, confident he wouldn't be discovered by his son or the blonde lass. Not until he _wanted_ to be seen.

Though as Jack Brennan stood in front of Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin and Remus Lupin's home, fully prepared to march up the wooden steps of their front porch and knock for a second time and fulfill the promise he made to his son's best friend the other night that he would be back, he stopped short and paused, his movements stilled and unmoving.

If he could get to Crouch at some point today and learn the truth of his motives, would that not serve him better than to just let this all go free?

For if this She-Wolf was as valuable as Crouch Jr. suspected her to be, his inner thoughts still connected to Oliver's after so many years, and his one link to keeping an eye on his son when Jack himself could not, then why not….why not take the creature for himself?

A bitch and a dog though she was, the little blonde with the elfin-like spritely features really was quite a pretty little thing and Jack nodded his head in satisfaction, feeling a cruel smile begin to tug at the corners of his thin, wormy lips. He was, after all, former or not, a Death Eater bound to the path the Dark Lord had paved the way for men like himself and for Oliver as well.

And more to the point besides, if this She-Wolf, this Norah Jameson, who it was rumored by word of mouth from Crouch, the bitch was a hell of a fighter, would prove to be a valuable asset to his family once his current wife passed away. He would need another woman to warm his bed these lonely cold nights. She would not do to sire children with, of course, but she could be his bitch, in the literal sense of the word here.

If the witch could feel even a _slight_ interest in Oliver, a young man far more volatile and much more monstrous than himself, then surely, she would take comfort and allow for a man like Jack to comfort her instead? He could provide a better life for her.

This was better than his initial plan of just dragging his son back home kicking and screaming if need be.

What better point to emphasize that the man was broken and that his future rested in the hands of his father than for Jack to be the one person that would take everything that he cared about away? The girl was a threat to Oliver's potential ambitions.

She was a complication, and Jack needed to remedy this 'furry little problem' of his son's before things could escalate any further than it had.

Jack Brennan drew in a breath of cool April air and walked up the front steps of the Lupins' cottage, raising his white-boned fist to the door and knocking. It was time to be reunited with his son after all these years.

* * *

Two days following the initial visit from Ollie's father on their front porch, Tonks could still not quite bring herself to tell her best mate he had visited. It was a decision she knew she would regret, given the man was due to arrive at any point in time today, though she was content to remain unmoved from her spot on their living room sofa, watching her baby's hair change from a light blond color to bright turquoise, entertaining Teddy and relishing in the baby's delighted coos at seeing his mum's nose change.

If she was being honest with herself, playing with Teddy, as much of the mother-son-bonding moment though it was, was mostly for _her_ benefit to distract her from the news that Snape himself had delivered yesterday.

Mad-Eye was _dead_. Tonks flinched and squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to think of her mentor's body unable to be recovered, swallowing down hard past the growing lump in her throat as she blinked back tears.

They had not been able to recover Moody's body, but Tonks still held out hope they would.

The man deserved to be buried alongside his family as he wanted. Tonks hoped that at some point, his body would turn up, though considering she and Remus (and hopefully Norah and Ollie, if her friend could convince her best mate to join them all tomorrow morning) were due to report to Hogwarts tomorrow to start moving their things into their designated living space so Remus would be ready to teach by September when the start of the term began, she doubted they'd find him.

The castle, with the help of the Hogwarts' staff as well as a team of magical architects had not hesitated in completing repairs to the castle. From what Severus told her when the Potions Master had dropped by in person to deliver the news and evidence of Moody's magical eye to Remus and Tonks of Moody's death, the castle was seemingly good as new.

Teddy's cooing broke Tonks out of thoughts of her old mentor, for which Tonks was grateful as it forced her mind to focus on her new son. She was not sure she was ready to come to terms with Moody's passing. Tonks blinked and glanced down at baby Teddy in her arms. The pig snout nose transformation was her son's favorite, though a knock at their door broke the proud new mother out of her moment, and both Remus and Tonks wearily looked up towards the door.

"Is that him, Dora? Oliver's father? Jack?" Lupin murmured darkly as he practically bolted from his spot where he had been sitting next to his wife, noticing the black shrouded figure standing in front of their door as he cautiously peered through their curtains to try to get a better look.

Tonks bit the wall of her cheek and ran her tongue along the top wall of her teeth and furrowed her brows into a frown as she shifted Teddy in her arms and gingerly rose from the couch to place their baby in the pram they had set up in the living room, where they had been fully intending to take baby Teddy for a brief stroll around their neighborhood in order to give Ollie and Norah some privacy.

Her best friend had rarely left the werewolf's side once, and she knew the two of them were currently sitting in the swing on their back porch, having moved from sitting underneath the willow tree.

She stifled a light smirk, wondering if he'd snogged her yet. Tonks couldn't be sure, though she'd sworn she'd caught them at it a while ago, but Tonks knew every couple, especially new ones, were entitled to privacy, just as she and Remus were, though that didn't mean she wasn't going to let Ollie get away with not sharing the details later. Tonks had _seen_ the look in Ollie's eyes, knowing he wanted to, though she knew Ollie carried himself with a code of dignity and honor, wanting to wait until Norah was fully healed.

She could get up and walk around, at least, which was an improvement over the last two days, though her gait was somewhat lame, and she walked with a limp, her burnt leg in a cast for at least three weeks.

"Yes. That's Jack, Rem," Tonks groaned, her gray eyes widening as she strode towards the door, feeling the fingers of her wand hand twitch as she groped for the handle of her wand in her back jeans pocket, ready to blast Jack Brennan into oblivion, her code as an Auror be Merlin-damned, if the man so much as laid one hand on Norah or Ollie in anger if his temper swelled, which, judging by the look of rancor in the man's face, it _would_.

The moment Remus opened his mouth to protest, heading towards the front door, Tonks shot out an arm to stop her husband, giving the man a curt shake of her head. "Let _me_ speak to him, Remus," she whispered urgently, careful to keep her voice low. "I know you could handle this, but you don't _know_ Jack like _I_ do, Rem. If it escalates, of course, I want you by my side, Remus, but for right now, the best thing you can do for me is look after our son and Ollie. I want you to stay in the kitchen with Teddy or go upstairs. Jack and I need to have a _conversation_ , just the two of us, but if you could go and warn Ollie for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I—I didn't tell him that his father was coming."

She bit down her bottom lip in hesitation, breathing a heavy sigh of relief, feeling the tension leave her shoulders as her husband begrudgingly nodded his agreement, and scooped Teddy out of the pram.

Tonks waited to open the front door until she heard the back door of their cottage slide open and then gingerly shut behind as Remus stepped outside. Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Tonks closed her eyes.

_Merlin give me strength for this_ , she pleaded, shooting a silent prayer to the heavens above and opening the door, finding herself for a second time face-to-face with a man that she hoped never to see again in her lifetime.

Jack Brennan glowered at Tonks through hardened eyes that had once been friendly and kind to her, in another life, though now they only brought the unfounded accusations that Tonks had ruined Ollie's life.

Their color only two days ago had reminded Tonks of the boughs of forest trees, a rich deep umber, mischievous and yet solemn at the same time. Though now, they were simply chilling. Every muscle in Jack's face was tense, and without a word, he communicated to Tonks intense distrust, anger, despising, hatred, for herself and for that of his only surviving son.

Now he stood on their front porch, Tonks currently the only barrier between Jack Brennan and Ollie, glaring, seething, his father clenching his fists rhythmically, breathing heavily, as though fighting a losing battle.

Tonks let out a heaved sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, and reluctantly opened the door that much wider.

"Hello, Jack."

And against her better judgment, she opened the door further and stepped aside wordlessly, and allowed Jack Brennan inside their home.

* * *

**A/N: Whew! A lot happened in this chapter. Happy for my new Nollie ship :D I like seeing my characters happy after such tragic lives. Excited to have Remus and Tonks return to Hogwarts! Not looking forward to Jack's confrontation with his son, but next chapter, you're in for a real treat as Tonks gives Ollie's father a real piece of her mind. Stay tuned!**


	114. That Which You Seek, Seeks You

**A/N: Just thought I would post this warning ahead for a language warning because it's a Nollie chapter lol, and, well, things escalate without spoiling this chapter, so I'll leave you to it! Enjoy!**

* * *

**114**

Tonks bristled at the sight of former Death Eater Jack Brennan in her home, wishing she would have remained steadfast and firm in her resolve to not allow Ollie's father into her home, however, every bit a bastard the man might be, she knew that he would not hurt her, though if the man so much as _looked_ at Ollie or Teddy or Norah or even Remus in a way that pissed her off, she was going to do whatever it took to save her family.

"Jack," she answered flatly with no emotion at all in her voice.

"It's good to see you again, my dear. You're looking much better rested than you were two nights ago, darling. Motherhood is a look that suits you well, darling, you wear it quite well, dear," Jack answered hauntingly.

His voice was cracking and wavering a bit for reasons that Tonks could not quite understand, causing the young witch to turn and regard Jack with furrowed, raised eyebrows and a rather quizzical expression.

Tonks watched as Jack Brennan's hardened expression shifted and grew almost wistful, and this startled the young wife and mother to the point where her fists grew clammy and her nails dug into her palms as they shook.

Badly.

Jack noticed the shift in her behavior and shot Tonks a knowing look.

"Where _is_ he?" He eyed his son's best friend cautiously, glancing around the room left and right, as though searching for Ollie, already knowing he wouldn't find him anywhere in the house, though the man dared not let onto Nymphadora that he had, in fact, been spying on his son and the She-Wolf in their own backyard. When Tonks did not immediately answer, Jack tried again. "Where is Oliver?" Though he spoke as if he already knew.

Tonks silently seethed, grinding her teeth together in anticipation.

She wouldn't be surprised to learn later somehow that the man had his ways of _spying_ on his son and Ollie's new girlfriend.

"Outside," Tonks answered in a clipped and hardened tone, feeling her gray eyes narrow and start to smolder with a burning, fathomless rage. "And you spare me the homilies of pretending to care about my well-being, Jack. I can smell a fraud a mile away. Think about what you like about your son, Mr. Brennan, but he will _not_ leave here. In fact," she added, almost as an afterthought, painfully twisting her fingers together, fidgeting nervously with her plain gold wedding band, "My husband and I have asked Ollie and Norah to house-sit for us. Remus is teaching at Hogwarts at the start of term, though I already said that," Tonks elaborated upon seeing Jack shoot her a confused stare as the aging man regarded her in silence.

If the Death Eater was at all pleased with his son's best friend's news, he gave no indication of showing it.

Tonks let out a tired sigh and pinched at the front of her temples, knowing full well Ollie was the only thing on Jack Brennan's mind at the moment.

"He _won't_ leave, Jack, and you would be an utter fool if you were to attempt to try, I can promise you that you will regret it. You may speak to him outside in our backyard, or you can take a _walk_ , but the two of you will _not_ talk inside my home in front of our newborn son. My husband will be supervising the pair of you if you stay in the yard or on the porch, and if you should put one _toe_ out of line and dare lay a hand against your son or Norah in anger, then I'll _kill_ you myself, Jack, my code as an Auror be Merlin-damned," she said again, quite confidently, though she wondered if Norah had been able to persuade Ollie into coming with them tomorrow and celebrating his birthday alongside with his family—his _true_ family—instead of staying put here.

If Jack heard her threat, he ignored it.

"Then I'll take him," growled Mr. Brennan as the man began restlessly pacing back and forth, almost stomping so hard Tonks was sure the man's heels of his boots would at some point create indentations in their hardwood floor. "The boy thinks he's mistaken if he stays with that _bitch_."

Tonks blinked owlishly at Ollie's father.

Had his dad truly lost his mind?!

" _Are you perhaps short of a marble, Jack_?" Tonks shouted, stomping her foot in a moment of frustration, biting down on her bottom lip as she sincerely hoped that Remus had taken Teddy out onto their back porch.

She did not want her emotionally compromised state as she attempted to deal with Ollie's father to upset their baby. Or Remus.

"They're staying _here_ , Mr. Brennan. Norah and Ollie have already _agreed_ to house-sit for us while my husband and I return to Hogwarts. They cannot leave here, Jack!"

Sensing Jack's father was not at all convinced, Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, turning away from Jack for what felt like an eternity to compose herself.

When she did manage to find her voice again, it was shaking. Though not from fear. From rage and disbelief, and it took Tonks a moment to realize this.

"I've seen them together over the last few weeks, Mr. Brennan. Your son has been caring for Miss Jameson while she recovers from injuries she sustained while fighting to protect Hogwarts during _your_ master's attempted siege. She loves him, and your son _loves_ that woman. If you try to separate him now, you would do more harm than good, If there's even a single _ounce_ of goodness left in that miserable old body of yours that truly loves your son, Jack, then _let him go_ ," Tonks confirmed, telling his father in the small hope, however feeble, that at least knowing his son had managed to move on without him in his life would calm him down.

However, when she turned back around to regard Ollie's father, the expression of calm serenity, despite the anger at having this Death Eater, former or otherwise, inside of her and Remus's home, and Ollie's dad, besides, and her statement only succeeded in incensing his anger further.

The pit in Jack Brennan's stomach as visions of his son locked in an embrace with that wretched little blonde She-Wolf clawed its way up into his heart as bitter bile.

His intentions of dragging his son home kicking and screaming if he had to raced ahead of any logical thought processes that Brennan typically prided himself on.

"If he is so dead set on rutting with that—that woman," he snarled, "he may bring her if he wishes, if what you tell of their…. _relationship_ ," Jack spat through gritted teeth, "is real, then I suppose I have no _choice_ but to accept this."

Tonks resisted the urge to seize on a lock of her hair and tug it in frustration as her face sagged with the enormity of what Ollie's father was proposing.

"Oh, _yes_ , Jack, that's _exactly_ what Ollie wants for his new girlfriend," she began sarcastically, not even bothering with the niceties anymore. "I'm sure separating her from Ollie would go over just _swimmingly_. Tell me something, Mr. Brennan, how do you think your son would react to learn that you've only allowed Norah to accompany you and Ollie home on the premises that you tolerate her presence in your manor, as long as Ollie submits to you? Hmm? Are you even _listening_ to yourself? Do you not hear how ridiculous you sound?" she challenged hotly, feeling the worst of her temper swell.

She rolled her eyes and weaved her fingers in between her knuckles, cringing as Tonks swore that she heard footsteps coming from the back door of their porch and through the kitchen.

_That's Ollie…._

Tonks let out a haggard sigh as Ollie rounded the corner and froze. He was alone, as expected. Tonks visibly cringed and slowly swiveled her head in her best mate's direction.

Tonks coughed once to clear her throat, thinking she could not remember a time when she had been in such an awkward and compromising and a rather precarious position.

"Wh—where's Norah, Ollie? And Remus and Teddy?" Tonks questioned, hoping her voice was light, though she could tell he heard how strained it was.

"Outside," Ollie answered through gritted teeth. His brain stuttered as it took in more light from Remus and Tonks's living room than expected, every part of him went on pause while his thoughts struggled to catch up, as a horribly fatigued ringing filled his eardrums, and a series of memories rolled through his mind.

Mother screaming… Father yelling… glass breaking…

"Hello, _Father_ ," he growled, no semblance of warmth in his tone as he set eyes on a man he'd hoped never to see again, causing Tonks to flinch at the coldness in his voice, though he glanced sideways at Tonks and addressed his best friend. "T, why don't you tell the others they can come inside. Father and I are going outside to take a _walk_ , I won't have this conversation on your property, T. It's… _private_."

Tonks parted her lips as if to protest, though a withering look from Ollie told her otherwise, not to fight his word on this issue.

She let out a haggard sigh, and relented, turning her back on the father and son as she pointed them towards the front door.

"Fine, but don't take too long, Ol," she whispered hoarsely as she maneuvered her way through the kitchen, where Remus stood anxiously, clutching baby Teddy in his arms, waiting with Norah.

Tonks tried her hardest to shoot her best friend a silent, pleading look.

The fact remained that Jack Brennan could easily take away Ollie from her after all these years of thinking her friend to be dead, made her incredibly uneasy, but she knew she needed to leave them.

This was their issue to hash out, not hers, though it did not stop Tonks from squeezing her eyes shut the moment she was out on the back porch with her husband, son, and friend, and saying a silent prayer meant for Ollie and Ollie's ears alone.

_Please be careful…_

* * *

Ollie froze, clenching and unclenching his fists as the man he had once called Father, and he had ceased to call him by that name ever since Tonks had forced him to stay at her house after he had been dealt a particularly brutal beating that resulted in two cracked ribs and a broken arm, not to mention one hell of a nasty concussion.

"Oliver." His father spoke in his typical droll baritone, Jack Brennan's voice completely devoid of fear or any other emotion, rendering Ollie frozen to his spot and unable to move, though he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the sound of the repressed memory of the night his mum left.

The screams, the sound of breaking glass, his mum crying…

His entire body shook with the effort to restrain himself, and Ollie supposed he should have been grateful Newt Scamander and Professor Dumbledore rid his body and soul of the Obscurus, though if there was ever a time when he wished for the wretched creation to return to him, it was now, so that he could take his father someplace far away from his friends, and let the demonic entity take control.

Ollie focused on wondering whether he had been in a situation even more awkward and infuriating than this, and matters were made ten times _worse_ when the sound of Norah's voice rent the air.

"Ollie?" Norah whispered hesitantly, the sound of her voice cracking, and he visibly cringed, wishing the wolf would have done as he had told her and stayed _put_ outside with Remus and Tonks.

_Damn_. He clenched his teeth, grinding them together in frustration. _She—she shouldn't be here. She needs to leave. Now_.

Ollie startled and felt his eyes slid instinctively towards Norah as he slowly turned around to regard her standing in the living room, her stance uncertain.

Norah bit down hard on her bottom lip and was angrily looking towards Jack Brennan, painfully wringing her hands together.

She stiffened, her shoulders rising slightly in defense as Jack's listless gaze met that of her own before looking away, furrowing her eyebrows in the process as she glared at him.

When she spoke, her German accent was quiet and fuming.

"You are the _Vater_?" she questioned with raised brows. "You _are_ his _father_ , yes?" she clarified in English upon noticing Jack's confusion.

Realization dawned slowly on Norah's face as she looked towards Jack for confirmation, who merely offered a nod, though did not speak.

Her heart pounded in her eardrums as she chose to focus her sole attention on Ollie, who was shaking badly.

"You know who I am," Jack Brennan drawled, his sharp dark brown eyes flitting from his son silent fuming expression to Norah's.

Norah, who had been about to take a faltering half-step forward towards Ollie, which was in actuality more of a weakened limp due to her still-healing leg bound in its cast, abruptly halted, turning to look at Ollie's father in a sardonic manner, a dark look flitting across her pale and peaky features, which oddly enough, reminded Jack of his own son whenever he had lied to him and his mother.

"Of course, I know you, Herr Brennan. _He_ sent you, yes? He _did_ , didn't he, Herr Brennan?" replied the young werewolf curtly, her German accent bright yet sharp as her icy blue gaze turned on Ollie's father. "To keep tabs on Ollie and me, no doubt, but why did Crouch send you?" she demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

"Crouch sent me?" Jack repeated, feigning surprise, though internally, the Death Eater was most utterly intrigued by the young blonde She-Wolf's tenacity and brightness.

_She'll do just fine…_

Norah repressed the urge to roll her eyes. "I know exactly who you _are_ , Herr Jack Brennan," the young blonde wolf replied as she folded her arms across her chest, leaning into Ollie's chest for support so she didn't fall, standing as tall as she could, which was rather humorous, considering she was barely 5'3, even in boots. "I've heard that pink wearing old _bitch_ mention your name once or twice over the years, and Ollie spoke your name in his sleep," she murmured, pointedly looking away from her boyfriend as a light pink blush speckled along both of their cheeks in embarrassment.

The young blonde witch took in a deep breath and continued.

"You have made a pointless decision to come here today, Herr Brennan. Your son does not wish to see you. Does not want your words. He wants exactly _nothing_ from you from now on, except to see you out of his life for _good_. Is that _understood_?" Norah barked.

Norah felt immediately like she was in some kind of trance, her heart racing so quickly she was afraid it might actually explode in her chest.

Her breaths became short, spurting gasps, shallow, her ears filled with a dull, aching throb as the blood rushed to her head.

" _Fuck_ ," she swore, whisper-hissing the swear word through gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as waves of nausea coursed through her veins, and she shot out an arm to steady herself, and wasn't at all surprised when she felt Ollie's warm hands come up to grip onto both of her shoulders, before wrapping around her waist.

_Vielen Dank_ , she thought silently, knowing Ollie heard her as she silently conveyed her thanks.

Norah blinked owlishly once, twice, three times, as the sudden, unexpected wave of nausea passed.

She considered her injuries a weakness and would never admit this to anyone, not Lupin, Tonks, not even Ollie, but even just standing on her own two feet like this for the length of time that she had was exhausting, and she wanted nothing more to put an abrupt end to this conversation between the three of them and send Ollie's father about his business and out of her new boyfriend's life forever.

Tonks and Remus had practically begged her to stay put the moment Tonks had slid open the glass door that led out onto their back porch, though the moment Norah had heard Ollie's upset and angered tone as he conversed with Jack had been too much to bear.

She couldn't stand not knowing…so, here she was, currently the only barrier standing between Ollie and his father, and exhausted. Norah felt herself stiffen as Jack moved towards her.

Norah flinched, not knowing what would be hers if she allowed Ollie's father to escort him away from this place.

Next to _nothing_ , she only had Ollie left these days to call her own. She let out a sigh.

"I love him _too_ , my dear," Jack went on, pointedly ignoring his son's flushed look of outrage and reddening face. "Perhaps not rivaling the intensity of the bond the two of you seem to share, but I _do_ love my son, just the same. We do not have the best, ah, father and son appearance, but _ambition_ throughout these years is what kept the two of us close, my dear," Jack added, his voice a low growl.

Norah didn't even have to shift at the waist and crane her neck upward to know that Ollie was on the verge of mass hysteria right now as she heard him draw in a sharp breath that sounded like it hurt.

Norah felt Ollie stiffen as his father, without waiting for permission, promptly lowered his gaze and took her bandaged, bruised hand that was more purple and black than pale in his own.

She felt her face twist and contort, and Norah looked away from him and Norah let out a pained hiss as he gripped her injured hand in his, though thankfully, Ollie wrenched her arm out of his grip, looking beyond himself with rage, his already pale face drained, rendering his appearance looking gaunt and emaciated.

Jack Brennan was successful at least, in provoking a horrified and enraged reaction from his son, while he'd stunned the blonde She-Wolf into a dumb silence, and the Death Eater could have sworn he heard the bitch whimper as she clutched onto her injured hand gingerly with her one good hand, biting her lip and fighting tears.

"Did _he_ do this to you?" Mr. Brennan demanded through gritted teeth, feeling his dark brown eyes narrow as his head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard his son standing behind the werewolf.

A pause in the bitch's response was nothing Jack could have hoped for, as Norah Jameson did not answer Jack, merely flinching away. He silently seethed, grinding his teeth in anger.

No matter. Jack knew he had all the time in the world to question the werewolf and wheedle the answers out of her, in time.

He was known for his resilience and patience. "My bastard son does not appreciate you, _wolf_ ," Jack started softly. "He does not see what he has if he _hurts_ you. _Harms_ you," he snarled viciously.

Norah said nothing, favoring silence as the only apt response, but that was fine enough for him. Jack could see she was considering his words, at the very least, though his blood boiled as she witnessed the young blonde witch and She-Wolf reach up with her uninjured hand and grasp onto Ollie's hand, which had rested on her shoulder.

Jack lowered his voice and leaned in, almost pressing against the length of her body as he had to stoop slightly to whisper it into the shell of her ear.

"A man's touch doesn't have to _hurt_ , _wolf_." Ollie's father lowered his voice even softer, knowing that somehow, his bastard son had hurt this woman, a bitch, and a werewolf though she was, seeing Norah up close and personal like this, there was no denying she was a pretty petite little _dog_ , that much Jack could see.

The scars on her hand proved that his son had hurt her.

"It _can_ be kind. _I_ can be kind to you. Give you a well enough life that I know you deserve, little dove," he whispered into her ear. "My bastard son knows nothing of the ways of pleasuring a woman, but _I_ do. _I_ can make you feel good. _I_ can be a good man to you. I could offer you protection. Provide a good life for you, and on behalf of my bastard _whelp_ of a son who has _failed_ to do that for you, I see."

Jack knew that a pause was nothing he could have hoped for, and he sensed the revolt his son's little bitch held for him as the Jameson She-Wolf turned away, clutching onto Ollie's arm tightly.

"What are you _doing_ , Jack?" snarled Ollie, his rasp seething as he moved to stand in front of Norah. "With **MY** girlfriend? _Dad_?"

His son spat the last word as though it were poison that had settled and lingered upon his tongue. "You will _not_ touch Norah. _Leave_. Get. Out. _Get away from her. Now_ ," he growled in a rough, hoarse, coarse voice, and before Norah could protest, he grabbed his father by his forearm and violently dragged him towards the front door. "If you truly _won't_ leave me alone until you insist on talking to me, then _fine_ , I'll hear you out, but we should talk _alone_ …away from here, and Norah, you're staying _here_ in the house."

Norah had been about to open her mouth and violently protest that _no_ , she was coming _with_ him when she heard her new boyfriend let out another low guttural growl from the back of his throat, and the way his normally light and mischievous sky-blue eyes darkened, almost cerulean in color, counseled her against disobeying this request.

"Do _not_ follow us," Ollie snarled in a low warning tone devoid of warmth and emotion, upset, lowering his voice.

He wrenched open the door and shoved his father forward so hard the older man almost tripped on the mezzanine of their porch, though Ollie did not apologize for his rough handling of his father as he turned and shot Norah a look.

Seeing his new girlfriend staring at her so critically, Ollie felt for perhaps the first time in a very long time, a desire to be approved of _._

_"Stay_. _Here_." His words escaped his chest and throat as a growl.

His darkening blue eyes remained fixated on Norah as he stood out on the porch with his father, with Norah lingering in the open doorway, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Ollie knew his words were faint, however, the weight of his stare was anything but, and it was clear that after this confrontation, things between him and Norah may not be the same again, and there was still the matter of fact that the two of them needed to address her leaving them the night she had attacked Umbridge when she transformed.

The wound of her leaving still added another layer of salt onto the already tender wound that was his heart, but he could not deal with his feelings regarding that now.

There was time for that later.

Norah's protesting voice broke Ollie out of his dark thoughts. He shook his head to clear his mind of his obtrusive thoughts and glanced down his nose at Norah.

"This is just _my_ problem as much as it is _yours_ , Ollie!" Norah exclaimed violently, stomping her uninjured foot, and placing her hands on her hips. "Let me come."

She bit down on her bottom lip. _I see the way he looks at me, Ollie. At you. Your father is dangerous. You need help. Let me go_.

" _No_ ," Ollie growled, hardening the edges of his voice, and glowering at his new girlfriend.

Though sensing the sheen of worry in Norah's bright blue eyes, glistening with unshed moisture he knew to be tears, he sighed in agitation and frustration, feeling something shift within himself give way and his expression softened.

He let out a sigh and reached up a stray hand to tuck a stray wisp of her blonde pixie cut back into its place where it belonged. "Not this time, Norah. I have to deal with this, _my_ way. Go inside," Ollie hissed, his tone bordering on finality. " _Right now_."

Any other time, Norah would have violently argued and started spouting a list of her favorite curse words at the Legilimens, though after her recent exchange with her new boyfriend's father and the bitter words he had spoken to her and to say _nothing_ of the way his eyes crawled all over her backside told her what a _leech_ he was, something told the young blonde werewolf this was bigger than her.

Norah heaved a tired sigh and swatted Ollie's hand away the minute the man promptly set a hand on her shoulder as Jack took a step forward towards Norah, a look of curiosity ablaze on his face.

She knew at that moment, that whatever unspoken argument rested between the abusive father and broken but surviving son, it was a far greater issue than she could ever possibly begin to imagine.

"Ollie, I don't think I need to tell you your father is an unstable man and dangerous," Norah warned as she stepped back inside the house, though the wolf made no move to close the door.

_Don't do anything stupid_ , she communicated silently, causing Ollie to look up, his blue eyes filled with astonishment as his lips parted.

_Please…be careful_. Norah thought her words, clumsy and blunt though they were as the light April breeze tousled her hair.

She watched, biting her bottom lip in nervous anticipation as Ollie's cerulean, glacier-cold eyes clouded over and he turned away before looking up slowly to give the young blonde werewolf a brief but affectionate and warm smile before offering his girlfriend a nod.

"I won't be long, Nor, I promise," Ollie murmured before turning away, shoving his father forward with one good hard push.

Though before she could open her mouth to speak, a low guttural growl reached her eardrums, and a flash of brown darted out of the corner of her eye, and before the werewolf had time to fathom what was happening, Ollie held his father's throat at wandpoint, though his hand was trembling so badly, he could barely hold it upright as he forced the man down the back porch steps and into the street, making towards the woods, wanting to put as much distance between the three of them outside and Lupin and Tonks as possible.

He would not have them in harm's way any longer. Ollie knew he would do whatever it took to protect his friends, his new family, just as _they_ had protected _him_.

Ollie let out a low warning growl as he noticed his father in front of him swear and trip over a gnarled tree root, though Ollie sincerely hoped the man had actually tripped over his own bloody foot.

A vent of adrenaline surged Ollie to drag his father towards the woods behind Tonks and Remus's house.

Out of the corner of his peripherals, he could see the couple and Norah out on their back porch, his tiny nephew, future little heartbreaker that he was, nestled comfortably in his mother's arms and Tonks and Lupin sat on the back porch swing, and Norah's face was the last thing Ollie chose to focus on, the way her brows rose up in worrying alarm.

The adorable way that Norah had a bad habit of biting on her bottom lip whenever she was worried or thinking about something.

Ollie did not know just how far deep into the woods behind Remus and Tonks's cottage he led his father, but the moment he heard his aging father start to gasp for breath, he stopped, though not before grabbing a fistful of his father's black woolen robes and, summoning just a little bit of the strength he worked so hard to repress over the years, the result of pent-up frustration of years of captivity under Barty Crouch Jr.'s hand, his faked death, slammed his father against a large boulder, unflinching as he heard a muscle in Jack Brennan's back crack.

He didn't bloody care anymore at all.

Ollie felt the edges of his lips curl upwards into a twisted sneer that elicited no response as he pulled his bastard father close and thrust his face merely inches away from Jack's, the tips of their noses practically brushing against one another.

Not even that was enough to invoke a cringe from Father, and that, he almost snorted.

If Jack Brennan ever feared something, it would be almost droll if Ollie himself was part of that list. Ollie snarled and wound his shaking fingers around the column of his father's throat, forcing his voice to come forward throttled with repressed fury and sadness.

"Why did you _come_?" He could fear hot tears stinging and blurring at the edges of his vision. " _You should have stayed away_."

Jack Brennan contorted his face and stuck his bottom lip out in a mock pout, feigning concern. But Ollie was not at all fooled.

"All these years apart and _this_ is how you greet your father, boy?"

His voice was far deeper than Ollie had ever known it, though Ollie had no time to ponder on this.

"Your mother and I taught you better manners than that, Oliver. _Really_. Though I don't see why you had to force the little blonde bitch of yours to stay put like the good _dog_ that she is," he spat, spitting on the ground at his boots.

" _Don't_ talk about her like that! You _know_ what her name is! Her _name_ is Norah, Dad. Not… _that_ ," Ollie snarled quietly as he stood still against the wind, which had started to pick up slightly.

Jack fell silent as he turned and regarded his son, who had sort of a hen-pecked look. His lips curled upwards in a twisted sneer. Ollie's shoulders hunched together like he was trying to disappear inside of himself.

Even his blue eyes burning bright with anger seemed to be attempting to retreat inside of Ollie's head. His comment was so out of character from what Jack knew of his son.

He just… _stared_. His brain formulated no other thoughts other than to register that perhaps for the second time in his life, Jack found himself shocked and at a loss for words as to what to say.

The anger from Ollie's eyes showed the scared little boy within, the boy who taught to fight and starved of the love he craved.

Jack could see the pain beneath it and his son's soul drowning in this persona Oliver had been forced to carve to fit into a world of indifference that, if he was being honest with himself, didn't give a damn about a ruined man like Oliver James Brennan.

But he couldn't help someone like this. The Death Eater stiffened when his last surviving son finally spoke to him, angered.

His fists trembled at his sides, violently shaking with the effort to restrain himself.

"What do you _want_?" Ollie snapped venomously.

"What do I _want_?" repeated Jack, the words rolling slowly off his tongue, feigning innocence as though the father had misheard his bastard son. "Well. For starters, boy. An apology would be nice. Your stepmother is dying. She wanted to see you."

" _No_." Ollie's voice was seething to the point of incomprehension. "I'm not…going to apologize anymore. I didn't make any _mistakes_ , Jack. I have _nothing_ to apologize for!" he yelled. "And Renata was _never_ my mother, Jack!" He barked hoarsely. "I won't go."

When Ollie finally turned to face his father, Jack was surprised, though he hid it well, to see Ollie's wide-open blue eyes reflected everything and saw nothing.

Behind them was something more intense than normal thought and his clenched two-day stubble along his jawline wasn't a good sign, though Jack had expected this.

Jack had been hoping for, perhaps not outright forgiveness, but the beginnings of a tentative reconciliation, to put aside past differences and work together as father and son. Strictly business.

Now, he simply hoped to get out of this encounter without giving his bastard son yet another reason to hate him all the more.

As Jack slowly swiveled his head and regarded his son, the thick, uncomfortable silence between the father and son intensified.

The silence of the woods behind Remus and Tonks's cottage made Ollie's blood run as cold as the spring air that wafted through the forest clearing.

Not even a whispering or rustling of the leaves rent the air. It was as if Mother Nature herself conspired to keep him in the dark, in the shadows where he belonged, not daring to whisper the reassurance he craved as Ollie fought his memories.

The silence was a poison to the father and son, for in that void of sounds, the shallowness of their conversation was laid bare, now utterly vapid.

As Ollie scanned Jack's face for a reaction as the silence between them continued to hang in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground.

He expected his father to scream, to protest, to hex him, even, but Jack Brennan did none of those things. "You are angry, Oliver."

Jack spat his words matter-of-factly and shook his head, as though he had expected better of his only surviving son, his bastard.

"Why _wouldn't_ I be? _Father_ ," he spat the word with no semblance of warmth. "I became unacceptable when I rejected the path of your previous fellow Death Eaters," Ollie growled, his tone flat as he slowly fingered his wand, turning his back on his father. "You _disowned_ me. You beat me within an inch of my life. What _more_ reason do I have to talk with you? Why did you come?"

Jack's fingers stilled as his wand hand gripped tightly onto his own wand and he almost growled with the effort to restrain himself.

"You're mistaken, Oliver, if you think that I am here to quarrel with you," the Death Eater lazily drawled as he turned languidly to face his bastard son, his darkened brown eyes looking almost bored.

Ollie ground his teeth together in annoyance and clenched his shaking hands into fists, lowering them to prevent himself from striking out against his father in anger, though he wasn't, in all honesty, sure how much longer he could control his temper for.

His mind struggled to understand where his father could have been the whole time that his family had believed him to be dead.

Sanguinely, Ollie lifted his head and regarded Jack Brennan with a confused scowl.

_"Why_?" he asked, his face holding not the renewed passion that Jack Brennan had hoped to find, but a horrible impassive indifference. "Why have you sought me out?"

"To bring you _home_ ," and the Death Eater was not at all surprised when the younger man immediately took offense to his judgmental tone.

He straightened his posture, glowering at his father with an incredulous look on his pale face and in his eyes.

" _No_. I _am_ at home. _This_ ," Ollie growled, wildly gesticulating to the forest clearing around him and pointing back in the direction that the two of them had come from, "is my _home_. This is where I live. My friends have graciously opened their home to my girlfriend and I. We've already agreed to house sit for them when they go back to Hogwarts. I'm _not_ going back."

His anger flared as he paused to draw in a breath. Ollie drew in a shaking breath and raised his wand in his trembling hand and pointed it squarely at his father's chest.

"I don't care _what_ your reasonings are. If you move, I'll _slit_ your throat," Ollie snarled, the edges of his thin lips curling upward.

"You've gotten in the _way_ , boy," Jack Brennan growled.

"Got in the way of _what_?" Ollie snarled, not about to tolerate his father's roundabout answers or his tracks, despite the fact that his heart was racing in his chest, pounding against its cage and threatening to break free, for once, it was not in anger, but fear.

Jack managed a small, sardonic laugh as he lifted his gaze and met his son's eyes.

"I speak of the _bitch_ , of course. Your _Norah_. You truly think the _werewolf_ would waste her precious time and energy on a broken, battered man like you, when someone like me could provide for the werewolf in the ways that you clearly _lack_ , boy," he growled.

Ollie's father's words were nonchalant as if they meant nothing, however, the listlessness in his eyes told a different story.

"She would be a fine addition to our ranks, those few left loyal to the Dark Lord's cause, given _what_ she is, and what she _knows_ , considering Crouch told me she's lived in the Forest all her life, yes?"

Ollie silently seethed, trying in vain to conceal his emotions, he even struggled in the effort to avoid clenching his teeth in anger and failed at that too, and after a moment spent in heavy silence, his father's cold smile widened even further.

"I couldn't believe it, when I first paid your old master a visit in Azkaban a few weeks ago, boy," Ollie's father murmured as he took a few steps towards his son as Ollie retreated, looking more and more unsure of himself as his resolve faltered and hardened exterior cracked. "I did not believe Bartemius at first. I couldn't imagine _you_ , the miserable little bastard that you are, a man whose blood is _tainted_ with the people you've _killed_ , you've always remained so detached, and yet, here you stand, wanting to scream it at the top of your lungs so the whole bloody Merlin-damned world can hear you."

Ollie kept his gaze fixated on his father, steady, and impassive, even as his father continued.

"It's _pathetic_ , is what it is," his father snapped, stepping even closer to his son, their eyes now level with one another. "To think of you, my son, of all people, to have fallen in _love_ with a wretched little _werewolf_ , that little _bitch_."

He had slowly begun to feel as though the ground beneath their boots was causing him to sink into the earthen floor, his body going rigid and unable to move, much less his mind able to form a cohesive thought, though at that moment, Ollie felt his fear leave him and he was left with nothing more to lose.

He would not lose Norah, not to _anyone_ , and _especially_ not to his father, and he felt something within him shift and snap as his head whiplashed up.

A chill ran through Jack Brennan's spine as he heard his son's hollering yell that reverberated in the forest's clearing like a clap of thunder. It made him shudder as a freezing cold wind would wake someone.

His blood ran cold and a bead of sweat dripped down his face. The Death Eater felt his right hand curl around the hilt of a dagger he had hidden up the sleeve of his robe, hating that it had come to this, though the boy was leaving him with no other choice.

Ollie broke at last, snapping, restlessly pacing the forest clearing and raking his hands painfully on his face and in his thick tuft of black hair, sweat and tears painting his cheeks as his last surviving son ranted.

"I did **EVERYTHING** you've ever asked of me. _Everything_! _I did not kill my brother_! Norah is **MY** girlfriend you—you son of a bitch! **MINE**! Even after disowning and abandoning me, you'd try to _steal_ her? **WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH**?"

Ollie looked livid.

His son seized on tufts of his hair and tugging on them so hard that it looked as though the roots of his jet black strands screamed in protest, going on a repeat of all the why's before kicking the boulder he was standing behind, and Jack let out a haggard sigh.

The Death Eater's face revealed no remorse as he smiled, albeit almost sadly, or as close as he could manage when it came to feeling a semblance of anything for his only living son, bastard though he was.

"Oliver, what to _do_ with you," he sighed tiredly. "I am told that the apple does not fall far from the tree. I cannot prove it, and you may or may not have killed my true son, my Dominic. _He_ was never a disappointment to me like you have been, but I do know one thing. You're _no_ son of mine."

Oliver, almost in slow motion, slowly lifted his head, and Jack was not at all surprised to see unshed moisture, wretched tears, glistening in his son's pale blue orbs.

He truly was a broken bastard, his only surviving son. Taped and held together at the seams, but still alive.

"You wish _now_ that our places had been exchanged," he whispered hoarsely, blinking back a fresh wave of salty, briny tears, and swallowing hard. "That _I_ had died, and Dominic had _lived_."

Jack pursed his lips into a thin line.

" _Yes_ ," he growled, lowering his voice to almost a hushed whisper and actively avoided his son's gaze, careful to keep the dagger hidden in his sleeve.

" _Yes, I wish that_ ," Jack hissed languidly, shaking back the sleeve of his robe.

Clutched in his hand in an ironclad grip rested the dagger. "Perhaps then, my son, the time has finally come for you to find _peace_."

Off to his right, something silver glistened out of Ollie's peripheral vision, and given their close physical proximity distance, he barely had the time to dodge the blade as it hurled towards him, though by whatever grace Merlin had chosen to bestow on a broken bastard like him, he managed to wrap his hands around his father's wrists, staving the dagger from reaching its intended target.

_Him_.

Ollie felt his hand begin to shake violently, as the knife quivered in his hold, his lips trembling as he looked into the cold brown eyes of the man he had once called Father, the man's eyes no longer filled with eased confidence and cold indifference.

He cursed himself for his own blindness. Why had he not seen the truth that much sooner? Ollie did not know who he was angrier with in this moment: Father or himself.

_Not Father_ , he thought, seething through gritted teeth. _Just Jack_.

The pressure in Ollie's head finally exploded along with a blood-curdling scream that caused the own hairs on the back of his neck to stand up as he grunted and growled with the effort, tearing the dagger away from him and plunged it into Jack Brennan's chest.

He dove at Jack, tackling him to the ground, and plunged his father's knife, the very same dagger, Ollie noticed, that had caused the hundreds of scars that littered his torso and arms, all of them made when he was a little boy, no older than five or six.

He dug the dagger deep into Jack's chest with such a raging passion that Ollie swore he felt his pupils shrink.

A series of memories flitting through his mind as though it were a Pensieve rolled in his mind and with it, it equaled a hard rip through flesh.

The other kids in Hogwarts that ganged up on him in his first year and dunked his head in a toilet in one of the bathrooms, his mother leaving him and Dominic alone with just their father for company, sunsets spent on the mezzanine of their balcony, his friendship with Charlie and Tonks.

And Norah. A beautiful werewolf with a tough-as-nails exterior that she had adapted to hide her pain from the rest of the world. Cobalt blue eyes.

The most beautiful thing to happen to him.

Norah saving him and Tonks from those wild centaurs with just the Sword of Gryffindor, not even needing her wand to defend herself, Norah in her long silver dress the night of Remus and Dora's wedding, Norah terribly sick in his arms, crying over the loss of her husband and son, Norah glaring at him before erupting into an explicit stream of cuss words that Remus Lupin would have shouted at her for saying in the company of his now three-day-old baby son.

Norah taking the simple white lily he had offered her, smiling at him underneath the willow and elm trees. Her lips pressed against his with fervor, how her skin was ticklish at the nape of her neck.

Ollie felt his strength began to drain away as he made one last push of his father's blade into Jack's lungs, Ollie's blood-slimed fingers remained still and unmoved, despite the spasmodic twitch now and again.

His father's lifeless form crumpled to the ground and Ollie felt himself collapse back against the overly large boulder behind him, using the rock as a support brace as he hung his head in shame, bathed in his father's blood, that precious life force, and wept.

His shoulders started to heave in the sweet release of his life's worth of anguish and pain, his throat screaming for relief, just a single drop of water, and hot rapid tears marred his blurred vision.

Up ahead, he swore he heard the sound of a twig snapping and leaves crunching underfoot reach his throbbing, ringing eardrums, and between Ollie's convulsive catching of his breaths unrecognized between his hysterical fits of laughter and sobbing as he tugged on tufts of his hair to relieve himself of the pain of what he'd just done, he looked.

Tonks and Lupin stood by, their faces drained of color, and their normally kind expressions now spoiled by what Ollie could only describe as a look of an intense, incredulous, psychological disturbance at what their friend had just done to his father.

His wide blue eyes peered between his raven-black bangs drenched in sweat and blood, his father's blood, as he shakily took a faltering step forward towards his friends, though not before pausing to kick aside his father's corpse with his boot, shooting Jack Brennan one last look of disgust.

Jack Brennan lay face-up on the forest floor, his dead brown eyeless lifeless, staring numbly at the trees' canopy above his head, a massive cavity adorning his chest, staining his shirt crimson, the dagger still stuck in his chest, and there, Ollie knew it would stay.

Ollie felt his entire body instinctively stiffen as he took a half-step towards Remus and Tonks, watching as Lupin clenched his jaws, his gaze flitting from Ollie's disheveled, bloodied state and back to his father's corpse which still lay unmoved on the ground.

"Are you hurt? Did Jack hurt you? Do you need a Healer, Ollie?" was the first thing Remus asked of Ollie as Dora's husband gave him a quick once-over, though it had become almost impossible to discern what blood belonged to Ollie, and which was his father's.

He mutely shook his head, grinding his teeth and nervously focusing his attention on his best friend.

"T?" he questioned, his voice cracking and breaking under the strain of attempting to speak. "Say something," he stammered.

His voice cracked and broke as tears streamed down his cheeks.

If Tonks was disturbed by the aftermath of what had transpired between her best friend and his father, Tonks hid it well.

"C'mon, Ol," she murmured, draping one of his arms around her waist and supporting him as his equilibrium was still off. "Let's get you _home_ ," she said, no hint of accusatory judgment in her tone.

" _Home_ ," he repeated hoarsely, feeling fresh tears well up in his eyes again, though this time, thankfully, they were tears of happiness. "Home sounds good to me, T. Let's go home, then…"

Ollie allowed Lupin and Tonks to lead him out of the woods behind their cottage and back to the backyard, where Norah sat on the bottom steps, playing with baby Teddy, entranced by the baby's natural Metamorphmagus abilities to change his hair, and Ollie didn't bother to stop the smile that formed on his face as he took a closer look and saw that the baby boy had changed its hair to resemble hers, a soft golden yellow that rivaled the color of the sun.

Ollie did not dare let himself look back once over his shoulder, for that segment of his life had just died along with Jack Brennan.

This, he thought as he looked around at Lupin and Tonks and Norah holding onto baby Teddy, _this_ was his home now.

And he wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

* * *

**A/N: I was initially not going to have Ollie kill his father, thinking I didn't want my poor cinnamon roll to have even more blood on his hands, but considering what a creep* Jack Brennan is, I thought, even if Ollie DID let him go, the man would never stop hunting him down in the effort to humiliate him & eventually kill him, and Jack did just sort of try to kill his own son, so there's that. **

**The next chapter (freaking finally!) has Remadora and Nollie back at Hogwarts so that Remus can start to prepare for a new term in September and Tonks can get used to being back at the school, and hopefully this time, her talent for trouble won't get her into trouble!**

**Oh, and _Vielen Dank=_ thank you!**


	115. To Be Home

**A/N: So I know I said I was gonna do up to like 120 but after even just writing out this chapter, I feel…drained, I guess, at how long* this fic wound up being, like holy crap, it started out as a 40 chapter outline and morphed into this colossal 'thing.'**

**Don't get me wrong, this project is kind of my baby and I love it, given it's the longest bloody fic I've ever written, but I'd rather not drag it on unnecessarily and fill it with too much more filler stuff, plus my focus is currently on my other Remadora fics on my page, _The Call of the Dark_ and _Heart of the Forsaken_ , an HBP AU and POA AU fanfic tales, respectively, so after much thought and deliberation, I've decided that 115 and the Epilogue will be the final 2 chapters of this tale.**

**I hope that I did our lovely Remadora justice and gave them the ending that they deserved, and as a consequence, this chapter might be kind of long, and the epilogue as well, but since it's the next to the last chapter, I hope you can forgive me!**

**Also, slight warning as mature themes ahead in this chapter, but I tried my hardest to keep it tasteful (I hope, but the characters in question are both adults, so whatever lol). And towards the end, I hope is a funny little light-hearted segment to break up the dark stuff.**

* * *

**115**

The daunting castle of Hogwarts almost seemed to exude a sort of intimidating aura as Lupin approached the greyed structure, with Dora lingering behind to hold Teddy in her arms and conversing with Norah and Ollie.

Each tower of the castle and turret was illuminated by the now fully risen light of the sun as light flowed over the newly repaired castle, though he could still the signs of the devastation Lord Voldemort and his followers had wreaked havoc on two nights ago, and the first thought that flitted through his mind, a selfish one though it was, was that Lupin was grateful he and his wife had not come, and that Dora's labor had started almost the second the fighting began.

He cringed, feeling guilty for even thinking this, though he knew it was pointless to try to fight it. The list of the dead was still unaccounted for, though it was estimated over a hundred lives were lost that blood-soaked red dawn as the Dark Lord attempted to siege Hogwarts. The cool hues from long ago had faded to a brighter color. The proud father and reappointed Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor gazed up at the turrets in awe. It never failed to impress him.

His worn hand slipped out from underneath the pocket of his jacket and withdrew his wand, giving it a curt wave and murmuring, " _Evanesco_!" under his breath, the spell causing his and his wife's chest of drawers, their trunks, Teddy's things, all to vanish, though he knew their belongings would be waiting for them in their quarters, for now, Lupin just wanted to take a walk.

To walk through those doors, this time, as a free man, liberated from Dolores Jane Umbridge's Anti-Werewolf Legislation Act, as a proud husband and father to his beloved wife and precious son.

A man who now held a steady job with a stable income, a job that he was passionate about, and he had believed Professor Snape when he had stopped by bringing news of Alastor's death that the students prior to the Battle's commencement, all had been clamoring for him to return to Hogwarts, with several kids claiming he had been the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher they had ever had, excelling in a practical approach, though as Remus looked up at the cathedral, he paused.

Every single time that he stood on the school's steps like he was now, a certain uneasiness always filled his chest, and this morning was no exception. He rose a shaking hand to his tired eyes (Teddy had kept them up for a good portion of the evening) and rubbed gingerly over the surface of the rough skin. A scattered sigh managed to escape his lips.

His world, thanks to Harry Potter defeating the Dark Lord, would never be the same. The way that he saw the world was no longer confined to his simple tumbledown shack that he had been forced to live in for most of his life due to the nature of his inability to find decent work, at least back then. But things were different now. The world was a bigger and brighter place because of Harry Potter and the boy's efforts.

Lupin's hand moved to the back of his neck as he rolled his neck to crack it and felt his ears give a twitch and he involuntarily jumped and stiffened as he felt a delicate hand on his shoulder. It was Dora, he noticed, as he turned his head to the side to see Tonks smiling at him.

"Together," she murmured in a low voice, lowering her voice so that only he could hear her, though it didn't stop Ollie and Norah from shooting questionable looks to the nervous way he was looking up at the castle.

He opened his mouth to speak, though he lowered his gaze and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, unable to stop the crushing feeling of guilt as the familiar tacking of Professor McGonagall's boot heels rushed out to greet the school's new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor and his wife. McGonagall looked as though she had aged ten years in the last two days alone, and Remus was startled to see so many hard lines on her face.

His gaze remained fixed in the distance for a few moments as Minerva halted in her footsteps, her sharp, inquisitive eyes flitting from Remus's expression to Tonks's melancholic look as she assessed her husband's morose look and the Transfiguration Professor guessed correctly in that Tonks was thinking of Moody's death, and how much of an impact not being at the battle to fight alongside their friends and family had impacted the two of them, given they were Order members.

"Your son is beautiful, Professor Lupin, Nymphadora," Minerva offered kindly, smiling down through her silver lenses at the sight of baby Teddy Lupin cooing in his mother's arms. "May I?" she asked hopefully.

Tonks momentarily looked surprised by the strange request, but quickly relinquished her baby and gingerly transferred her son over to Professor McGonagall's arms. "Be sure to support his head, Professor," she said.

Professor McGonagall shot the new mother a little knowing smile and a curt nod of her head.

"Of course, dear," she sighed, turning towards Remus, her smile faltering as she surveyed the look of abject guilt and horror on Professor Lupin's face. "I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through. _All_ of you," she added for emphasis, her gaze flitting from Remus to Tonks and then to Ollie and Norah, both of whom gave a tiny little nod, but Minerva was pleased to see, and as a result, barely suppressed her soft smile that formed at the edges of her mouth, Professor Snape's best and brightest former student holding hands with the young blonde werewolf, the other arm wrapped around her waist in order to help support the poor dear since her burnt leg was still bound in a cast and the young woman walked with a pronounced limp.

"We lost many two nights ago, including Alastor. He was a kind man with a good heart, and he will be missed. I know how much the man meant to the both of you," Minerva sighed, noticing as Tonks cringed at the mention of her mentor and friend, and something of a father figure to her. "This is between you and Merlin, Professor. I'll give you and your wife some time to get well acquainted. Miss Jameson and Mr. Brennan feel free to explore whatever part of the castle you like. If you're interested, those of us who have chosen to remain at the school throughout the summer to assist with the repairs, what little there is left to do," she added with a tired sigh, "we're hosting something of a light lunch later in the Great Hall if you all get hungry enough once you get settled."

Without another word, she walked away, still holding baby Teddy in her arms, though she paused when she heard Lupin protest.

"Professor McGonagall, a moment, please!" Remus admonished in a hardened yet stunned voice of utter disbelief. "Where do you think you're going? Get back here right _now_ , Minerva! That's my _newborn son_ you're _holding_!"

Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek, stifling a tiny grin as Minerva McGonagall slowly pivoted at the waist to regard Remus with an incredulous but unusually stern look on her face that instantly caused her husband to recoil and grip onto his wife's hand for support.

"Yes, Professor, it would seem that he is," she sighed sarcastically, glancing down at Teddy in her arms. "Need I _remind_ you, _Professor_ , that I was well aware of three third-year-students once upon a time practicing to become _illegal_ Animagi so they could be by your side during your monthly transformations and said and did _nothing_ , thinking you needed the company since it would ensure your safety. I shall return your son to you in approximately one hour. The other staff here need a reminder that hope and love still exist in this world," she murmured, not bothering this time to hide the small smile that crept onto her lips, turning the edges of her mouth upwards. "Use this time alone to get settled. Take a walk. _Rest_. Do whatever suits your needs. Your son shall be returned to you in an hour, but until then, _I_ will be watching him, and you would be utter fools to argue."

The Transfiguration Professor spoke in a clipped and curt tone that was uttered with such finality and sternness that Lupin and Tonks knew better than to argue, and the new parents collectively nodded. Professor McGonagall offered a slight incline of her head in return, saying nothing, and turned away with baby Teddy swaddled comfortably in her arms.

Lupin froze, still feeling somewhat dumbfounded, but quickly shook his head to clear it, and gripped onto Tonks's hand as Dora took the lead, sensing her husband was going to need some encouragement and allowed himself to be led inside the large double doors of the castle.

Remus was not sure he would ever get used to people approaching him in the middle of crowded streets for no reason other than to speak with him these days, now that the stigma on lycanthropy and other werewolves like him was slowly being lifted, and people with his affliction were becoming more and more accepted and integrated into polite society, and he could only hope that in time, his reappointed position as Defense Against the Dark Arts would inspire other werewolves like him to seek to make better lives for themselves, in time.

Tonks spoke up from beside him as they said a brief goodbye to Ollie and Norah, who wanted to go explore the upper levels and assess the repairs of the castle, and Tonks could tell Remus was exhausted.

Though she made no move to drag him up the Grand Staircase and towards their prepared quarters on the second floor, content instead to stay put holding her husband's hand a little while longer. This was it.

Where their actions had led them. For better or worse, Hogwarts was now to become their new home from now until the end of the term, and Tonks thought it was strange how, even after all this time, it was a strange feeling, foreign to her almost, how much she loved Remus.

It felt natural. Like she did not have to try to hide or alter any aspect of her appearance behind her Metamorphmaging abilities. He loved all of her, exactly the way that she was. She couldn't ask for anything more than that, really. Tonks furrowed her brows and glanced around at the newly repaired castle, that, apart from a speck of dust here and there, you could hardly tell just two nights ago, Hogwarts had almost been ravaged. Tonks knew that tragedies, especially shared traumas, were a finicky thing. Some bound others to a place, while others drove them away.

But Tonks had a sinking feeling in the pit of her churning stomach that hers and Remus's were unique, something shared just for them. Just them, and them alone. Which, in its own twisted way, she guessed, was kind of nice. Tonks scoffed, rolling her eyes, and tugged Lupin forward slightly, with the intent on heading up the Grand Staircase to check out their quarters, the place that they would call home for the next several months.

They did not speak until the two of them reached their quarters, and Tonks was pleasantly surprised to see their room was bigger than she had expected.

A four post-king-size bed, a chest of drawers, two nightstands, a writing desk near the only window in the room, and connected to the bedroom was a tiny bathroom. Tonks was appreciative that the Headmaster and whoever else had a hand in setting up their quarters had done their best to make it feel as warm and welcoming as possible, and she didn't hesitate to collapse onto the bed and stare up at the ceiling.

It felt as though since Teddy had been born, she had slept so little, and already, the fatigue of just the journey here was wearing on her, and she was rewarded a moment later as her husband joined her on the bed, wrapping his arms around her middle. "Dora?" Tonks blinked, slowly swiveling her head on the pillow to look over at Remus.

She was surprised to hear how small and meek his voice sounded, not like him at all, and she wondered what the sudden shift in the man's countenance was for. "What is it, Rem?" Tonks murmured, concerned, propping her elbows up on the bed and resting her chin in her hands.

He said nothing in response, at least not at first, merely choosing instead to kiss the lobe of her ear slightly, sending a shiver of delight down her spine. "How did I ever manage to find a woman as wise as you, and one so beautiful?" he questioned, sounding truly curious now.

Tonks smiled gently and returned Lupin's kiss. "If I'm so wise, it's only because of _your_ influence, Rem," she retorted as she propped herself even more up onto the bed to better look her husband in the eye. And this was true. He made her want to be better, a better partner and lover to him, and a better mother to their son, without even trying.

He kissed her forehead, and then gently bent his head down until his lips captured hers in a passionate kiss. A reverberating crack of thunder from outside startled them both, causing them to break apart in alarm. He laughed and pulled her even closer, kissing the tip of her nose playfully before resting his forehead against hers. "Thank you," he whispered.

Tonks was puzzled and frowned at Lupin. "For what?" she asked.

"For being so wonderful," came his answer.

She smiled and rested a hand against her cheek, stifling a yawn. "Only because you bring out the best in me," she replied before kissing him again. "You and I, love, we complete each other. Never forget that, not for an instant. And if you do, well, I'll remind you."

Her husband wrapped his arms around her waist. "You give yourself too little credit, Dora. You've done so much good for me and my life than you'll ever know, and I hope one day to make you understand," he said as he took her arm and guided her back towards their bed. She did not protest as he helped her gently get into bed and climbed in after her.

"As do you," she responded sleepily, reaching up and pushing away a lock of stray hair away from his face as he propped himself up on one elbow to look down at her.

Sleep was catching up with her quickly now, Tonks would never admit it out loud, but this recovery from her pregnancy was exhausting her. "I love you," she murmured quietly as she closed her eyes and her breathing evened.

Lupin gazed down at his wife for a long moment, smiling as he smoothed her strands away from her forehead.

"I love you too," he whispered as he gently lay down next to her carefully to not disturb her, draping his arm around her abdomen. "Both of you, Dora, you and Teddy. Don't forget it, or I'll have to remind you every single day of our lives," he whispered as the thunder died down to a nearly inaudible rumble and the rhythm of the rain against the roof slowed until coupled with his wife's soft breathing, it lulled him to sleep.

* * *

Ollie tried his best not to stare at anyone in particular, though he _swore_ he heard the whispers behind his back as the two of them climbed the Grand Staircase at a grueling snail's pace. Norah and Ollie crossed through the passageway that led up onto the roof of the Astronomy Tower, both of them drawn to the very place where Norah had almost lost her life two nights ago.

Despite Norah's insistence that everything would be fine, everything was most assuredly not fine as the moment the two of them separated from Remus and Dora's company, the small crowd around Ollie and Norah had parted like the Red bloody Sea, the buzzing sounds of their hushed whisperings dying quicker than a gust of wind would blow through the air, and Ollie was quick to decide he hated it.

Out of the corner of his peripherals, he saw a few of the lesser-known staff of Hogwarts, elders, mostly, hold eyes of suspicion, but on the whole, the teachers seemed more interested (inappropriately so, in his mind) of the nature of his relationship with Norah more than anything else.

He noticed that while they inclined their heads as a show of respect to the man who had managed to kill Fenrir Greyback, as well as countless numbers of those within his father's ranks, Death Eaters, that as soon as he passed them by on the stairwell, they proceeded to look at Norah's fatigued and limping figure with what the man could only describe as anger and pity.

At first, the Legilimens figured they thought his connection to her was one of a contemptible nature, that he was only with her to satiate his own desires, but the staff, save for Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape, who all knew the truth, could not have been further from the truth.

Ollie bit the wall of his cheek, wondering if he had ever been in a situation more awkward than this, and only the touch of Norah's hand in his kept him anchored in his present reality.

His eyes slid instinctively towards Norah, who was pretending to crane her neck to the left and right to look at all the portraits, waving to a few that she recognized. Sir Cadogan in particular, was delighted to see the former Gryffindor again, much to Ollie's amusement, the bumbling old fool of a knight fell off his horse.

He wasn't fooled though. He saw quite easily the nervous demeanor she was exhibiting, how she was stealing uneasy glances at him out of the corner of her pale blue orbs.

Norah couldn't explain it even if her throat was held at wandpoint and she was given a split second to come up with an answer, thinking she wouldn't be able to, but she wanted to visit the roof again. She knew tragedies were a funny thing, though she thought in her own way, by visiting the sight of her near-death encounter, that it would be closure for her, and she could put it behind her again.

Their progress was slow, as the two of them made their way up the Grand Staircase due to the nature of Norah's injuries, and simply enjoying being in one another's presence, with Ollie pointing out various facts of the moving portraits hung along the walls.

Norah supposed she should have been apprehensive coming back to Hogwarts, and in the company of a man who wasn't Wes, but she wasn't. What surprised the young blonde She-Wolf the most was how comfortable she felt around Ollie as if he and something else that she could not identify were welcoming here to a place where she should have always been.

The young blonde witch told herself that surely it was due to her newfound relationship with Ollie, why she felt like this. Unaware of her wistful expression, she let out a tiny sigh.

Norah stiffened, her shoulders rising in defense slightly before looking back towards the portraits, furrowing her brows. Ollie blinked before he quickly realized he'd been staring at his girlfriend longer than was appropriate, though it was hard for him not to. But Merlin's Beard, she was the most captivating thing he thought he had ever laid eyes on, and to call Norah his girlfriend felt like a surreal, beautiful dream.

 _One I never want to wake up from_. She was strong, independent, could hold her own in a fight without her wand.

A man could conquer the whole country of Great Britain with a woman like Norah Jameson by his side, Ollie thought.

His good mood instantly dissipating, his soft smile sliding off his face like Stinksap as he realized Norah's face held a stricken look. It was a look of dread as her cobalt blue eyes darkened the moment they reached the door that led out onto the Astronomy Tower, and Ollie realized she was growing lost in the memory of that night when Norah almost died.

Anger surged through his veins, boiling his bloodstream hotter than dragon fire could flame as he himself was having trouble blocking out visions of faces he would sooner rather forget. Father, Master Crouch, his stepmother, Greyback…

Ollie froze as his father's emotionless face and listless dark brown eyes flitted to the forefront of his tormented mind. _Father_. He stiffened at even just the thought of Jack Brennan, the only one who had looked upon him and had tried his best to raise him as his son, bastard son though he was, and had deceived him, disowned him during his lonesome years of being trapped in the Brennan family manor until he had moved in with Tonks and her family when he was twenty.

Ollie barely stifled his growl of anger as he squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to rid himself of yesterday's events, though he knew he would never be able to. _Norah. Focus on her_. He slowly opened his eyes and swiveled his head to find his girlfriend staring at him in a pensive but worried manner.

Desperate to ease her worry, Ollie laid what he hoped was a reassuring hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"You don't have to do this, you know. We can leave," Ollie murmured, whispering it into the shell of her ear, already knowing it was a futile attempt to try to convince Norah to come away, that she did not need to do this to herself.

Norah, as he had anticipated her to, shook her head no in response. " _No_ , Ollie," she growled, a low warning note in her hoarse tone that suggested to him not to argue with his girlfriend. "I _do_ ," she murmured, reaching out a shaking hand and turned the knob of the door and stepped onto the roof.

She did not say it in so many words, but he could hear her thoughts. _We do_ , Norah thought, reaching for his hand.

The distorted view of the Astronomy Tower slowly came to focus as the pair stepped out onto the rooftop. Due to the nature of the thunderstorm, though the rain had long since stopped, it was the kind of darkness above their heads that was bleak, dark, mysterious, and you couldn't see very much.

The kind of night, if Ollie was being honest with himself, that he would rather stay at home than be out in, but he had promised Norah that he would come, his birthday and what he wanted or not, be Merlin-damned. The pair of them stood out on the roof in a pocket of the thick fog that swooped and skirted around the various turrets and parapets of the castle. Norah stood in a pocket of it, but it only seemed like it.

She knew that they were swallowed too, erased, eradicated by this enveloping whiteness. It hurt her eyes.

It was so bloody and blindingly white. Staring at her it made Norah feel like she was staring at herself, staring at nothing. Her mind fought hard to drum up a thousand different descriptions to plaster across it.

But there was nothing that could truly describe nothing. Each thought she had seemed loud and exposed, just like every movement she made in the silence that wrapped like the fog around her. Maybe the fog was somehow in her, just as she was in it.

"Here, you should sit, Norah, you're looking tired, Nor. _Sit_ , before you pass out on me and I have to save you again," Ollie murmured, his weak attempt at a joke falling flat, but it was more than enough to break Norah out of her concentration.

Norah tore her gaze away from the swirling mist and dark black and purple thunderclouds above their heads, as she turned to look at her boyfriend as he made a motion to wave his wand as he dipped into the pocket of his jeans, though was halted in his movements as she stopped him, smiling softly and took his hand, much to his confusion, and dragged him over to the ledge of the rooftop, and sat precariously at the ledge, her legs dangling over the edge, in almost the exact same position he had found her up here two nights ago, thank Merlin, though, this time, without Greyback by her side digging his claws into her side.

"Your wounds? Do they hurt?" Ollie asked, a concerned look on his face as Norah's face twisted and contorted into a pained grimace.

"They're fine, Ollie," Norah murmured softly, looking away from Ollie and out into the swooping, skirting mist that blanketed the grounds of Hogwarts. "They twinge now and again, but I'm going to be fine," she whispered. "Thanks to you," she croaked hoarsely, finally turning to look at Ollie. "You saved my life. Not only a few nights ago, but…from _him_ ," she whispered, wincing as her boyfriend's cobalt blue orbs darkened, almost cerulean in color as he thought of his father.

The truth had been right before his eyes all this time. Ollie released all his stress in one single breath as he ducked his head and looked away, allowing a lock of his black bangs to fall in front of his eyes and shielding Norah's face from him. Ollie drew in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he sat on the ledge next to Norah, stricken with the sudden realization and hurt that his father was…gone. Murdered. _By me_ , he thought, and he flinched, swearing he tasted bitter acidic stomach bile that lingered on his tongue.

How could all of that have been a lie? Had Father never loved him? Tears of betrayal and crushing guilt stung and marred the edges of his blurred vision as he struggled to wrap his mind around the concept of what it was that he had done. He felt as though his entire miserable, wretched life up to this point had been brainwashed by evil. First by Father, and then by Master Crouch when Barty Crouch Jr. had taken him hostage, and even now, he admitted he loved his father.

Ollie had been unwaveringly loyal to the man, had respected Father, and obeyed him. There had never been love, no purpose in his father's life other than to be a pawn to his schemes, used as nothing more than a tool to bring hurt, death, and destruction upon those who dared oppose the Dark Lord and his massive armies of followers at his command.

"Ollie…?" Norah's cautious half-smile faded as her bright blue eyes turned dangerously somber for her boyfriend.

Her voice was passionate, just the same as it had been the night that his whispered words of love had brought her back, and he became so enveloped in a torpid whirl of dark memories that he did not even feel Norah's hand on his arm.

"Ollie. It's done. He—he can't hurt you anymore. You did what you had to do to protect yourself. And… _us_."

Her words, soft but harsh, finally broke him out of his stupor, and gazed down his nose at his girlfriend with a look that was conflicted and heartbroken. Norah's face fell and became crestfallen as she realized just how much of an impact Death Eater Jack Brennan had on the poor man, so much influence.

Ollie slowly shook his head, his black bangs still hanging like a curtain in front of his face, though Norah itched to reach up with her hand and swipe them out of his eyes, forcing her to look at him. "Why did you go?" he asked, his voice cracking and breaking as he lifted his chin to look at Norah.

Norah froze, having anticipated he would ask this question at some point during the still very much early days of their new relationship, but she hadn't anticipated it would be now. Her lungs suddenly felt starved for breath as a vision of her husband danced in front of her eyes, Wes watching them.

In his simple white shirt and jeans, he looked every bit the wolf that Norah knew her deceased husband to be, yet his face was so sullen and careworn it sent a chill down her spine. Wes mouthed her name, but she could not hear his voice.

Norah longed to reach out to touch him and their three-year-old son in his arms, to feel them, to ensure they were real. She stretched out a trembling hand, watching as her arm became engulfed in the thick white mist, and she barely managed to stifle a low, pitiful whine as the apparition vanished, fading from view.

When she tried to speak their names, it felt as though there was a gag in her mouth, as her tongue felt thick in his mouth.

"I…" Norah's voice trailed off. "I…had to…." Norah whispered in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper, speechless, before she rose to leave, grimacing and stifling a groan at the pain in her leg, though before she could rise to her feet, Ollie's hand shot out and latched onto her forearm, preventing her from leaving him.

" _No_ ," he growled darkly. "Not again. Not a second time." His already naturally pale face drained of color as Norah slowly lifted her gaze to look into Ollie Brennan's pale blue orbs, burning bright with a smoldering rage and a horrible, antagonized hurt. If only she _knew_ the effect she had on him…

"…she killed them…I…couldn't let her kill you too," Norah soon managed to croak out, turning away from Ollie.

She ducked her head in shame and hot embarrassment as a light pink blush speckled along her cheeks, not wanting Ollie to see her like this. "Y—your father was too far gone," Norah whispered hatefully, wanting to steer the conversation back towards the topic of Jack Brennan's murder, as what had happened yesterday was plaguing his mind and haunting him.

"…please, just… _don't_ …" Ollie struggled, his voice warbling and it sounded as though he were blinking back tears. "I _know_ what he did, Norah, all right?" he snapped back, rather roughly, and he winced as he witnessed Norah flinch away in both hurt and surprise. "But…he—he was all I had. _All_ I had," he groaned, turning away and finally cracked and broke down, shifting at the waist and shielding himself from her view as to finally try to be alone, but he could not have been more wrong.

He was not alone, and neither was Norah. Not anymore. Norah pursed her lips into a thin line and bit the wall of her cheek as she tapped him on the shoulder.

The moment he lifted his gaze and turned with his tear-stricken face to meet her gaze, she took his chin in hers and firmly cupped it, tilting his head slightly upward, thereby forcing Ollie to meet her hardened glacier blue stare.

"Ollie, _look at me_ ," she commanded in a hardened voice that she knew was beginning to sound like her old self again, for which she was relieved. "What you did yesterday was right. That man would have continued following us and hunting us both until he would have surely killed us. Even when…" Her voice trailed off as she remembered the lustful way Herr Jack Brennan had looked at her yesterday in the Lupin's living room. She swallowed down hard past a lump in her throat and continued. "You're strong, Ollie. Stronger than you give yourself credit for. You're way stronger than me, than anyone else I've ever _known_ , to be willing to risk your own life for me, for what you think is right, even if it's…against your family."

Ollie's pale blue orbs, so tearful and conflicted wavered slightly as he dared not look away, but after a second, they closed.

"I—I didn't know that he…that he…would…I couldn't…let him…kill us…" But his voice cracked, and he couldn't complete his thought as he buried his face in his hands. Norah let out a tiny sigh and forced Ollie's hands down to rest in his lap, firmly gripping onto both of the man's wrists.

She scooted a fraction of an inch closer and heaved a tiny groan as she used what little strength was left that she hadn't exerted from climbing so many bloody stairs of the Grand Staircase to sit up here with him, at the top of the world, until the young blonde werewolf was straddling his lap.

Norah did not hesitate to wrap her arms around Ollie's middle, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on top of his hair.

A rather suggestive-looking embrace and she sincerely hoped one of the teachers, or even worse, Remus or Tonks wouldn't come looking for them up here. She blushed as a fiery heat began its rapid ascent in her chest.

The hug was a simple enough gesture—affection, love. The arms that held Ollie were soft, yet strong. The feel of Norah's body so close to his and she did not flinch or shirk away soothed Ollie's broken heart more than he had expected.

Despite her initial and intense dislike and hatred for the Death Eater who had, at least as far as Norah knew, come into their friends' home unannounced and what he had put Ollie through, she knew the man was still close to his father, as a son. He was a son who had just lost his father to _insanity_.

"I'm so _sorry_ , Ollie," Norah apologized guiltily, her voice strained as a single tear escaped her right eyelid and slid down her cheek and landed on top of Ollie's head. "I didn't mean to be so insensitive by being so fucking _rude_ about it. He was your _father_. He meant a great deal to you, Ollie. Mourn him if it helps you to heal."

"H—he was going to use me…use me to get to you…"

Norah nodded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, never wanting to admit this out loud, but she was grateful Ollie had killed his own father. The man was a vicious bastard. Wicked.

The world was better off without a man like that around, and North said as much in the effort to get Ollie to see the light that what he did was right, even if it didn't feel like it.

"It was wrong that your father, he used you, Ollie," Norah said softly, allowing her hand to drift upwards and rake her fingers through his thick tuft of black hair.

She sighed tiredly, thinking he would need a trim soon, but she would take care of it later after they left Hogwarts and went back home to Wales.

She continued, knowing her boyfriend needed to hear this. "None of this was _your_ doing, Ollie. You _know_ that, _I_ know this, Remus and Tonks know the truth, and I hope you understand it," Norah murmured, gently carding her fingers through his hair in a way that elicited a tremor of pleasure down his spine.

The poor man was constantly enduring hardship after hardship following the Battle of Hogwarts.

Norah glanced down as she felt Ollie lower his head for a moment before craning it and shifting her position on his lap, both of his hands coming to grip almost painfully tight on her waist, his fingers clutching onto her black t-shirt for support.

"…thank you, Norah," Ollie managed to utter as a half-choked sob was trapped in his throat. As he whispered his gratitude like it was a hushed, dirty secret, their gazes locked as ice met ice.

"You have a big heart, Ollie. I don't know that I would possess such compassion to care for a man who'd brought so much hurt to me," Norah whispered. "You're more of a man than he ever gave you credit for, and don't let anybody tell you differently."

Ollie let out a haggard sigh, his chest shaking as he lifted his chin and turned to their immediate left and looked out into the swooping thick white fog that threatened to engulf the pair of them on the rooftop of the Astronomy Tower.

He swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat, fighting in vain to fight down the salty liquid gathering at the edges of his eyes as he slowly turned his gaze back to Norah.

"…a man…my father was not a man, Norah. He was...a monster..." Ollie swallowed; his voice pulled tight.

Norah furrowed her light blonde brows into a frown, sensing there was more Ollie wanted to say, but she did not give him a chance as she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, squeezing lightly, ignoring the brief shot of pain that spiraled up as a white-hot lightning flare in her injured leg, as she captured his head with her hands and pressed her lips to his.

The moment their lips touched; the entire rooftop of the Astronomy Tower vanished instantly. Her eyes fell closed, and all Norah could feel was Ollie.

His warmth, his touch. Just him.

Norah's heart ached with a heavy desire for her new boyfriend, her still-healing injuries be Merlin-damned and could go to hell for all she cared when his arms wrapped tighter around her back before drifting to the back of her skull, pressing in slightly.

She could feel hot tears stinging in her eyes, and when Ollie pulled away to gasp for air, she yanked him back roughly before he could protest, her lips meeting his with fervor. She was intoxicated—Norah knew she was bewitching him, but it didn't matter.

Nothing would matter after this. She had never had anything that was 'good enough.'

Except for this, and nothing could stop this, this thing that was happening between the two of them that was so exhilarating.

 _Nothing_.

She knew they bloody shouldn't, given the extent of her injuries, but it was already too far gone now.

Ollie reached up and stroked back a stray wisp of Norah's blonde pixie that had fallen out of its proper place, and he let out a content sigh as Norah leaned into his hand, basking in his touch, not caring that his hands were scarred or calloused and rough, not at all smooth. He exhaled slowly.

She was hypnotizing him, the little minx, and the look in Jameson's bright blue eyes suggested she bloody _knew_ it.

Ollie pulled back to study Norah's flushed face, her cheeks a pale pink and high with color, her kiss-swollen lips, though she made no move to untangle her legs from being wrapped around his waist, and he decided he liked feeling her this way, even if it looked like the two of them were in a suggestive embrace if someone were to stumble across them.

Ollie knew they should stop this before it led to something much more passionate and much more dangerous, to say nothing of on top of the roof of the Astronomy Tower, but the sensations felt so good, and he didn't want it to stop.

His head felt like it was pounding and this time, when Norah leaned in for a second kiss, he gingerly pushed her back, forcing Norah to pull back slightly with a confused look.

"Ol, what's wrong? You…you don't like it?" she asked, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout, biting down on it.

He looked pained. "N—no. I—I do, I just… _here_?" he gulped nervously. "The Astronomy Tower?! And your injuries, it's too soon for this, Norah, and I…" He cringed, cursing himself and looking away for a moment. "I've never… _done_ this before," Ollie murmured, whispering his confession like a dirty, shameful secret.

Norah leaned into his embrace, her eyes aching for him, and Ollie reddened like mad at the look of absolute desire. He was confused as well.

It was wrong of him to want this here.

He looked at the hurt look on Norah's face and let out a sigh, reaching up to stroke a few strands of her golden blonde hair.

"You're beautiful, Nor," he murmured, unable to tear his gaze away from the young blonde werewolf, though the second she stiffened and grew almost still at his words, he knew he'd said something wrong, and he cursed himself, surprised at her shift in countenance.

Her brilliant blue eyes brimmed with unshed tears, fell from his face as Norah buried her face in the crook of his shoulder.

 _"Don't_ ," she pleaded, shaking her head. " _Don't_ call me that," Norah begged in a heart-wrenching voice.

Immediately sensing he had overstepped some invisible boundary just now, Ollie grew worried, a stab of fear pricking at his heartstrings.

"What… _should_ I call you then?" he asked. "Why? What is this? What's wrong, Norah?" he asked, feeling utterly confused as he refused to let this woman off his lap.

Norah did not immediately answer him and refused to look at Ollie, ashamed.

She finally pulled away and drew in a breath, fully ready to explain why she couldn't take his compliment but found that her tongue refused her words' release.

His grip on her waist and her back tightened even more, and as he pulled her closer onto his lap so that she was resting against his chest, somehow, perhaps soothed by her boyfriend's reassuring touch, Norah found her resolve to tell Ollie the painful truth, that she had never been beautiful.

"No one, save for…" She gulped. "Wes," she whispered, wincing as she saw Ollie's jaw muscles twitch in a moment of jealousy, though she chose to ignore it and continued, "has _ever_ thought me to be beautiful," she confessed, still unable to lift her chin and meet Ollie's pained gaze. "Everyone at Hogwarts when I came here to go to school, they _laughed_ at me, made fun of me, spit on me once they found out I was a…werewolf. They tried to…to put a collar and a leash on Wes and I…parade us around the…the hallways like we were _pets_." Her blue eyes became glossy and glassed over as she recollected her colorful past. "I was nothing but a _joke_ , Ollie."

Ollie furrowed his black brows into a frown as his blood began to boil at the people throughout Norah's life who had tortured her for her condition that she had no control over.

He wished he could rip them apart limb from limb with his own bare hands. His heart ached for her. He did not speak.

Ollie rested his forehead against hers and held her close, hoping that just the simplistic intimacy of holding her like this would cure all of her hurt, that he could absorb it and keep it as his own, though he knew that it couldn't. Not really.

Norah grabbed onto his wrists and leaned into him, before moving her hands to entwine her fingers in his black hair.

"But don't you _get_ it, Norah? The fact that you didn't let it get to you proves that you're _strong_." Ollie pressed, desperate to make her see the truth. "That's what makes you so…so…" Ollie paused, trying to think of a word to describe her beauty and kind, compassionate heart underneath her hardened exterior in such a way that wouldn't cause her pain.

But he couldn't.

There was no other word he had to describe his girlfriend.

"… _Beautiful_ ," he murmured, grinning as he gave his head a little shake, unable to imagine anything else in this world more beautiful than the blonde werewolf and witch straddling his lap and testing the limits of his restraint.

Norah leaned into Ollie at his words as her arms slipped around his neck with ease. She looked like she was about to cry, but this time, however, it was tears of joy that choked her.

"I love you, and…happy birthday, Ollie," she whispered hoarsely through her tears, having to lean down to whisper it into the shell of his ear, and didn't even give Ollie a chance to reciprocate her words before she pressed his lips to hers, her mouth hungry and yearning for his embrace as Ollie felt her tongue envelop his. Their pulses quickened as both of them felt the same thing at what they had just confessed to one another.

The fiery ache in her body almost too much to bear, Norah tugged on fistfuls of Ollie's sweater until the man was hovering over her, and he only seemed to relent when, seeing the dark look he shot her, she sighed and reached for her wand, which had been resting near her thigh, and waved it once, conjuring blankets and a pillow. "Better?" she teased, biting down on her bottom lip.

He grunted wordlessly by way of response, signaling he did not care either way, as he reached with fumbling fingers for Norah's t-shirt and clumsily pulled it over Norah's head.

Ollie braced himself with his palms against the blankets and pinned against the cold stone roof with the pressure of his scarred but muscular body as he practically tore his sweater trying to tear it off, while still being mindful of Norah's leg.

The two of them locked eyes for just a moment, just enough for us to feel safe with one another. Then he's all business, undoing her jeans, pulling them off, kissing from her toes upward, slowly, his hands on her legs, always just a little higher than the kisses. Norah felt her back arch in anticipation, knowing where his fingers will soon reach.

Her head rocked back against the pillow as he did, the first moan escaping her lips. As Ollie thrusted inward, all Norah saw was his face, the fog completely shrouding the rest of the Astronomy Tower from view.

Their breaths rose in visible puffs and though there is a soft wind they were warm with one another. Both of them knew they were too old for outdoor sex; it really should be all silk sheets and petals, but Norah didn't care and neither did Ollie, she could tell by the look on his face. Their fingers caressed each other's skin as if afraid a heavier touch would break the heady magic.

They became one, one mind with one goal and purpose, each utterly drunk with love for the other. Ollie's hands descended and drifted down her sides, clasping onto her hips, relishing in Norah's cries of pleasure as he set a growl with each push. Her nails dug into his back, causing him pain.

But it was a sweet pain, one that he welcomed, and gone from Norah's kiss for too long, he lowered his lips to hers.

He found them just as longing as his were and worked his tongue against hers, and he let out a groan as Norah's nails dug even more into his back, thinking that he had never had anything this sensual before in his life.

Ollie had never had such an unyielding and powerful need and ache in his life, and as he reached his limit, he decided that he never wanted to move again. What he had just experienced was more than anything he could have ever imagined in his life.

He _wanted_ to be here, on top of this rooftop, with Norah in his arms, for all eternity. Norah's arms around his, her body around him. It felt so _good_. He couldn't even put it into words, so he tried to show it.

He felt Norah wriggling beneath him and he pulled her back, though shifted and pulled Norah to lie on top of him, as his lips met hers with fervor before pulling apart, letting out a content sigh as Norah laid with her head on his scarred chest for Merlin only knew how long, reveling in the rise and fall of her boyfriend's gentle breathing as he exhaled long and slow.

She blinked, momentarily startled as Ollie reached up and kissed her temple at the exact moment a cold chill wafted down her spine and Norah frowned, raising her wand and conjuring another blanket as she pulled the blanket overtop the two of them, letting out a sigh of pleasure as it felt as though Ollie's fingers were trying to convince himself as they explored of their own accord every crevice of her body beneath the sheets that Norah was real, that she was something he could actually _have_. Ollie's embrace was loving and gentle.

Norah tightened her grip as she heard Ollie let out a groan as he leaned up and breathed in her scent of pinewood and of autumn and the forest, wrapping his arms around her.

"Let's stay up here forever," Ollie coaxed, a pleading tone to his voice, earning a light laugh from Norah as she rolled off of straddling his hips and entwined her fingers in his and held his hand, giving him a gentle nudge with her elbow to his ribcage to get him to scoot over and share the damn pillow.

"I like the sound of that," Norah grinned, dreamily enjoying the peaceful picture he painted for her as they lay there.

They laid there for Merlin knew how long, wishing they could truly remain up here beneath the sheets, but knowing eventually their friends would be missing them soon.

Norah squirmed in Ollie's arms as her stomach growled, eliciting a laugh from Ollie at how loud it bloody was.

They'd been so focused on each other this morning, with helping Remus and Tonks pack up what they could and move it here to Hogwarts, and Norah was not one to want to interrupt the aftermath of their lovemaking, but she knew they'd be missed at the Great Hall if they didn't leave.

"Are you hungry?" Ollie asked her finally.

"Starved, Ollie," she murmured, the beginnings of a lascivious grin forming on her lips as she leaned over and kissed him again. "Just not for lunch…" Norah joked huskily.

His lips brushed against Norah's. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate, and demanding. She wanted to pull away before she lost herself, but she can't seem to…

At this moment, her wolfish senses have been seduced and Norah could no longer think straight.

"Norah…" Ollie whispered slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them.

Norah smiled, her heart fluttering at his voice as she clasped her hands on either side of his face. Never before has her name ever felt so wonderful coming from Ollie's lips, she thought, as she leaned in for another. In moments, the soft caress has become firmer, he savored her lips and the quickening of her breath that matched his own.

A kiss like this was a beginning, a promise of much more to come….

* * *

Everyone at the Great Hall followed them with inquisitive, wandering eyes.

They tried to hide it, but Ollie could see the hidden _spying_ , the stolen glances that met as they stumbled rather than walked to join Remus and Tonks, who sat next to Professor McGonagall and Snape, of all people, which Ollie thought strange, considering Severus had confessed that he wasn't too fond of Remus or of his wife, and yet, the sight of Nymphadora conversing with Severus in hushed, animated, almost angry tones was a strange one.

It must have been his unruly clothes, the way the sleeves of his black woolen sweater were rolled up to the elbows, or his wild disheveled tuft of black hair that stuck up.

Norah's cheeks were flushed bright pink with color, though she did not relinquish her grip on his hand as the pair of them moved to take the empty seats next to Professor Flitwick and Dumbledore, both of whom offered raised eyebrows at the pair's disheveled appearance, though chose not to comment, though it was Tonks and Severus Ollie chose to focus on as he moved to help himself and Norah to food.

Tonks was clutching at her heart as though it pained her, wishing that for the first time, someone would burst into the Great Hall and announce something exciting like a troll had been let loose in the dungeons or a herd of wild hippogriffs was approaching, _anything_ to take her mind off the unwanted connection that she was tethered to with her best friend now.

It did not escape Ollie's attention that both Professor Snape and Tonks wore looks of extreme mortification, their faces equally red, and Tonks had buried her head in her hands. Being a skilled Legilimens, she had _tried_ to block out the private moment she had heard up on the roof of the Astronomy Tower for the last thirty minutes, having to squeeze her eyes shut and resisting the urge to tug on locks of her hair while Remus, oblivious as always, had worked hard to get Teddy to sleep, following Professor McGonagall returning their son to him, as promised.

Professor Snape sat motionless, equally red in the face as Tonks was when she finally decided to speak her mind.

" _Wow_ ," she whispered under her breath. "I didn't know he had it in him, did you, Severus? Did he—did you ever catch him when we were students here, Snape? I—I tried to block it out, but I…I couldn't. Were you able to?" Tonks confessed, looking to Snape for confirmation before her gaze flitted to Ollie down a few seats at the table.

Something was off, but Ollie stayed quiet, wanting to hear more to see just what the bloody hell was going on here.

He was surprised when his former Head of House in a not-so-surprising fit of agitation reached up one of his hands and smacked Remus's wife upside the head.

Thank _Merlin_ Remus was deep in the throes of a conversation with Professor McGonagall and missed it, or Ollie knew there'd be hell to pay.

Tonks shot Snape a withering look and gingerly rubbed the back of her head, biting down hard on her bottom lip. " _What_? I'm just _saying_ , Snape! He's my best mate, a—and I didn't even know the guy had it in him!" she whisper hissed.

Severus groaned in exasperation, his blush intensifying as he pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"Nymphadora, will you _stop_ this incessant prattling, please, you're giving me a headache, and I'm trying my very hardest to _forget_." Severus gave Tonks a pained look.

"Oh, right, right, but you're no _fun_ at all, Severus. Save it for someone who gives a crap, Snape!" Tonks pouted, her gaze flitting from Norah to Ollie, her lips pursed in such a thin line. "But _seriously_ , though, where did he _learn_ it from?"

" **NYMPHADORA**!" Professor Snape bellowed, finally losing the last vestiges of his patience and banging the flat of his palm on the surface of the table, causing the entire staff table in the Great Hall to collectively swivel their heads to look at the source of the disturbance.

Snape cringed and scowled heavily, turning his wrathful gaze towards Ollie and Norah.

Ollie and Norah had just started to dig into their food when Professor Snape's angered yell broke them out of their moment, and Ollie froze, his fingers wrapped around the tines of his fork so hard that the harsh cold metal almost pierced the skin of Ollie's fingers.

He furrowed his brows in slight confusion as he exchanged a curious glance with Tonks, whose face had reddened considerably, and Norah, he could tell, out of the corner of his eyes, was just as equally as confused as he was.

At least, until realization struck him like a spiked flail and poor Ollie felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach.

" _Oh, my God_ …" he moaned, burying his head in his hands, and not even the gentle touch of Norah's hand on his shoulder as she gave him a sharp jolt to break him out of it was enough to tamper down the embarrassment that was threatening to consume him in waves. "T, I…I'm _so sorry_ …"

Tonks's blush merely intensified and she inclined her head, though she shot him a venomous look as she turned towards Remus, who was shooting his wife a look of pained concern at Snape's outburst, and Tonks was momentarily distracted as she took baby Teddy from her husband's arms.

Her face flushed a bright pink as she pushed her plate of barely touched food away, Teddy in her arms, and rose from her chair so fast in her haste to flee the quizzical stares she was currently on the receiving end from the other professors that she almost overturned her chair.

Tonks pursed her lips into a thin line, wincing as Remus rose from his chair with a concerned look on his face for his wife, looking completely lost as to what was going on.

She met Ollie's gaze and fixed her best mate and his new girlfriend with a rather pointed glare.

 _I heard EVERYTHING, Ollie_! Tonks violently exclaimed in their shared impossible telepathy. _I couldn't tell Remus what was wrong with me or else I'd have to explain what I was bloody hearing! Next time get a ROOM! Or take Norah into the Forest or someplace out of my range!_

_I…I... didn't…I…._

Ollie felt even his thoughts die in his mind as his face drained of color as he struggled to find his words. Norah, Merlin bless the werewolf, rubbed Ollie's shoulder soothingly, furrowing her brows into a slight frown.

"The hell's _wrong_ with you, Ollie?" she growled, bearing her sharpened canines that it did not escape Ollie's attention that caused a few of the teachers to flinch away in response. Her expression softened slightly as Norah noticed just how mortified he was. "What is it, what's wrong, Ollie?" she pressed quietly.

Ollie's embarrassed and frightened look in his darkening blue eyes as he watched Tonks and Lupin swiftly exit the Great Hall with their wriggling baby son in his best friend's arms was almost too much for Norah to bear, and her curiosity was buzzing in her mind like a hive of bees at his shift in behavior.

Something was off. His skittish and nervous demeanor momentarily returned as Ollie's gaze remained fixated on Remus and Dora until the pair of them stepped over the threshold that separated the Great Hall from the corridor and rounded the corner, and the last word Ollie heard Lupin ask his wife before the pair of them disappeared from his line of sight and his hearing as well was for Dora to tell him what was going on.

And Tonks, Merlin bless her, refused to let Remus in on her and Severus Snape's little 'secret.'

Ollie let out a sigh. "Nothing, Norah," he murmured, his blush still prominent on his cheeks. He had a feeling Tonks would be bloody making him _pay_ for this for the rest of his natural days alive.

He turned to look at Norah, to see if his girlfriend was as embarrassed as he felt, though he did not get a chance to ask as Ollie was rendered silent by the She-Wolf's gentle kiss.

Ollie practically melted in his chair, not caring if the other professors saw, though he could tell by the light little cough that Professor Snape gave off that the man was fed up.

Sensing they weren't wanted here without Remus and Tonks present; Ollie felt the beginnings of a soft but playful smile creep on his face as he rose from his chair and tugged Norah out of her chair and down the walkway.

Norah cocked an eyebrow curiously at Ollie before dismissing whatever it was that was bothering her boyfriend as she allowed herself to be led out onto the Hogwarts Grounds to visit their old friend Hagrid, but on one condition, Ollie warned, fixing the young blonde werewolf with a stern, admonishing glower.

" _Don't_ tell Hagrid, Norah, whatever you do, bloody just _don't_ , all right, " he murmured, wildly gesticulating with his hands, wildly glancing at Norah out of the corner of his eyes as her bright blue eyes momentarily glossed over, and he didn't even have to probe into her mind to know that she was thinking of Aragog, and his pink blush slowly subsided the further from Hogwarts the pair of them walked as they headed towards Hagrid's Hut, unaware Tonks and Lupin were watching them from their window.

* * *

Tonks watched from her window as Ollie and Norah strode up to Hagrid's hut and after a moment, the familiar towering silhouette of the half-giant groundskeeper opened the door and greeted Jameson like an old friend, turning towards Ollie with a crooked grin on his face as the man's beard twitched without prompting as Norah greeted the Groundskeeper and introduced Hagrid to Ollie.

Hagrid was looking relatively unscathed, for which Tonks was relieved, aside from a few minor cuts and abrasions near his forehead from the Battle of Hogwarts, but unharmed.

The burning in her cheeks slowly subsided as she shook her head to clear her mind, and it was at that moment baby Teddy decided to tug on a lock of her hair.

" _Ouch_! No, no, Teddy, that's...not nice, we don't tug on Mum's hair!" she yelped, gingerly reaching up with her thumb and forefinger and removed her curl from her son's tiny, ironclad grasp.

"Here, let me take him," Lupin murmured, reaching out his arms and a soft smile lit his lined face, making him look years younger and not so scarred whenever Remus smiled, which, thank Merlin, was so much more these days since the two of them had married and Teddy had come into their lives.

He took one look at Tonks's crestfallen face as she stood by the window and saw what she was clutching in her hand. Moody's eye. His face fell and he moved to stand next to Tonks.

"You should go and say goodbye. I'll handle Ted, Dora," he urged, lowering his voice as Teddy's cooing slowly subsided as the baby nestled deeper into his swaddling and seemed to find the warmth of his father's arms relaxing. "Mad-Eye would want that for you, Dora. You need to let him go, sweetheart. Let him _go_."

She turned to him after a long moment in silence, "I _can't_ ," she whispered, her voice cracking and breaking and she walked away, Mad-Eye's eye still clutched in her hand, leaving Lupin alone with their son.

* * *

It had been going on two hours, and Tonks still wasn't back yet, which had prompted Remus to ask Norah and Ollie to babysit Teddy when they got back from Hagrid's after about an hour of visiting to go look for Dora.

They had agreed without any hesitation on their part and now, here he was, drawn yet again to a graveyard not that far from Hogwarts, the very same where his mother was buried, and he decided he didn't like it, being back here. Lupin did not know why his wife was drawn to such a place, of death and torment, though whenever he would ask her, she claimed that it calmed her soul. That sometimes…she talked to them. The people they knew that rested there.

She visited Remus's mother's unmarked grave at least once a week ever since having a chance to talk with her resurrected spirit at their wedding, always placing a single white lily at the foot of the tombstone, hoping it was a small measure of comfort to her spirit.

He had passed by Alastor's gravesite and was not surprised to see a plethora of flowers at the Auror's tomb, and Tonks had delicately placed his magical swiveling eye right at the front of his grave, no doubt so that the eye could watch for potential vandals.

Though to his surprise, Tonks was not at her usual spot where she would sit next to Hope's gravesite. His wife was kneeling at the engravement of none other than Barty Crouch Jr., who had seemingly died from the Dementor's Kiss earlier this afternoon.

An owl had been delivered to Dumbledore, and Albus had informed Remus in private not even an hour ago. Remus hadn't intended to tell Dora, thinking she didn't need a constant reminder of what he had done to her throughout the last year alone, though, here she was, with a single white lily in her hand, that she gingerly placed at his grave, an impassive, unreadable expression etched on her pale features.

" _Why_? Why do this?" he croaked out hoarsely, cringing as Dora turned her head sharply, coughing once, a hand tucking back a lock of her hair, hating to see the red-rims of her pale gray irises.

"Why are you here, Remus? Shouldn't you be back at the castle with Teddy?" Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

"Because…I didn't want you to be alone. Don't worry about Ted, Dora. Norah and Ollie are watching him until we get back," he whispered, his voice pained. He coughed once and turned away once, willing himself to stay calm. "Why?" he asked again, turning back towards Tonks and the grave that she knelt beside. "You and I both know he doesn't deserve it."

"But he _does_ ," his wife protested quietly. "And let me tell you why, Remus. Because like it or not, there was a small part of him that was still human, he was just a man and…" Tonks's voice cracked and trailed off as she looked away, blinking back tears. "And I feel sorry for him," she whispered, her voice barely above a whisper. "Don't you? All he ever wanted was to be loved, and the one woman who he thought could help him didn't return his affections and it drove him to the point of insanity, Rem."

Remus's mind felt like it was reeling. She was…she was _sorry_? For _Crouch_? _How? And why_? For a moment, he forgot the immense guilt that rested like a weight upon his chest and felt his mouth drop open in shock. "I…b-but why? Crouch was not in his right mind, love, he almost caused us to lose our son, and he, a- almost _killed_ you…and you say you feel _sorry_ for him? He does not _deserve_ our love or even our pity for the things he did to us. You _know_ that, so _why_? I—I don't understand, Dora," he stammered, suddenly feeling like he was returning to his old self again, the worst of his anger evaporating as he offered out his outstretched hand to help his wife to her feet.

He hated that Tonks hesitated then, but finally, she accepted his hand and brushed her palms on the front of her black maternity jeans.

"Because," she sighed, still actively averting Remus's quizzical gaze, though she felt her shoulders slump in defeat, knowing that sooner or later, she'd have to look him in the eyes. "Crouch, flawed though he was, was a man who lived without love. Without morals. I pity those who live without love. And…I feel _sorry_ for him. Just as I feel sorry for Ollie's father," she sighed wistfully. "To—to never know the joy of being loved back and cared for. I don't think he got much of it growing up, given what we saw of that family back at the estate. Sometimes I wonder what the man might have been like had he grown up with a better family if he would have been kind, or would he have turned out the way that he had, still. I hope that, wherever he is, he has found some small measure of peace in death that he could not find in life. Both of them. The same goes for Jack, too, Remus," she whispered, biting her bottom lip in a slight pout.

Tonks winced and clutched at her ribcage, and Remus felt his temper flare as the memory of Crouch torturing her came back to haunt him.

Tonks winced as she noticed him looking. "I know what you are thinking. How _could_ I when he did this to me, the torment he put us through, and when he tortured poor Ollie for all those years on end and showing no signs of mercy," she sighed, glancing down at the ground beneath their feet. "But...I forgive him."

He was, perhaps for the second time in his life, rendered at a loss for words. Tonks smiled sadly, noticing his stupefied look, though it did not reach her eyes.

"Life is too fleeting to bear a grudge, Remus. I would have thought you'd know that better than anyone, given your history with Peter. But…why are you here?"

Remus looked away for a moment at the moss-laden marble pillars that stood as despairing guards on either side of the cemetery threshold. Gnarled old trees hunched over most of the expanse, plunging the rest of the graveyard into shadow. This place echoed with painful grief and the emptiness of heartfelt loss, though he quickly turned his gaze back to his wife. He almost felt undeserving of such beauty, that she would look upon him, kiss him, without fear or scorn.

Tonks smiled, sensing what her husband was thinking, that he was not nearly enough for Dora, or for Teddy. "Oh, Rem…don't think about yourself like this. You doubt yourself too much, but you are such a kind and beautiful soul. You're a wonderful husband and father, Remus. I only wish that you could see it for yourself as I do. As Ollie and Norah do. As your father, and all our friends do. I _promise_ …things will get better. The world isn't split into good people and bad. We've all got a little bit of both inside us, but it's up to us to keep these feelings at bay. You, though. I know you, my love. Your heart is _pure_." Tonks smiled.

Her soft, pink lips stretched into a smile, but it didn't quite reach her pale gray orbs. Lupin knew all too well what she was thinking. If he would lash out in anger again, try to get her to leave. Her gray eyes were lit with such sadness, he almost couldn't bear it, and the forced expression of the contrary on her mouth would have looked comical to him if it did not make his heart feel weighted, heavy.

For just a moment, as Remus stared at his wife, almost certain that her expression mirrored his again. It broke his heart. He didn't want her to leave him alone, she had saved him from his solitude. He did not want to turn into just another random memory of a faceless person that floated in the back of her mind someday. Lupin did not want to be the smile that squeezed his wife's chest somewhere far away if she were to leave.

He didn't want her to go. He wanted her and her beautiful smile to stay, to be in love with him forever, so it was going to be up to him to make sure that Tonks knew that they were together, that he was not abandoning his wife and child, and that he never would.

She smiled. "Love me, Remus?" she whispered, scooting closer to him on the bench to close off the gap of space between them, and leaning in to kiss his warm lips. He grinned into their kiss, one of his hands drifting towards the back of her skull, pressing into her hair softly, the other resting on her waist.

"Always."

* * *

**Only one more chapter is left! :( I can't believe it's finally coming to an end, but I hope I've done their story justice so far! Stay tuned for the epilogue! :)**


	116. Epilogue: Eleven Years Later

**EPILOGUE:**

**Eleven Years Later**

* * *

In the daytime, Platform 9 and ¾ was a seething mass of humanity. Everyone, witches, wizards, Muggle-born, from all walks of life were shoulder to shoulder, in each other's faces, no personal space, and no bloody exceptions. But now, at the beginning of the start of term for most students who were due to head back to Hogwarts today on the Hogwarts Express, there was a shift in space between the people, and somehow that made it all the more awkward for Tonks and Lupin to navigate through the crowded masses.

When it was crowded, you took in no information about anyone, they were just things in your way. Moving, smelling, awkward, and rude things. Now the faces of the city were looking at Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin. She felt it. Thinking about her. She could hear their thoughts. Judging her and her little family. Judging the thirty-seven-year-old witch that normally went unnoticed in this throng.

Perhaps it was her wavy light ash brown colored hair that caused them to stare, considering most here had seen her wear shades of maroon pinks and they weren't used to the more mature changed these days, before Tonks had to remind herself that this was a perfectly _normal_ hair color for a woman of thirty-six years of age to have on a daily, day to day basis, or perhaps it was the fact that she was struggling to keep an eye on her eleven-year-old son, looking for a bright tuft of light brown hair flecked with streaks of bright turquoise, with their seven-year-old daughter, Hope, clutching onto the back of her black leather jacket for support, not wanting to lose sight of either of her parents.

Tonks shot back her own stares towards all these strangers, silently challenging either one of these other parents to dare to say something as she looked at them, forming opinions, deciding on the safest place to stand, nearer to who, further from who was a threat, who wasn't at all.

Then she realized her judgments were based on how well the persons were dressed and suddenly, Tonks felt ashamed, looking down at her outfit and scrunched her nose in scrutiny, though she thought it looked fine. Nothing out of the ordinary with her clothing today. Black leather jacket, dark blue silk blouse, black pencil skirt, and black tights, and black boots. A simple black messenger bag slung over her shoulder; her wand concealed inside.

You'd never know among a slew of Muggles walked a wizarding family. The only telltale that something was amiss was occasionally, out of the front pocket of the woman's black leather jacket, a tiny twig-like creature occasionally poked its head out and looked around.

"C'mon, Lea, don't do this," Tonks scolded lightly as the tiny Bowtruckle, now browning and drooping with old age, blew a raspberry at the noise and looked around the crowded platform with beady narrowed eyes, seemingly in poor spirits at having his mid-morning nap interrupted.

Tonks stifled her groan of frustration and let out a sigh at the Bowtruckle's ornery antics and reached up with the delicate pad of her index finger and stroked the tiny Bowtruckle's leaves as a show of affection. "Is that them?" Hope squeaked, the seven-year-old's voice ringing in her mother's eardrums as she craned her neck to keep Teddy in her line of sight, while at the same time to try not to lose track of Teddy.

"Yeah, I think it is. C'mon, love, or we'll be late, and Dad is going to _kill_ us if we miss seeing your brother off for the first time!" Tonks murmured quietly as at that exact moment, with a whine and a displacement of air, the Hogwarts Express arrived almost the instant she and her little family went through the gates between platforms nine and ten, with Tonks doing it at a bit of a run with Hope since her daughter was nervous.

Tonks panted with the effort to run through this thick din of people, the place packed with parents just like her and Remus come to see their children off to another start of term at Hogwarts, though for their Teddy, it was his first, and the proud parents wouldn't miss it for the world.

"Are we going to have dinner at Uncle Ollie's house tonight?" Hope asked, well, hopefully. She loved spending time with Ollie and Norah and had a rather adorable crush on their only child, Rhys, who was Teddy's age, a strapping kid with the best traits inherited from either of his parents at eleven years old. Rhys saw the seven-year-old girl as more than a pest but loved her still.

Tonks chuckled, thinking fate maybe had something in mind for those two as well, just as it had for her and Remus eleven years ago. How the man had saved her life on multiple occasions, and they had bonded over learning one another's fears, of all things, and now look!

With Hope's determination, as strong as her mother's, and her intelligence, which came from both of her parents, but particularly Remus, it was more than a definite possibility.

"Yes, we are, love. Sirius and Harry and the Weasleys are coming tonight, too, I think. They can't wait to see you again," Remus answered his daughter, scooping up the seven-year-old little witch and proudly setting her on his shoulders, tickling her sides as their daughter squealed in delight and clutched onto tufts of her father's hair for support. "They want to see how much you've grown now that you're seven years old!" he teased, glancing towards his wife with a smile on his lips, their daughter's birthday had been two days ago.

"But they only just saw me two days ago, Daddy! I can't have grown _that_ much in one day," Hope pondered, furrowing her little dark brows together in contemplative thought as she rested her chin on her father's head, adorably scrunching her nose.

Of their two children, their Teddy was the only one who had inherited their mother's Metamorphmagus abilities. Tonks exchanged a glance with Remus out of the corner of her eyes and let a giggle slip past her lips. Hope was ever the sensible one, really.

"Really? Has it only been just two days? But you seem so much older already," Remus retorted, only half-joking as he reached up and tousled Hope's hair affectionately, before letting out a groan as he set her down.

Hope bounded forward on the heels of her shoes before either Tonks or Lupin had time to think about stopping their daughter as she bolted to try to catch up to her older brother. Tonks furrowed her brows and skittishly scanned the crowd and let out a yelp as Hope, a spitting image of her mother in every likeness, let go of her hand and darted forward into the crowd, having seemingly spotted them.

" _Wait_!" Tonks called out and stomped her foot in a moment of frustration and huffed, her fingers curling around the strap of her black bag for support as she bit the wall of her cheek. "Hope! Teddy! Both of you stay _close_ , I don't want to _lose_ you!" she shouted, raising her voice to ensure she was heard over the collective mumbling and goodbyes of the parents seeing their children off on the Hogwarts Express. She sighed.

A reassuring hand on her shoulder instantly calmed Tonks, and she did not even have to swivel her head to the left to know it was Remus.

Tonks turned her head to look at her husband, who was shaking his head at her, and allowed a small laugh to escape from his lips.

"There's still time, Dora. The train doesn't leave for another ten minutes, and it's not like we have to go very far to get there, it's right there," he chuckled, shaking her head at Tonks's concern for their children. "Let her do what she wants, and the same applies to Teddy, but right now, we need to find the others," Remus murmured lowly, almost whispering it into the shell of her ear, which elicited a tremor of delight down Tonks's spine. Remus John Lupin, ever the voice of reason in their long marriage.

Remus had been a wonderful father to Teddy and to Hope when she had come into the world, their second pregnancy planned, considering Teddy hadn't been born with any of Remus's lycanthropic features, the night Tonks had found out she was pregnant with their second child, she and Remus had stayed up until the dawn nearly discussing it, and as a consequence, her poor husband had overslept and was more than late for his first period of Defense Against the Dark Arts class, though his students had been incredibly forgiving.

Ultimately, he had been overjoyed at the idea of expanding their little family, and Teddy having a sibling relatively close in age to keep him company, and in the end, both proud parents had decided that fate held the baby's future in its hands, as it did with every child in every mother's womb. Fate was such a mysterious and wonderful thing, such a truly divine concept, especially in a circumstance such as theirs.

After the long talk, Tonks had been exhausted, curling up in Remus's arms as they lay in bed, her head leaning against his chest, listening to the slow rhythm of his heartbeat. He had been supportive throughout her second pregnancy, more so than she could have possibly hoped for, and _now_ look at the two of them. Proud parents to Teddy Remus Lupin and Hope Elizabeth Lupin. Whenever she watched him read to their children or teach them something new, her heart swelled to burst.

Being a wife, but more importantly, a mother to their two children was more amazing and incredible than she could have ever imagined. Mrs. Weasley had told her there was nothing more important in this world once your children were in this world, caring for them, and loving them. Fate had smiled on the two of them, but only after she had exercised her will to make that happen and had pursued life with Remus. Fate and free will weren't absolutes.

Tonks knew this well. They did not cancel one another out, as Tonks had once believed. They worked together to form each person's life, and this year, just like all the others, she and her husband had a life worth celebrating over, thanking Merlin and their friends and families for believing in the pair of them when the rest of their society hadn't.

"C'mon, Rem," Tonks murmured under her breath, repressing the urge to roll her eyes as she heard Teddy and Hope's shrieks. "The Doomsayers departed, we'd better make sure they don't start anything," she sighed, though she was unable to stop the soft grin from creeping onto her face as she caught sight of two familiar faces, the same people that they had been looking for the better part of fifteen minutes.

Remus nodded, a smile of his own etched on his lined features and Tonks thought her husband really did look better and much younger whenever he smiled, and she was glad ever since she had come into his life all those years ago, he smiled for her more often.

She gave her husband's hand a light, reassuring squeeze and dragged him forward towards the noise, just in time to see Teddy in a heated debate with none other than one of Ollie's distant relatives and the last Brennan aside from Ollie himself, a man by the name of Greg and his wife, Rena, and their son, an eight-year-old who looked more translucent than pale, almost like a ghost, and on the verge of a fight.

To his immediate left and backing his friend up, was Rhys Brennan, Oliver, and Norah's son, also attending his first year of Hogwarts alongside Teddy. His parents were eyeballing the scene with minor looks of amusement intermingled with utter disbelief.

Tonks shot her best mate a quizzical look and a raised eyebrow and communicated with the man in their shared impossible telepathy.

_What the bloody hell is going on_? Tonks questioned him.

But Ollie merely shook his head and carded a finger through his thick tuft of short black hair, motioning with his head for Tonks to simply watch. _It's good to see you too, T_ , he joked. _I don't know which one of them started it, but let's see how these two handles it_.

Tonks gave a curt nod of her head and glanced at Remus out of the corner of her eye, noticing the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was looking suddenly exasperated, pinching at the front of his temples with his thumb and forefinger, a light blush speckling along his cheeks.

His wife knew the truth. She knew what he was thinking without even having to dip into the man's mind, that it was just the first day of term, Teddy's first year at Hogwarts, and already, their son had made a rival, it seemed, in the Brennan boy.

The wife and mother let out a sigh and briefly lifted her gaze and glanced at Norah, who held an equal look of exasperation on her face, though the moment the blonde werewolf sensed someone staring at her, she lifted her chin and her hardened gaze softened considerably as she looked upon her best friend.

_Tonks, it's good to see you and Remus_ , she communicated, her shimmering pale blue orbs darting from Tonks and Remus and back towards their sons.

Tonks offered a nod though offered up no retort and the pair of mothers swiveled their heads back in the direction of Teddy Lupin.

"What's—what's _wrong_ with him, Mr. Brennan? He's just staring at me!" Teddy challenged hotly, nervously glancing towards Ollie and Norah, as Hope moved to stand in front of her mother and let out a whimper. Tonks sighed and rested both of her hands on either side of her daughter's shoulders, seemingly nervous that discourse was going to break out. Greg and Rena Brennan's son, Bryce, not that much older than Teddy, maybe a year or two ahead of their son in Hogwarts was staring almost blankly at Teddy, offering up no verbal insult or quip. At least, not at first.

And then—

" _Freak_! _Werewolf_!" he shouted.

Teddy reeled backward in surprise, his face flushed in outrage and utter shock. " _You watch your mouth! I wouldn't be talking about anybody's condition, tiny_! _You're such a jerk, you pasty unicorn! You don't know who you're messing with! My dad's the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, and my mum's an Auror! I—if you don't take that back, then you'll be bloody sorry_!" Teddy bellowed, glowering at Greg and Rena's son, who barely came up to Teddy's nose, reaching for his wand, and that was when his father decided to interfere to save themselves the further embarrassment.

Tonks watched, drawing in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as Remus stepped forward, a muscle in his jaw twitching, and she swore she heard their son whimper as the shadow of the Wolf flitted across her husband's scarred face as he grew stern and firm.

"Teddy. That's _enough_ ," he scolded firmly, placing a strong hand on his son's shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. "Lower your wand. The term hasn't even started yet and already, you've…made a _friend_ ," he murmured, lifting his gaze, and jutting his chin out to regard Ollie's distant relatives, who were sneering at Remus, Tonks, Ollie, and Norah.

Ollie, Tonks couldn't help but notice, was looking particularly angered and embarrassed, his face drained of color. His entire body was shaking with the effort to restrain himself and Tonks swore she heard her best mate growl trying to resist starting a full-on brawl here in front of the Hogwarts Express.

Greg Brennan, Ollie's cousin, if Tonks was correct, merely proceeded to smirk at the set of parents and their children and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a twisted and vile smirk.

"Bryce. _Stop_. You know it's not polite to make fun of your _inferiors_. Especially when they're _grossly_ inadequate as _these_ four."

That was the breaking point of her patience as Tonks seethed, clenching her teeth and her fists in the effort to remain silent and wait like a polite adult to see how their children would have handled this argument.

Any insults that were thrown at _her_ , Tonks could handle them and brush them off, but go after her husband and her children and her friends and their son, that was bloody _it_. Tonks balled her hands into fists and rolled her neck to crack it, her temper, sadly of which Teddy had inherited from both her and his father, threatening to consume her as she could hold her tongue no longer, having waited to see what Teddy would do, with gritted teeth.

"Get lost or get _hit_ , buddy, it's _your_ choice," she said, snarling, cracking her knuckles to emphasize her point.

Ollie's cousin, Greg, turned towards Tonks and looked down his nose at the Auror with a sniff of disapproval and sneered. "Anytime you're ready, I'd _welcome_ the chance to silence you, Mrs. Lupin…cavorting and mating with _werewolves_ ," he spat, disgusted. "And I thought someone of your skills could sink no _lower_ , Nymphadora." His face was pulled taut with rage as his sharp, hawklike gaze flitted towards Norah and Ollie, who both cringed.

The Auror waited to see what Ollie's wife would do, but the blonde werewolf merely stiffened and reached up a hand to tuck back a wisp of her stray blonde pixie cut that had fallen out of place.

Tonks stared, hardly daring to believe it, blinking owlishly at Norah. In times past, she would have thought the former Gryffindor wouldn't have hesitated to grow her fangs and dig them into Ollie's cousin's neck, but over the years of being married to the man and now a mother to their son had mellowed her out considerably, which was a good thing, she knew. Tonks gritted her teeth and felt her hand hover over the main compartment of her black bag, the fingers of her wand hand twitching as she fought the urge to dive into her bag for her wand.

Ollie's nervous gaze flitted between the two parents and sighed.

"Ugh, T, please don't do this, Greg isn't worth it, he's _my_ problem to deal with, Tonks, _not_ yours," Ollie murmured under his breath, shooting his cousin and her wife a venomous glower, coming to stand next to Tonks and gingerly tugged on the sleeve of her jacket, trying to pull her away from his first cousin. "Let's go, let's get out of here, we don't need to do this in front of our _kids_ , T! Think about what kind of example you're setting, Tonks!"

"Ollie, it's okay! Let me handle this creep! This guy _obviously_ has a problem and _I'm_ going to _solve_ it for him, aren't I?" she growled, lunging towards Greg Brennan and she very likely would have succeeded had Ollie not bolted at that exact second and wrapped his strong arms around her waist, effectively preventing Tonks from reaching her intended target.

Though before Tonks could open her mouth to violently protest that Ollie let her go, that she was going to teach this scumbag who worked alongside her in a different department at the Ministry a lesson he and his miserable bully of a son wouldn't forget, her husband's calm but firm voice spoke up, the edges of Remus's voice clipped and hardened.

"Settle down, _all_ of you," the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor commanded, slipping into the tone he used when dealing with problematic students at Hogwarts with relative ease. "Whatever _problem_ you two are having, Dora, Mr. Brennan, and you too, Teddy, and Bryce, you should ask yourselves if this confrontation is _worth_ it because the only thing you'll succeed in doing is creating a scene in front of these people here to see their children off to school," Remus growled, his hand hovering inside of his brown jacket, and she knew he was resisting drawing his wand.

Tonks felt her shoulders slump in defeat. He was _right_ , as always. She let out a haggard sigh as she turned away, hearing Ollie breathe an audible sigh of relief. "C'mon, guys, let's…go over there."

She did not bother looking back behind her over her shoulder as she pursed her lips into a thin line and bit the wall of her cheek, as she placed a gentle hand on Teddy's shoulder and gave him a gentle nudge forward and steered Hope towards a nearby table.

"That _jerk_ ," she hissed through gritted teeth, still utterly fuming in her anger, letting go of Hope and Teddy's shoulders as she collapsed onto the table's bench and propped her elbows upon the table, resting her cheek in her fists. "That kid doesn't know who he's _messing_ with, does he, Ted?" she asked, her frown slowly fading as her gaze flitted towards her son. "You could get him still from here at this range if you hexed him now before that lot moves any further away. The Bat Bogey Hex, just like I taught you…." She murmured darkly through her clenched teeth, glowering at the boy.

" _Dora_!" Remus snapped, sounding firm and on the brink of exasperation at now having to be harsh to his wife in addition to their children. "We are not _encouraging_ this kind of behavior, love! Think what kind of a _fine_ example you'd be setting for Ted and Hope if you started a brawl in front of the Hogwarts Express before term starts!" he barked.

Tonks sighed in defeat and mutely nodded. "I'm not _encouraging_ it, I'm just saying!" She sighed. "I'm sorry, Rem," she apologized, shooting her husband a pained look as she pulled Hope close and rubbed her shoulders, sensing their daughter was upset. She was easily emotional and easily upset, just like her mum, Tonks thought.

Remus nodded silently, his firm expression slowly fading and softening as he looked at his wife. "You were just looking out for our children, Dora," he murmured, coming over to sit next to his wife. "That's all that counts. I shouldn't be so reactionary," he said softly.

Tonks nodded and lifted her chin to meet Remus's gaze, and slowly turned her head when she noticed Ollie and Norah steering their son towards the table to join the little family, much in the same manner as she had guided Hope and Teddy to the table seconds ago.

She chuckled as she noticed Hope's bright hazel eyes light up with intrigue as their daughter laid eyes on Ollie and Norah's son, Rhys, a strapping young boy of eleven, and the spitting image of both his parents, having inherited his father's thick head of black hair and most of Norah's facial features.

Except for his blue eyes. Those solely came from Ollie. Tonks felt the corners of her mouth twitch as she thought of all her best mate and the blonde werewolf had endured over the last few years and was happy the pair of them had found peace in one another and a life of happiness.

Their son had been a surprise, unplanned, but a welcome one, at that, and Tonks could not be happier for the both of them. Tonks lifted her chin and smiled at her best mate, who returned the gesture and made no move to remove his hand from his wife's shoulder, the glint from the gold of their wedding bands shimmering in the sunlight shining down this morning on the platform.

The train would be leaving soon in a few minutes, but the families still had about five minutes to spend with their children.

She was pulled from the silent moment with her friend when she heard Hope let out a squeak of delight and bolted from her spot to run and envelope Rhys in a hug, much to the Brennan boy's chagrin. Hope Elizabeth Lupin had definitely taken after both of her parents in terms of her agility and balance, though it still scared Tonks whenever the girl bolted to her feet like that, considering Hope had also inherited her mother's natural talent for clumsiness.

"Please be careful, Hope! I don't want you to break your leg or worse if you trip!" Tonks called, still resting her cheek in her fist, trying her absolute hardest to sound firm, but looking at her seven-year-old daughter, it was hard to keep any kind of stern composure. Hope was the most beautiful little girl either her or Remus had ever seen. Her hair tumbled down her back in natural waves and ringlets a light natural ash brown color, Remus's hair color, and her wide, almond-shaped pale gray orbs dominated her heart-shaped face. Her mother's eyes.

Hope was short for her age, yet another trait inherited from her mother, and slender, carrying herself with dignity and self-proclaimed authority beyond Hope's seven years. Tonks felt her heart painfully give a clench as she watched Hope limp slightly, the result of an accident when Tonks had been teaching her daughter a year ago to ride a broomstick so she'd have a leg up on the other children when it came time for her to attend Hogwarts and sit through her first Flying Class with old Madame Hooch, and she had fallen off and had broken her leg.

Something Tonks wondered if she would ever be able to forgive herself for. She doubted it.

Hope, Merlin bless that sweet child, bore no ill will towards her mother, and had said it was an accident when she had woken up in bed later that evening. Remus had mended it considerably well, all things considered, neither he nor Tonks were certified Healers, but their daughter still walked with a slight limp.

That was the only imperfection in their girl's entire body, a reminder of the cruelty and pain that did indeed exist in this world, and must exist, for without darkness for comparison, the light was just a flicker of a common candle.

Hope didn't blame her mum for it, though, and whenever Ollie and Norah came to visit, and she saw how Norah was able to have a successful and happy life with her limp, the results of old battle wounds that never fully healed, it always seemed to cheer their daughter up, which Tonks was immensely grateful for.

Tonks always felt a slight twinge of heartache whenever she saw their daughter limp, but it always passed quickly. Now was no exception. Hope Elizabeth Lupin was just as strong as her mum, like any other child, and needed no one's pity, particularly not that of her mother's. She sighed.

Norah noticed Tonks looking and smiled at Hope when the blonde werewolf heard Hope sniff in disdain as she practically dragged her and Ollie's son Rhys back towards the table to sit with their parents. "Four years is too long, Daddy!" Hope pouted, sticking out her bottom lip in an adorable little pout and scrunching her nose. It was Teddy, however, the wonderful big brother that he was, that came to his little sister's rescue.

"It'll fly by before you know it, Hope," Teddy grinned, shooting his little sister a lopsided crooked grin as her brother rested a hand on his sister's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Then you'll be in Hufflepuff with me," he added, a hint of smugness and pride laced throughout his features.

Rhys Brennan sneered, though it wasn't a smirk of arrogance, but pride as he scrunched his nose and shot the Lupin children a look of incredulity. "What makes you think she'll be in Hufflepuff? She could be in Slytherin like _I'm_ going to be," he grinned, swiveling his head to look towards his father, of whom had draped his arm around Norah's shoulder and was looking unsure whether to laugh or steer the conversation in a different direction. Ollie chuckled and shook his head at their only child.

"But Hope _could_ be in Gryffindor, Rhys," the proud father and Legilimens offered, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye, who merely shrugged her shoulders in her response, a smile tugging at her lips.

Norah finally broke the silence as she followed Tonks's example and propped her elbows up on the table and rested her chin in both of her hands. "The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account. I guess we'll just have to wait and see in four years, kid. I'm sure no matter what, you'll surprise us all. You always do, Hope," she joked, looking at Hope Lupin.

Hope nodded, though her face fell and became crestfallen. Tonks let out a tiny sigh and shook her head, a light ash brown curl tumbling in front of her face as she did so, and the peaceful moment was interrupted by the sound of the train's whistle blowing, signaling the students' final boarding calls.

"Oh, Daddy, Mummy, c'mon, we have to _go_!" she squeaked. "Teddy's going to be late!"

"Annnd our Doomsayer departs again," Tonks grinned, wincing at the stiffness in her joints as she rose from the table, a hand on Teddy's shoulder as she steered their son to the back compartment of the train.

The proud parents paused, Ollie and Norah close behind them, saying their own goodbyes to Rhys, and Tonks sensed the prickling on Teddy's neck and his hesitations. "You've got everything, Ted?" Tonks murmured, turning her son about by his shoulders so Teddy was facing his parents.

"Coat, trunk, Hermes," Teddy ticked off, reaching up to stroke the tiny black Elf Owl that rested on his right shoulder, to which the owl responded in kind by shooting Teddy a withering, angry look for interrupting his nap.

"Wotcher, Ted," Tonks joked, dipping into her bag for an owl treat to give to Teddy to give to the little owl to placate the creature's sour mood.

"Thanks, Mum," he murmured, his voice cracking a little bit as he glanced towards the train with a look of nervousness and excitement.

Sensing their son needed the comfort, Remus wrapped an arm around his son's shoulders and pulled him close, gently rubbing his arm.

"You'll _behave_ yourself while you're at school, Ted," Remus muttered, only half-joking. "Don't do anything rash to get detention. And if you get out of line, I shall know about it," Lupin joked, referring to his employment as Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, beloved in his job.

"Yes, Dad," Teddy said quietly. Despite the heaviness in his stomach at starting his first year at Hogwarts, it fluttered at the feeling of his body pressed against his father's. Teddy sunk into the warmth of his father's side, appreciative of the simple gesture. His touch made the cool platform seem warmer somehow, his future at Hogwarts seeming less uncertain.

" _My_ turn, Remus," Tonks grinned, tapping Remus on the shoulder and watching as the proud father and husband somewhat reluctantly relinquished his grip on their son, her smile widening as Teddy snuggled in.

"You're the only person I know that gives indefinite hugs, Mum."

His mum snickered. "Well, love, where else would I rather be?" At that moment, her arms squeezed a fraction tighter as Teddy felt his mum's chin come to rest on top of his hair, and Teddy breathed more slowly, his body melting into his mum's as every muscle lost its tension to the fall air.

This was life, _real_ life. And Tonks wouldn't trade it for anything in the whole bloody world. After several moments of just basking in the peaceful tranquility of their hug, Tonks was the first to relinquish her grip on her son when she heard the whistle of the Hogwarts Express blow a second time. She blinked, startled, and took a step backward and would have fallen had her husband and Ollie both not shot out an arm to catch her fall.

"Thanks," she murmured, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks. "You need to go, Ted. Go with Rhys and get good seats. _Go_ ," she urged, smiling and clamping a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle as Rhys shot Hope a strange look that Tonks couldn't quite interpret as Hope offered a shy wave, her cheeks burning red as bright as a fresh tomato.

"You'll write to your mother and sister?" Remus questioned, an odd little half-smile on his face as he glanced sideways at Tonks and Hope, noticing Tonks's pale gray orbs brimming with unshed tears at the sight of their oldest child boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time ever.

A truly proud moment, one she would not change for the world.

"Every day, Dad. You'll be my teacher, won't you, so I know you'll _make_ me anyways," Teddy grinned, shooting his mum and sister a charismatic, lopsided little grin, and with one final wave to his parents and sister, he, with Norah and Ollie's son, boarded the Hogwarts Express.

"Damned I will," Remus murmured under his breath, though he was smiling. "He'll write to you and Hope every week, sweetheart."

Tonks let out a content sigh as Remus pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, with Hope coming to stand in front of Tonks, seeming to take comfort in her mother placing both hands on her shoulders gently. Remus's embrace was warm, and his strong arms seemed very protective when wrapped around Tonks's slender body. The world around her seemed to melt away as she leaned into his embrace, letting out a shudder of pleasure as her husband's chin rested on Tonks's left shoulder.

Tonks didn't want the moment to end.

Norah and Ollie joined Remus and Tonks at the edge of the sidewalk of the platform, falling right into place alongside their friends. Tonks tried to focus on the Hogwarts Express departing, watching as the famous red train slowly vanished down the train tracks and beyond her line of sight, but instead, she kept finding herself marveling at her husband and daughter, and in the midst of the celebration from the other parents who had come with the shared goal of seeing their children off to Hogwarts, said her own thank you's, to Merlin, James, and Lily Potter, Remus's parents, to her father, Ted, and to herself, most of all.

Tonks knew she would always have to maintain a balance in faith, as well as in other things. There was always going to be the divine and the human, and in the very core, the very center of her being, Tonks was more than content now.

For she felt overwhelmed with happiness from both. Remus and Tonks held one another, with Tonks never relinquishing her grip on Hope.

As the train finally disappeared from view, and the proud parents, along with Norah and Ollie, were left to return home to Wales, so that Tonks could help Remus prepare for the new term before going with him and Hope back to Hogwarts, the couple turned their thoughts away from the past and towards the future they deserved, the new world that they had helped to create so that Hope and Teddy and Rhys and all the other children could live better lives than they had during the days of Lord Voldemort's reign of terror. Tonks firmly believed that everyone deserved a chance at love.

And she knew it sounded ridiculous that there was someone out there for everyone, but she believed in love. Look what it had given her. She knew that there were some who said there was no such thing as true love, that it all ends in heartbreak and pain, but Tonks firmly believed that was the beauty of it. To have something so perfect for a while, and then for it to disappear into nothing. It was an endless loop, never-ending, always on the move. You never knew where it would take you.

That was the thing about love. It's so beautiful and mysterious and even magical. Tonks believed everyone deserved a chance at love because they all deserved something magical. And for her, her magic started that fateful night in the woods just outside of Barty Crouch Jr.'s estate….

How something tragic and heart-wrenching had turned into something beautiful. Some call it bewitched; Tonks called it love. For there is an emptiness in the freedom of being alone and liberty in being caught in that divine spell. And so, when she looked into Remus's light brown eyes and saw reflected back at her in his irises, the feelings of her heart, they became one... and if that isn't magic then Tonks couldn't say what is.

Tonks, sensing Remus was staring at her as she guided Hope firmly towards the exit of Platform 9 and 3/4, turned back and smiled at Lupin.

Remus froze as he stared at his wife as she toyed with a lock of her hair. Dora was always so proud of her hair, but it wasn't the best thing about his wife. Today, it fell in natural light ash brown curls and ringlets about her pale skin, so striking that it was the only thing anyone ever commented on. But Remus barely noticed it. He could drink in her words like a strong wine and enjoy feeling tipsy.

He watched her like she had the stars in her hands and soft petals at her feet. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let go. When he first looked upon Dora's face, it was not on the perfect features that he dwelled—not the pale gray orbs flecked with hints of bright blue throughout, not on her pomegranate pink lips.

Instead, it was the small blemishes and insecurities that allured Remus to Dora, even after going on almost twelve years of marriage. The small scar on her forehead just above her browbone, the only reminder that Crouch Jr. had ever been after her, the shy smile, the way she quirked her arched brows. Back in the forest all those years ago was the moment Remus had realized he had found the person who was perfectly imperfect for him.

And now, when he looked upon Dora, he lost himself completely.

All the mistakes he had ever made, of which there had been many, are gone—every impure thought erased. All negativity was cleansed, almost like a religious experience or a kind of spiritual enlightenment, he thought.

He knew Tonks's eyes could see right through him, those pale haunting gray orbs of hers that were beautiful and unsettling at the same time, but Remus knew they did not dwell on the anger, nor the deceit, nor the selfishness from the early days of their partnership when he had behaved almost possessively over the woman who was now his wife.

She looked past every flaw to find the person inside, the real Remus John Lupin, and at that moment, as the pair stared at each other, he knew he was perfectly imperfect for her too.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

**A/N: *Tears up* It's the end (* pterodactyl screeching noises) Oh, my heart. It's breaking! My poor, poor fragile heart. It's broken. I'm going to miss this fic, but thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, and Reviewed. A Special thanks to miniandminie who has faithfully reviewed every chapter of this fic without question, and SadisticDiamond321, TillyQ, Sarah1996, timeandpixiedust, Guests, and any other reviewers that left me feedback!**

**Did I give Remus and Tonks the appropriate sendoff?**

**Was everyone pleased that Norah and Ollie got married? Technically it was off-page/screen, and I know I didn't spend a whole lot of time developing their relationship and might have glossed over it, but considering both characters had equally tragic lives, I thought they deserved some small semblance of peace and happiness with one another and even had a kid of their own, and I think that was enough for Nollie and what counts.**

**So, how was my epilogue? I hope it satisfies everyone. It was a hell of a long write, but I wanted to try to give everyone the appropriate send-off rather than KILLING THEM (something I will never forgive JK for killing off my two favorite characters).**

**Seeing as this is my last chapter and the epilogue of this little AU Tale of mine for our favorite Auror and werewolf, I would appreciate a kind review and letting me know your thoughts!**

**Once again, thank you, EVERYONE! And Merlin bless you all!**


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